RuPaul the drag performer has tons of personality. RuPaul the wanna-be new age guru, not so much.
For half a decade RuPaul has been setting himself up to be a modern spirituality talking head, and his fans have not been buying it. From insisting that contestants on his hit reality show confront their "inner saboteur" to repeating the same 10-15 upbeat catch phrases that made him famous in the early 90's, Ru desperately wants to be the new Oprah.
This new talk show proves that he's not.
Middle America may briefly fall for it, but in the three week, 15 episode test run of the show, RuPaul sucks the life out of every interview. For someone whose philosophy seems to be "Don't take life so seriously," he seems bound and determined to turn every interview into a joyless effort to find deeper, darker emotional weight where there is none.
In his interview with comedian Billy Eichner, the comic jokes that he has to "dress as a Hasidic Jew" when going on dates; to which RuPaul replies "Now... is having the same faith important to you?", setting Eichner aback. After interviewing actress Chrissy Metz, who tells a story about struggling for 3 years to find work in Los Angeles, Ru cluelessly asks "Now what was it like for you out in LA?" to which she replies "Well...as we've established, it was rough."
This is the crux of RuPaul's problem as a host: he doesn't actually seem to be listening. Instead he's latching onto brief interview points from a pre-provided list, and then going down that trail regardless of what's actually being said to him. Every time someone offers a joyful tidbit, he insists on turning it back around to some talking point about self-love and acceptance and the journey of life. He even finds a way to make a man's makeover about how life is about change. (Spoiler: the thin, young, handsome white guy continues to be thin, young, handsome and white after they cut his hair.)
Scanning any fan forums of RuPaul's Drag Race reveals that no one is actually watching it for RuPaul anymore. Fans of the show are sick of his half-cocked Jungian philosophy and randomly peppered in quotes from self-help books. They want the sassy pop culture drag queen they have loved for more than twenty years.
To that end, in "RuPaul" the talk show, she is nowhere to be found.
