Dancing Queen

The Netflix reality series Dancing Queen, follows Alyssa/Justin through her/his offstage life running a dance studio in Mesquite, Texas. Alyssa also competed, and committed, in Season 5 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. In an NPR article, Glen Weldon stated, “the producers eagerly play into viewers’ preconceived notions about that particular part of the country by showing cows, abandoned BBQ joints old windmills, and Texas flags. This statement made me think about the large impact that television, especially reality television shows have on audiences. As viewers we think that what we are watching is all true and nothing is staged. We play into these ideas and then form stereotypes about groups of people. I found it very interesting when the article stated that the show threw in a small sob story or background story about where Alyssa/Justin grew up and showed the mother’s grave. This all goes back to the idea of why gendered stereotypes and marginalized groups are seen so much on reality television. It is easy to make a story out of people who are already pushed so far out of the boundaries of society.