This thesis outlines a political economic framework for understanding contemporary drag production as a global system maintained through investment relationships. RuPaul's Drag Race looms as the largest creditor in this structure, preserving its near-hegemony through both digital and in-person economic extensions such as social media advertising campaigns and international performance tours. Drag Race and its ecosystem extends credit to drag artists in the form of working opportunities, income increases, and in its popularization of particular approaches to the art form, such as neoliberal self-commodification techniques and \"gigging\" entrepreneurialism. The economic system centering around this television competition collects debts through associative brand growth, the creation of local drag structures amiable to churning out Drag Race competitors and hosting Drag Race's in-person extensions, and income and wealth distributions that skew heavily upwards. The last few years have seen an explosion of similar drag creditors, including The Boulet Brother's Dragula. While a creditor-debtor model can make the influence of RuPaul, the Boulet Brothers, and other drag creditors feel inescapable, it also brings to fore bad debtor relationships that can exploit available resources in the name of building more equitable drag futures. The move to online, live streamed drag performances in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic highlights how drag artists are already using mutual aid and bad debt to prefigure less harmful artistic production forms and new ways of relating within drag cultures.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["Drag","Debt","Coronavirus"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23754