Remember that time during season 13 when Denali walked her f**king duck around Kahmora Hall during their lipsync battle to Crystal Waters' hit house track 100% Pure Love?
We all know how the performance turned out because Denali's iconic performance sent Kahmora home. While Drag Race fans ate the performance up and gave Denali her flowers, some have continued to be critical over the show's lack of accuracy when it comes to ballroom culture.
We first started to hear the criticisms loud and clear during season 15 when former Legendary contestants Gravity Jacobs, Aja LaBeija and Legendary judge icon Leiomy Maldonado called the show out for 'noguing,' particularly Anetra who coined the phrase 'walk that f**king duck' (and don't get me started on people calling a dip a 'death drop' or a 'shablam').
For those not familiar with the phrase, noguing is a term used to describe people who attempt to vogue without actually doing it correctly.
“Dunno if I’ve ever publically addressed this but I’m aware I was very much nogueing during ‘Pure Love’. Big ole choppety chop chop I know,” the queen wrote on Twitter.
“But I love vogueing and have started taking classes since. Don’t wanna be a RuGirl nogue contributor so imma try to learn properly or just not.”
Drag Race season 9 and All Stars 3 queen Aja, who also competed on the third season of the axed Max series Legendary, and recently returned to All Stars 8 as a lip-sync assassin saw Denali's tweet and responded with the following:
I absolutely love the fact that Denali has addressed this, and realizes that drag performance, ballroom, and the trans community is all interlinked within the culture. So many people just watch the show and are entertained by the cute clothes, beat faces and werk room drama, but there is so much that's part of the culture, that they don't see why the ballroom community is so protective of the art form.
So the next time you Stans want to get on social media, and bully people who are part of the community airing out their grievances over artists and TV shows bastardizing their culture for a cackle and a boost in ratings, take a beat, actually listen to those people and learn something from them.
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