Drag race star Trixie Mattel slammed for ‘racist’ joke
Trixie Mattel (Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty)
Drag race superstar, Trixie Mattel, has been criticised after a ‘racist’ joke she told at a comedy roast resurfaced online.
The backlash comes from some fans after discovering comments made by Trixie Mattel at the Haters Roast, a tour featuring Drag Race contestants throwing shade at each other.
Mattel’s brand of humour is notoriously pointed – but some fans thought she went too far with a joke at Latrice Royal’s expense.
The All-Stars 3 winner said: “I couldn’t decide what to wear so I wore this. It’s just like a cotton. Latrice picked it.”
(Trixie and Bob – photo by VICELAND/YouTube)
The joke, referring to Latrice’s race, did not go down well with the audience, with many booing and groaning.
In response, the star said: “Oh, is that too far, Denver? What, did you forget to invite your black friends tonight?”
Munroe Bergdorf, the trans rights activist and model, slammed the joke, saying: “Dear Trixie Mattel. You do not get to ‘make racism funny’.
This may have been a joke but calling any black person a slave for laughs is really fucking stupid, insensitive and plain old racist.”
The former L’Oreal model added: “It also shows the extent to which you lack understanding of how pop culture can set a bar for what people think is publicly acceptable behaviour.
“Drag Race fandom is already hella racist and problematic when it comes to treatment of the show’s black queens.
“So instead of trying to turn black history and trauma into a joke for your own gain.
How about you use your platform to resist that mentality, rather than perpetuate it? Be the solution, not the problem. This is racism thinly disguised as comedy.”
Yet despite the social media backlash, Mattel stood by her joke, tweeting: “If you think drag queens apologize for jokes at a roast, you watch too much TV.”
Racism in drag and among its fan-base has become a much-discussed topic of late, being raised multiple times by season ten contestant, The Vixen.
A few weeks ago, former winner Bob the Drag Queen pointed out that no black queen had a following of more than a million on Instagram, a feat which several white queens have achieved.
He said: “Sometimes Drag Race makes me realize other things about the world. NOT ALL, but a lot of the most popular queens fall into the thin white category.
And NO black queens, except RuPaul have over a million followers. It’s not the show. It’s the fandom.”
