After reading Krystal's comment as a response to my last non-core post about Drag Race Thailand, I realized that there was another international translation of RuPaul's Drag Race. This one takes place in Latin America, specifically in Chile. It's called The Switch Drag Race and the show has actually just started airing Season 2 on WOWPresents streaming service called 'WOWPresents Plus+.' Many of the contestants are obviously from Chile, but some of the contestants in the first season are also from Argentina and Uruguay which is awesome! What's interesting about Season 2 (which hasn't happened at all in the USA version), is that the contestants are divided into two teams where one is, of course, contestants from Chile/Argentina and the second team incorporating drag queens from other parts of the world. Two of them on the international team are from past seasons of the USA version (Gian Gunn and Kandy Ho) which is also quite intriguing that the show went this direction further emphasizing the globalization of television.
The Link to the main website is below if interested:
http://www.mega.cl/programas/the-switch-2015/
The trailer for the 2 seasons streaming on WOWPresentsPlus+ is below if anyone is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfMnQQOf9eo&t=50s
Thank you for sharing this Phil! After your comment in class, I was very intrigued by this adaptation of format, especially considering there are still many countries in the world who have not yet reached a complete sense of acceptance overall towards the LGBTQ community (though they are inching slowly). I think shows like this truly personify the global format that we discussed in class, especially the reality television format. I love how RuPaul's Drag Race has managed to adapt to the region and its audiences, making it their own. The beauty of reality TV! So many formats that have successful individual shows running across the world – though I have to admit I could never get around to truly understand or enjoy the Big Brother format.
ReplyDeleteSorry for my late comment but I only saw your post now.