Serving “Woke”: Charting Progressive Interiority and Moral Citizenship Through Queer Eye and RuPaul’s Drag Race Audiences

Situating the popularity of queer reality TV shows Queer Eye and RuPaul’s Drag Race against the haunting spectre of far-right populism, this paper examines how progressive audiences engage with queer reality TV in order to negotiate the challenges of a turbulent political milieu and the contradictions of “woke” subjecthood. In contrast to assumptions that audiences primarily experience reality TV as a form of indulgent, escapist entertainment, this paper uses data from interviews and focus groups to show how audiences position their spectatorship of QE and RPDR in unexpectedly solemn ways. Focussing on the mandate to “know one’s place” and practices of audience distancing, I examine how QE and RPDR are taken up as moral objects through which audiences negotiate the uncertainties of their political subjecthood and attempt to position themselves as “good” people. I argue that these audiences conceptualise their viewership of queer media as a technology of moral citizenship.