The Reel Review
Three larger-than-life alums from RuPaul’s Drag Race – Shangela, Bob the Drag Queen and Eureka O’Hara – star in this unscripted HBO comedy series, traveling through America’s Heartland, helping small town drag queens celebrate individuality, acceptance and love.
The fish-out-of-water premise is simple: the trio travels a la The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to a different conservative town in America each week, giving drag makeovers to local LGBTQ and straight residents, culminating a live show. But the show’s special sauce is that all three queens are themselves from small towns (Shangela from Paris, Texas; Bob from Columbus, Georgia; and Eureka from Johnson City, Tennessee), resulting in some powerful conversations on what it is like to not be accepted or fit in. Some of the segments will absolutely break your heart.
Is We’re Here good? YES honey, it is TERRIFIC! While there is plenty of drag to be enjoyed, the real point of the six episode series is to show the common ground that all people have, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation or even geography, and We’re Here nails it beautifully, celebrating the small towns and their people. The one-on-one segments with the queens and each of their fledgling drag daughters is reminiscent of the heartfelt workroom conversations on RuPaul’s Drag Race that have helped make the show such a huge success. The only difference here, is that the endearing conversations are with ordinary folks. We’re Here… shantay, you stay.
REEL FACTS
• We’re Here takes its title from the LGBTQ activist organization Queer Nation’s famous chant from he 1990s HIV/AIDS protests: “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”
• Were the queens ever nervous about being in small, conservative towns for the production? Bob the Drag Queen says he was a little nervous in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, only because of all the Confederate flags they saw.
• Bob says they got the cops called on them three times in Branson, MO but they left before the cops arrived.
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