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Weird
The moment every RuPaul’s Drag Race fan has been waiting for has arrived: “Snatch Game.” The definitive Drag Race main challenge, this annual event separates the queens into tops and bottoms and always provides straight up iconic moments. A riff on the boozy, quiptastic ’70s game show Match Game, “Snatch Game” gives the queens an opportunity to show off their impression skills–and also their improvisation skills, which is way harder than it sounds.
Season 10 has been a little extra all season long, and this year’s “Snatch Game” was no different. Spoilers ahead, BTW! Not only did we get another attempt at making Beyonce funny (give it up, ladies!!), we saw some surprise winners (who knew Aquaria could be hilaria?!) and some surprise losers (my heart breaks for Monique). But as with every edition of “Snatch Game,” some of these celebrities might leave you scratching your noggin. Not every impersonated celebrity is as famous as Beyonce–and also, again, please stop impersonating Beyonce!
If you want to know more about the celebs celebrated in Season 10’s “Snatch Game,” I’ve put together a handy streaming guide so you can get even more out of this challenge. The video library is open!
Monique Heart as Maxine Waters
As Season 10’s undisputed truth teller (“Facts are facts!”), Monique Heart playing Congresswoman Maxine Waters seemed like a praiseworthy idea at the time. Monique even took to Ru and Bianca Del Rio’s coaching during the Werk Room walkthrough. But it turns out that Monique really only knew two things about Maxine Waters: she hates Donald Trump, and she is all about reclaiming her time.
It takes something truly special to make a C-SPAN video go viral, and “Reclaiming My Time” was exactly that. In July 2017, Congresswoman Waters did not blink while questioning United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, even as he ducked and dodged every one of her questions in an attempt to run out the clock. The California congresswoman was having none of it, and made sure that all of his tomfoolery would not interfere with her questions. If you want to see Maxine Waters in action, this is what you gotta watch:
Kameron Michaels as Chyna
Kameron Michaels is a bodybuilder queen, so was there really any other choice for her? Kameron’s a quiet queen, for real, but playing someone that she obviously knew up and down worked out for her. She wasn’t gagworthy, but she also wasn’t cringeworthy.
Chyna was a professional wrestler who rose to fame in the WWE in the late ’90s, smashing a whole lot of glass ceilings in the process. She became the first woman to hold the Intercontinental Championship and participate in the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring events. She even parlayed her wrestling success into acting gigs, like an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun where she played a police officer moving in on Sally’s tough girl terrain.
Stream 3rd Rock from the Sun's "This Little Dick Went to Market" on Amazon Prime
Miz Cracker as Dorothy Parker
The other safe queen this week, Miz Cracker channeled her knack for quippy comebacks into the role of literary icon Dorothy Parker. This out-of-left-field, old school choice felt in line with Jinkx Monsoon’s Little Edie or Sasha Velour’s Marlene Dietrich–except Miz Parker was waaay overshadowed by the queens on the bottom row. This risk didn’t really pay off, but at least Miz Cracker was safe.
Born in 1893, Dorothy Parker is definitely one of the oldest figures to be impersonated on “Snatch Game,” if not the oldest (I don’t have time to look it up now!). Her wit became the stuff of legend through her repartee at the Algonquin Round Table, and she rose to fame as one of the founding satirical voices of The New Yorker. She relocated to Hollywood in the ’30s and co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for A Star is Born, helping create a movie fable that keeps being retold decade after decade.
Asia O'Hara as Beyonce
Every single season, there’s always one queen that makes you wonder if they’ve ever seen “Snatch Game” before. How do you not come prepared for this, the most popular challenge in Drag Race herstory?! How do you not know, Asia O’Hara, that Beyonce is impossible to impersonate?! Three queens have now tried to make the unknowable Ms. Knowles hilarious, and three queens have failed.
Listen, you obviously know who Beyonce is. You probably stayed up to watch her Coachella performance. You don’t need me to tell you to stream anything of hers, because you probably do that on your own. Still, watch Lemonade again.
Monét X Change as Maya Angelou
Mere months after Chi Chi DeVayne failed to land a joke about why the caged bird sings, Monét X Change picked up all that slack and proved that you can make Maya Angelou shelarious. Why does the caged bird sing? “Because Mariah Cary lost the key.”
Hailed as one of the greatest poets and memoirists in American history, Maya Angelou was also a civil rights leader and basically Oprah’s Oprah. Maya Angelou lived a life, inspiring generation after generation with her powerful command of language. She also–and this came as a surprise to me–did a guest spot on the CBS supernatural drama Touched by an Angel.
Aquaria as Melania Trump
Wow, so, big surprise that Melania Trump can be made funny. Even bigger surprise that the look queen Aquaria would be the one to pull that off. But Aquaria had a cunning approach to “Snatch Game”: she covered up her inability to string together sentences with an Eastern European accent and made her natural awkwardness work. Plus, girl brought the jokes and the props (that “help” sign nestled in a Tiffany box? Perfect).
Like Beyonce, Melania Trump is another person that… I mean, you know who she is. Just over the course of a few years, she went from a curiosity (“Oh, that’s who Donald Trump is married to? Okay.”) to First Lady. So… here we are. One thing you might not know: she had a cameo in Zoolander!
The Vixen as Blue Ivy Carter
For all the up-and-coming drag queens out there studying “Snatch Game,” The Vixen gave you three lessons:
- Don’t play children who are so young they don’t have any catch phrases or mannerisms or, you know, anything to parody.
- If your plan of comedic attack with your celebrity is “She reacts to things,” pick again!
- Just avoid anyone in the Knowles/Carter family.
The Vixen’s handle on Blue Ivy (again, a person we know even less about than Beyonce) was… well, a generic child. This was made worse by Asia’s last minute switch to Beyonce, meaning every one of The Vixen’s moves were stomped on by Asia’s mean mommy interpretation.
Blue Ivy is six, so, her IMDb is pretty short. Her parents also aren’t rushing to get her in front of the cameras just yet; if you want to see Blue Ivy, you pretty much just have award show reaction shots to watch. You can, however, stream the 2013 documentary Beyonce: Life Is But a Dream for a (heavily curated) inside look at this family’s life.
Eureka O'Hara as Honey Boo Boo
Truly, a gift delivered from “Snatch Game” heaven. Sure, Melania Trump won this round, but Eureka’s Honey Boo Boo is gonna be remembered forever as one perfect example of a queen knowing exactly what they’re doing. Eureka is Alana Thompson, and this worked like wow.
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost four years since the Georgia-based reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo wrapped up it’s similarly-hard-to-believe short run. The show aired four seasons in just two years! Still, that feisty, Go Go Juice guzzling pageant queen stole a lot of hearts in that brief run. While you can’t stream Here Comes Honey Boo Boo anywhere, you can stream the show that made Alana a star: Toddlers & Tiaras.
