An Emmy Award-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race editor has a message for the show’s enthusiastic fanbase convinced some queens get intentionally shady edits.
There have been endless debates among viewers whether certain contestants are marked as ‘villains’ or ‘heroes’ by production, and then edited to fit the molds. Some have even claimed footage is intentionally manipulated to create interactions among queens that didn’t even transpire.
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Longtime Drag Race editor Jamie Martin says hogwash.
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Martin, who has been with the show since 2014, told Refinery29:
“On our show specifically, we really try to maintain the integrity of the queens’ stories.
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“We’re not actively trying to manipulate. I think that’s the thing that people online think we’re doing. We’re not manipulating what was said, it just might happen in a different amount of time because we can’t show eight hours of footage.
“It’s not that we’re trying to put someone under the bus. Everyone on this team deeply cares for all of the queens and we want to have their stories told, how they were told.”
Martin maintains that Drag Race actually holds itself to a much higher standard of authenticity than other reality shows.
“Sometimes when I watch shows that I don’t feel are as well-produced as our show, it feels not as real, not as truthful.
“I can see the production side of it more than the editing because we get what we get, what we got on set. But I feel like sometimes, some other shows have not been able to highlight their casts’ true personalities.”
And she perhaps knows this from experience.
Related: Is this the secret cast of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 13? Reddit sleuths say yes.
“I worked on reality shows that were not as great as this one, and I know that there is a lot of [manipulation].
“But on our show, we’re trying to maintain the heart of these girls in every way we possibly can, because that’s what we all love about this.”
The sentiment echoes previous statements from judge Michelle Visage, who is quoted saying: “I don’t know what a ‘villain edit’ is.
“I could say the same thing, that they edit me to be a ‘villain’, but at the end of the day, I say what I say. Nobody puts words in my mouth. There’s been a lot of times I’ve sat on that panel and looked like a monster for the things that I’ve said. But I said it, I can’t blame Ru for it.”
One thing is for sure, though. For as long as there is Drag Race, there will be Drag Race conspiracy theories on YouTube and Reddit. Would you have it any other way?
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ShiningSex
IF YOU’RE A BITCH THEN YOU’RE A BITCH. NO EDIT MAKES YOU SAY THE CRAP YOU SAY.
RIGHT ROXXXY ANDREWS, DARIENNE LAKE, PHI PHI O’HARA? YOU ALL ARE JUST NASTY QUEENS. ACCEPT IT.
MISTERJETT
you forgot to mention RAVEN and GIA GUNN.
Prax07
Of course there’s shady editing. Just look at Any lipsync for your life. It’s edited to spotlight the winning queen. The winner gets more camera time than the loser, not equal, so you know who’s winning before RuPaul even opens her mouth.
Annaronimo
That’s because it’s a more interesting performance to watch. It doesn’t stop viewers disagreeing with Ru’s decision constantly, so it’s hardly a successful manipulation, is it?
Prax07
Didn’t say I was Successful shady editing.
johnnymcmxxx
And that’s what’s called Reality TV. Is there a problem?
chasgoose
Editing is necessary to make the show entertaining. They have hours of footage for each episode that airs and yes they are going to edit the footage to focus on certain narratives and stories that emerge and perhaps focus more on queens who go further in the competition or who create drama and a story, but they don’t intentionally manipulate footage to present something that the queens themselves didn’t present. The biggest knock is that someone who creates drama and gives moments that could lead to a so-called “villain edit” could be disproportionately shown in their worst moments, but it’s likely that their edit was crafted that way because they were giving more of those moments than the other queens.
Season 12 demonstrated why editing is so important and what a hard job it is to do. Enough of the show was locked in and the narratives were likely set before the SP news dropped and they decided to eliminate her presence from the show except when absolutely necessary. A lot of the moments on the show lacked context and probably were amplified because the editors rapidly eliminated any of the season narratives involving SP and footage that featured her that wasn’t absolutely necessary to show. There were a few moments that seemed lacking in context (Brita v. Aiden, in particular) likely because any moments where SP was involved were removed and who knows what context they could have otherwise provided.
calijason76
If it wasn’t shady editing, then why do they make the queens wear the exact same outfit for every episode when doing the cut away commentary?
Fname Optional Lname
They do that because they might not get to interview a queen on a certain hour or a certain day about specific incidents that occurred. They don’t have to worry about making sure someone is in their Tuesday boy clothes when asked about something that happened on Tuesday, they can ask whenever. They can even ask after someone has lost a lip sync battle w/o reddit spies trying to figure out things before they occur. That’s not shady, their just keeping the suspense up and giving themselves a bigger window to get their interviews done.
mailliw110
I thought all drag queens were bitchy.