We’re Here is a new drag show that stars RuPaul’s Drag Race favorite Bob the Drag Queen and his co-drag queen mates Shangela and Eureka O’Hara.
With the pandemic shutting down bars and nightclubs and ultimately the drag shows they house, drag-thirsty folk can now get their fill of glittered shadow, feathered mascara, and fierce strutting while lip-syncing on HBO.
Unlike the reality show formula of Drag Race where each queen competes with one another for top title and money, We’re Here leans toward another familiar formula made famous by Queer Queen Eye for the Straight Guy. See what I did there?
No matter, the show doesn’t disguise from the affiliation.
The premise is simple: the three queens arrive in small-town America, preferably with an undeveloped (yet bubbling underneath) LGBTQ community, mount an extravagant drag show, taking some locals as their guests (and queenlets to mentor) to perform in the show.
The drag show serves as the show’s repeating finale or closer in every episode.
At face value, it looks like a show I would personally skip over with the remote when picking a show to consume during a chill Friday night. But just like that show’s general message, maybe we should give it a chance because we might like what we see.
Surprisingly, the new formula combined with the unapologetic opener of the drag queens’ flamboyant arrival at each small-town, walking around in their full drag queen personas, serves for a refreshing in-your-face TV that’s been missing in this age of streaming.
In true fashion of the colorful drag culture, each episode opens this way, and even if every small-town America’s reaction is pretty much identical to each other (whether it be shock, amusement, accepting or otherwise), it really doesn’t get old.
Although glints of the producers’ heavy hand on some scenes are pretty obvious (glaring example: having a previously intolerant mom perform drag as a way to apologize to her daughter for not accepting her when she came out), the show does catch genuine moments, especially when the Queens prepare their “drag daughters” for the drag show they are setting up.
Their small-town recruits, most of the time shoved way outside of their comfort zones, have moments when they are truly vulnerable and very often uncomfortable, which makes for truly authentic TV. It is also during these moments when you find all the drag queens’ outrageous sense of humor on display.
Mind you, We’re Here does not recruit exclusively within the LGBTQ community. The show is gender-blind when it comes to its recruits and delightfully surprises at each episode, making sure that an LGBTQ issue or something equally important, like mental health, is talked about both amongst each other and directly at the audiences during in-between interviews.
Again, it reeks of the producers’ heavy hand at maybe tugging at the viewer’s emotions, but at least it does get these issues discussed.
Credit must also be given to where credit is due because it takes a lot of guts and strength for these hosts to walk around and interact with small-town residents, where ignorance and intolerance are thriving.
Each show opens with Bob, Shangela and Eureka’s arrival in full drag, parading around their chosen small town, dealing with blatant stares, uncomfortable whispering, and outright avoidance from the local folk.
In one episode, dressed in normal (albeit still excessive) garb, the trio are put in a hostile and potentially Insafe environment when they were asked to leave for merely looking around outside an establishment, all this time being shunned away by someone who refused to speak to then directly or make any sort of eye contact.
These hostilities are dealt with respect and tolerance from the three hosts, which truly juxtaposes the aggressor in these situations.
Like all reality shows that are well-produced, these scenes should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but it doesn’t take away from the reality of the intolerance the LGBTQ community experiences on a daily basis.
Magnifying this intolerance by choosing to shoot a drag show that stages a drag show in towns within the bible belt of America is quite fearless and, if not for anything else, is worth checking out merely for the intrepidness of these three Queens and their endeavor to try to crack open the minds of privileged white folk one small town at a time.
And if that still doesn’t appeal, then surely the show can serve as a suitable stand-in for the lack of live shows as we wait for the world to reopen at the wake of the pandemic.
Catch We’re Here, which airs on HBO Go this October 11.
