English Dub Season Review: Super Drags Season One

Don your wigs and fake lashes, people: Super Drags has finally graced the runway of Netflix.

It was only a few months ago that the trailer dropped for the sparkly new animated series — and just like any true queen, it was starting drama before it even arrived. While viewers were already battling over whether the show would be progressive LGBT representation or not, one thing was clear to all: based solely on the teasers, the show was sure to be unapologetic in its language, humor, and visuals. However, the stage was ill prepared for all the flagrantly phallic fun to be had in every episode. Produced by Combo Studios, this Brazilian, glam-packed series comes at us with five fabulous 22-25 minute episodes to kick off its first season — and yet, with all the glitz and glitter of the show, there’s no mistaking it: quite a few facets of Super Drags fall flat on the dance-floor.

The series starts out promising — on paper, the idea seems to pack a lot of originality and relevance to popular media that (surprisingly) hasn’t been totally tapped into. Three gay best friends — Ralph, Patrick, and Donizete — are your average department store workers by day, balancing their personal lives with their superheroine drag personas: Safira Cian, Lemon Chiffon, and Scarlet Carmesim. Together, the trio fights crime and homophobia within the city of Belt Buckle Bay. With the help of their mission-leader, Champagne, and famous drag-popstar, Goldiva, the heroines must thwart the plans of the evil Lady Elza; a wicked drag queen who plans to suck all the “highlight” out of the gay population, so that she may hoard their youth, beauty, and power for herself. As stated, on paper, it sounds like a great spin on the fun and humor of drag culture — but as a superhero series, there’s one glaring problem that outshines any highlighter:

There’s… not much action. It’s a superhero show without many scenes where the girls actually use their powers well.

A majority of the time, they’re getting their padded butts kicked. Of course, three drag queens standing around looking pretty and talking without doing too much fighting is probably “the meta-joke,” but as a viewer, one can’t help but feel a bit (ahem) blue-balled.

Obvious to any animation fan, the artistic feel of the show mimics that of The Powerpuff Girls by Craig McCracken, down to the angular aesthetic. Most likely done as an homage to the classic cartoon itself, the show’s color-coded three-heroine formula struts itself on the basis of gender-bending power — but with way less power. As a drag show, it sells itself well — but as a superhero series, it needs to commit. One could argue that the use of their personalities and hearts succeeding over the use of their superpowers is “the point,” but in that case: what’s the use of them being superheroines at all? Why shouldn’t they just be normal, do-gooding drag queens, then? So far, the superpower basis of the series is very underused — but still has a ton of potential.

Down to the meat and potatoes come the actual show conflicts: most of which make some pretty powerful statements on homophobia, microaggressions, self-image, beauty, toxic masculinity, and even issues that lie within the LGBT community itself. One main point of interest is that the secondary antagonist is a religious, bigoted reverend who runs a gay conversion therapy camp. The presentation of this character comes with its own silly, made-up religion that can be seen as a hodgepodge of many different real ones that people use as a basis for homophobia — without ever pointing a finger to a singular one. Using this, the writers dive straight into the classic issues of organized religion — a clever touch that didn’t shy away from anything that mirrors reality.

When it comes to the Super Drags themselves, the audience gets a taste of who each trio-member is in three separate episodes — with each girl getting her own story. There’s a bit of sentimentality that viewers can relate to in every character — especially if they’re LGBT themselves. However, most of this is lost within one of the show’s main hit-or-misses:

The dialogue.

Oh, the dialogue.

Imagine being in a pinball machine. Every single time somebody speaks, you’re rocketed from one point to the next without ever really getting anywhere, trapped in a colorful, bouncing void until something takes you to the next plot point. That’s what listening to the characters is like — you’re either going to love it, or you’re going to hate it. While the dialogue is almost solely comprised of zany, pop-culture (or dirty) jokes, it sometimes feels as though the characters are racing to speak over each other — but such is the challenge of dubbing a show in English.

This being said, it would be ridiculous not to mention the wonderful voice acting talents of the RuPaul’s Drag Race superstars themselves, Shangela Laquifa Wadley (Scarlet Carmesim), Willam Belli (Lady Elza), Ginger Minj (Lemon Chiffon), and Trixie Mattel (Champagne). Actors Rod Keller (Safira Cian) and Jeff Manabat (Goldiva) also add their own flare to the drag-filled cast, making each character distinguishable from the other. The majority of the dialogue seems to be improved, much in the same vein of drag humor itself. Throughout the entirety of the show, it felt as if I was standing in the recording booth with the queens as they all threw lines (and shade) at one another, trying to one-up the previous joke. This is another hit-or-miss thing about the dialogue: if you don’t like improv, you probably won’t like this. It almost feels like listening to episodes of Ghost Stories (yes, that one.)

In combination with the scene/character direction in the animation itself, it occasionally felt as if the character motivations were unclear, which made it a bit frustrating to sit through. Much of the show is comedy-focused, but it became debilitating at the show’s more serious turns.

Which brings us to the humor: if you like the raunchy, filthy stylings of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, then you’re in for a treat. If you don’t, stay away — unless you want to be pelted by floppy, sloppy, promiscuous imagery. Much like Big Mouth, it’s wild to see how far Netflix will push the envelope when it comes sexually charged content, but just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should. While the jokes and visual gags can be entertaining, the humor had the tendency to overshadow the points the show was trying to get to, or took up time in an episode that could have been spent fleshing out the scenes and characters. Even though it is a comedy first and foremost, too much of one thing is never a good thing.

It’s important to note that, as a cartoon, it does its job well. Netflix recently upped the ante on its animation budget, and it definitely shows. Super Drags tries its best to be alluring — it’s colorful, fluid, and the stylistic choices when it comes to character and background design reflect homages to magical girl shows like Sailor Moon (complete with individual transformations) in combination with other classic American animation aesthetics. Artistic direction is definitely a top thing to love about the series. The opening sequence on its own is eye candy — and certain scenes (specifically, the finale) might even make you “Ooo.”

Right on par with the animation is the music — just to come right out and say it: “Highlight” slaps. If there is a second season, more original music would definitely help its cause — and a push in fuller animation sequences might help people to warm up to it, too.

The first season of a cartoon is usually always a little rough — there’s rarely ever such a thing as a perfect season one, so it’s important to take beginning episodes with a grain of salt. The characters need time to develop, and the plot needs to find its legs for pacing. Additionally, there still seems to be a ton of in-battling within the viewership for whether the show is good LGBT representation or not. Super Drags has a lot of potential, yet so far, it’s missing the mark when it comes to a ton of important storytelling elements. There are a few shining traits of the series that are shrouded by the bad and the ugly of it, but there’s no telling if it’ll get a second season to recover. In any case, it does a number of original things that no cartoon has done before, so for this, here’s hoping the Super Drags team can come back with a vengeance.

In the words of Rupaul: “Good luck — and don’t f**k it up.”