It’s been 30 years since the artist RuPaul told you to work it. And one song helped turn a curiosity into a cultural movement.
RuPaul’s song “Supermodel (You Better Work)” was everywhere in 1993. It was like “Despacito.” You could hear it on just about every radio station.
The song helped launch RuPaul’s career beyond music. RuPaul worked in an art form that was on the fringes — like punk rock. It tapped into a scene of people rebelling against those who didn’t understand them — or want them.
RuPaul harnessed that energy to make RuPaul’s Drag Race. It brought drag into the mainstream.
The rest, as they say, is history. Or, as RuPaul likes to say, “herstory.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race has been on for 15 seasons and won 26 Emmy Awards. It sparked at least four spinoffs and adaptations in half a dozen languages.
The journalist Maria Elena Fernandez has been there for the ride.
Fernandez grew up in Miami. She moved to Los Angeles and ended up on set covering RuPaul’s Drag Race as it became a cultural phenomenon. She got inside access to write the new book, And Don't F&%k It Up. It’s an oral history of the first 10 years of the show — told by RuPaul, its creators and its most popular performers.
It also comes at a time when the art form has enough mainstream popularity to inspire detractors.
On the June 14 episode of Sundial, Fernandez joins us to talk to us about what the book and the show mean during this moment.
On Sundial's previous episode, Oolite Art’s CEO and president Dennis Scholl told us about his transition from arts executive and collector to artist.
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