“I always notice that people feel threatened by me, by being an African American man, by the black anger inherent in American culture, by what happened to us in this country. My way of softening that perception is to dress up like a character and say, 'Look at me, I'm funny, I have a sense of humor because I'm into
drag
. I know what black anger is, but we are going to have fun ”. This is how the world
drag
star
RuPaul
explained
to
The Guardian
,
in 2018, the secret of his success and the television empire that has emerged with it. The
drag
becomes him, and its flagship program
Drag Race
,
Escape, in anulador of racism and marginalization as a clown mask.
After 13 seasons on American television and seven international versions, including the Spanish one, many contestants have passed through the contest who have opposed Mama Ru, as the matriarch of the clan is known (and head of the entire business shed ). One of them is called Inti.
Until recently, Inti was a participant in the first and long-awaited Spanish edition of the contest,
Drag Race Spain
,
which premiered at the end of May on the ATRESplayer Premium payment platform. It is a local version of the program in which RuPaul is not present (instead it presents the Spanish transformist Supremme DeLuxe) but which follows the original scheme to the letter: a dozen
drag queens
compete to reach the final and be crowned as "The first
Spanish
drag
superstar
". In each test they must demonstrate their skill within a range of talents (dance, singing, improvisation, sewing), their charismatic personality, their personal style and their good eye for fashion.
Social networks saw in Inti one of the ten
queens
(as the contestants are called) with the most potential to reach the final: at 20 years old, she was the first contestant in the history of the franchise born in the 21st century, she came from Bolivian descent but had been raised in Madrid.
It fascinated from its first appearance.
He reinforced his physique and presence with a strong political discourse, very much of his generation, in which he demanded justice for Latin American indigenous people and visibility for non-binary people.
In the presentation of the program, he described his style of
drag
as "futuristic indigenous": "Basically how the indigenous people would dress if we were still alive," he defined.
Inti, participant in the 'Drag Race' program Gorka Postigo / Perfecto
Inti defines herself as a
multidisciplinary and indigenous non-binary
trans
artist
. His name means Sun God in
Quechua
. Her
entry-level
look
on the show was complemented by a bag with intersex genitalia. "I think that the penis is already very visible and everything is very phallocentric, right?", He explained. It was a conversation rarely seen on a commercial entertainment show. It would not be the last time. And that in an appearance that was brief.
The
drag queens
are, in a way, like superheroes, because they have origin myths. Inti's was anxiety: she suffered attacks that tied her to the bed, she couldn't eat, she didn't leave the house. One day her parents thought
of
giving her a
makeup
kit
because they knew she was interested, and she discovered that putting on makeup was the only activity that left her mind blank.
She became a model at age 14 and entered the
Spanish
ballroom
scene
, where she found a way of expression and personal development, but in reality Inti was born at a concert by Putochinomaricón, another artist from the
Madrid
underground
son of immigrants, who invited her to dance in one of its bowling pins. Came together in their
drag
the
voguing,
fashion and figures very different: Grace Jones and David Bowie on the
one hand, because it
widened the boundaries of gender, and other Latino women around her and recent artists of popular culture American as Bad Bunny, Lorna (yes,
Papi Chulo's)
and Chiky Bom Bom
La Pantera.
In the second episode, a test asked the queens to evoke La Veneno, the
trans
icon
of the nineties. In the jury was the special guest Paca la Piranha, friend of the
starlet
and co-star of the series
Veneno
. He told her that it was, of all the contestants, the one that reminded her the most of her friend. It should have been a success for Inti. However, seeing herself with fake breasts, she collapsed: she explained that she was feeling gender dysphoria when seeing those feminine attributes and defended that
trans
people
do not need hormones, transition or the role of a psychiatrist to be one. Along with that of the penis, another almost unpublished conversation on Spanish television and one of the most educational and enlightening moments of
Drag Race
in recent years.
The following week the test was improvisation.
It turned out not to be Inti's strong point.
In addition, the panel of judges, made up of Supremme DeLuxe, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo and the designer Ana Locking, criticized his passage through the catwalk in the second part of the program: he was not stomping, his
look
was not elaborate enough.
Inti's face as she listened to them went from surprise to annoyance, and then to a feigned conformity with very little desire.
A series of almost iconic grimaces now (everything iconic that something can be in multiscreen society) and that are already part of the history of
Drag Race
.
When the queens left the stage for the judges to deliberate, she began to undress and remove makeup to the astonishment of her companions.
She was leaving before they threw her out.
On television, Inti's tantrum worked like clockwork: there were script twists, tension, a complex character in an extreme situation ... But there was a detail in her dress, which received such unfavorable opinions, which makes this whole issue somewhat more complex .
The challenge that week on the catwalk was called "My roots" and it consisted of designing an outfit to honor its origin.
Inti had put on a spectacular outfit that represented the
devil,
dance practiced in Latin American countries such as Bolivia and Peru. "It is what we used to drive away the settlers and thus be able to survive," he explained to the judges. Ana Locking criticized her for wearing a somewhat simple white dress and boots under her cape: “I love how you have used your indigenous ancestry in this wonderful beauty, but the issue of dress and footwear falls short of me ... I wish it had been much more elaborate ”.
When the program aired and her abandonment was made public, Inti published photos signed by Gorka Postigo, which illustrate this article, with her outfit on and makeup as if she were bloody after a battle against the settlers (the boots and the dress, yes, they had disappeared).
He posed on the monument to the Discovery of America in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid and under the image you could read the text “Die before slaves live”, a line from the refrain of the Bolivian national anthem.
He tweeted "
Spanish racialized
drag queens
exist."
Inti published these photos after leaving 'Drag Race' Gorka Postigo / Perfecto
RuPaul had created his
drag
persona
to avoid racial talk; Inti was born precisely to initiate them. She does not want to dilute the anger caused by centuries-old oppression, but rather to express it through her art. "I wanted to show a subjective image of the indigenous people in Spain, because we have always been seen as horrible," he said in the interview after his departure. Before it, how many Latin American immigrants have had the opportunity to express themselves so freely in our media?
Among his
drags
references
,
Inti also cited "Divine, RuPaul ... and myself above all." Having oneself as a reference is a sign of unconsciousness and youth; her dropping out of the show can also be seen as a little girl's tantrum, something that shows her lack of maturity to handle criticism. But that's the ambivalence of
Drag Race,
a show that can be at once playful, frivolous, educational, and momentous. In just three weeks, Inti has used the platform offered by the program to introduce debates and concepts that are normally relegated to the margins, it has postulated itself as a
drag
icon
and Spanish fashion and has made us reflect on racism in Spain: was it unfairly judged because the four white Spaniards that make up the panel did not understand or sufficiently value its anti-colonialist proposal?
Inti has not reached the final, but 12 years of program have taught us that in
Drag Race it is
not whoever finishes the contest wins, but who leaves a more indelible mark in their passage through it.
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