Stream It or Skip It: ‘Dragging the Classics: The Brady Bunch’ on Paramount+, Where ‘Drag Race’ Queens Play the Bradys

RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Brady Bunch team-up in the most unexpected and borderline surreal sitcom event of 2021—well, after WandaVision, of course. This Paramount+ original special recasts an iconic episode of the ’70s sitcom with star queens from the Drag Race franchise and then does the damn thing. It’s unquestionably weird, but is it also weirdly wonderful?

DRAGGING THE CLASSICS: THE BRADY BUNCH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race herstory team-up with original Brady Bunch cast members to recreate, shot for shot and line by line, the episode “Will the Real Jan Brady Please Stand Up?” The wardrobe is on point, the vibe is right, and the set’s been recreated using “state-of-the-art technology” (which actually does look significantly better than the usual green screen tomfoolery we see on Drag Race).

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?: Uh, every acting challenge episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Brady Bunch. But that actually undersells Dragging the Classics, because somehow the whole actually amounts to way more than the sum of those campy parts. And you’re definitely gonna get flashbacks to the ’90s Brady Bunch movies, films that introduced RuPaul to an entire generation of pre-teen gays (raises hand).

Performance Worth Watching: Here’s a sentence I did not know I’d ever type before last week: Bianca Del Rio is a pitch perfect Carol Brady. I did not expect that, because Carol and Mike (played by original Greg Brady actor Barry Williams) are kind of thankless roles. They’re there to dispense wisdom and puns, not get laughs. And I can’t think of a character more diametrically opposed to Bianca’s old school insult comic act than the wholesome Carol Brady—but it works! Really well! It feels ridiculous to say that Bianca disappears into the role of Carol Brady and gives the character the slightest bit of edge, but, well, 2021 is a ridiculous year.

Memorable Dialogue: True to the genre, Dragging the Classics rolls a bunch of outtakes during the credits—outtakes that are so great that they more than justify this entire endeavor. Truly, would you pass up the opportunity to see Nina West get down in Alice drag? My favorite line of the episode (because the rest of the episode is, well, a basic Brady Bunch episode) comes from Bianca during this montage. Sitting on the couch, staring straight ahead as if she’s a pod person, “Carol Brady” says, “Well Jan, your friends like you the way you are. It’s the family who hates you.”

Our Take: I fundamentally do not know why this exists, but let me tell you: every cell in my gay body is so glad that it does. Is it essential? Is it good? Is it worth watching? Such questions are ultimately irrelevant here, because the only answer I can come up with to any of them is, “We get to see Kandy Muse pout while in Cindy Brady drag.” What else in the entirety of the time/space continuum could possibly give me that moment? Or the sight of Bianca Del Rio playfully mounting Barry Williams for some PG-rated canoodling? None of this is necessary, and no one asked for any of this—and that is why every second of it is perfect.

Truly—and this is a hill I did not know existed mere hours ago but I am now suddenly willing to die upon—Dragging the Classics is queer culture. It is drag. It is canon. To critique it for having wonky wigs and hammy performances is to miss the point entirely. The cast plays it completely straight (pun intended), giving the entire episode a bizarre verisimilitude. Like, Kylie Sonique Love as Jan delivers exactly the same energy of a child actor in 1971 (with a hint of Jan’s mania from the ’90s movies), but that energy is coming from an adult with complete sincerity. I’ll say it: it’s captivating!

What I unabashedly love about Dragging the Classics is the way that every single human being in this production is committed 150%. Giving your all to something that is objectively dumb is a form of art—period. And everyone involved is giving it their all, from the wardrobe department to every face we see on screen (this is the most fun I’ve seen RuPaul have in a performance in a very long time). It feels so nakedly true to the queer experience to commit meticulously and wholeheartedly to something so frivolous and then present it to the world like, “You didn’t want this, but you’re getting it anyway—so get into it.”

Case in point: literally no one wants me to think this critically about a bunch of drag queens in polyester reciting 50-year-old dialogue, but I’m gay so I’m going to anyway. Dragging the Classics is a gleeful celebration of the undeniable queerness that is inherent to situation comedies as an art form. Recasting these roles with queer people playing boys (BenDeLaCreme’s Greg is so lovingly over-the-top) and girls (Shea Couleé as Marcia, could this be more perfect?) so seamlessly just highlights how confidently campy these shows always were. And since queer actors were forced to remain closeted up until the late ’90s (including Brady Bunch’s own Robert Reed), Dragging the Classics feels like a way to rewrite herstory and present a more accurate depiction of how these shows really were. Queer people were on-camera and behind-the-scenes from the very early days of sitcoms, and don’t you forget it!

See? No one needed that analysis, but like Nina West in an apron and a shake-n-go being extra in a green screen kitchen, I’m gay and I can’t help but do the most.

Our Call: STREAM IT—and give us more, Paramount+.

Stream Dragging the Classics: The Brady Bunch on Paramount+