Remote-Url: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/sep/21/fenton-bailey-randy-barbato-producers-rupauls-drag-race/ Retrieved-at: 2021-09-21 17:15:40.684755+00:00 More than 20 years before Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato launched RuPaul’s Drag Race under the banner of their World of Wonder production company, they spotted the future drag superstar in the lobby of the Marriott hotel in Times Square, New York. It was the mid-1980s, and the 6ft 4inRuPaulCharles was sporting football shoulder pads, thigh-high waders, a loincloth and a mohican.“We were, like: ‘Oh my God,’” says Bailey. “There was simply nowhere else you could look.”Barbato chips in: “People always ask whether we thoughtDragRace was going to be so successful. Truthfully, we didn’t. But we knew immediately that Ru would be. In fact, I think he’s only just getting started.”The show, which pits drag queens against one another in a lipstick-smudged, wig-strewn, basque-busting contest with a $100,000 prize, has notched up 13 seasons, won 24 Emmys and attracted guests such as Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. Countless spin-offs and international iterations include live DragCon events as well as Drag Race UK, which is currently gearing up for its third series.The job of overseeing it has brought the 61-year-old, Portsmouth-born Bailey to London from his Los Angeles home. When we meet in a deserted hotel bar, he gives off a summery vibe in marinière and grey-framed glasses. Barbato, a 60-year-old New Jersey native who joins us via video call from LA, strikes more of an everyman note in his baseball cap, Buddy Holly specs and a T-shirt bearing the logo of his local hardware store.The pair met while studying film at New York University in the early 80s, bonded over their love of pop culture, and quickly became an item. (They broke up in 2003.) Early in their relationship, they formed the synth duothe Fabulous Pop Tarts. According to Barbato, their shows “were more like pep rallies than gigs. We were stunt queens. We would have props, white afro wigs and flags, and an all-girl band. It was cheerleading rather than singing.”‘Every time I bat my eyelashes it’s a political act’ … RuPaul.Photograph: Guy Levy/BBC/World of WonderA pop career was never the long-term plan. “It was about making the money to do other things,” he continues. “We wanted to get into film and TV all along.” Their music publishing deal gave them the funds to establish World of Wonder, though the big bucks came in 2007 when they noticed that Armand Van Helden hadliberally sampled one of their songs without crediting them. “The cheeky fucker,” says Bailey. “I blush to say how much we got but it was quite a payday.”World of Wonder took its name from a cheesy British comic to which Bailey subscribed as a child, his parents having outlawed the gaudier delights of DC and Marvel. “The name seemed to express a profound truth: it really is a world of wonder, made by all the freaks and outsiders of infinite colours.” Those outsiders are not limited to drag: Bailey and Barbato have also made documentaries about Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Monica Lewinsky, the porn hit Deep Throat, and the LGBT-supporting evangelist Tammy Faye Messner. A new biopic,The Eyes of Tammy Faye, starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield, is due later this year from the World of Wonder stable.While setting up the company in the early 90s, the duo also shepherded RuPaul through his first flush of fame with the hit singleSupermodel (You Better Work). Why did he choose them as his managers when they had no prior experience? “I think he admired our stick-with-it-ness,” offers Bailey.“We always took him seriously,” adds Barbato.The World of Wonder empire grew throughout that decade. Bailey and Barbato gave camcorders to 10 Angelenos to document the city in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots, then cut the results together to make LA Stories. From their New York headquarters in the East Village, they selected the juiciest titbits from America’s booming homemade cable-access channels and compiled them into the Channel 4 seriesManhattan Cable. In 1995, they established a London office above the Body Shop in Brixton and launchedTakeover TV, which broadcast videos by budding talents such as Graham Norton and Alexander Armstrong, and up-and-coming film-makers such as Edgar Wright and Garth Jennings.“Randy and I were pigs looking for truffles,” says Bailey, who sometimes slept in the office to guard the editing equipment. Their democratic philosophy went against the established idea “that entertainment was all about gatekeeping and doing anything you could to prevent access to production. We encouraged the opposite.” The DIY landscape they fostered and facilitated looks now like a forerunner of the internet. Bailey has only one regret: “We didn’t invent YouTube. Goddammit!”Adam Buxton was another regular contributor to Takeover TV, eventually roping in his friend Joe Cornish; Bailey and Barbato then producedThe Adam and Joe Show, with its stunt sketches and its movie spoofs populated by casts of toys. For Bailey, it’s not such an unlikely leap to go from that to Drag Race 10 years later. “It’s all about the excitement of ideas,” he says. “That’s what gets us out of bed in the morning. We love pop culture; we think it’s the engine of western civilisation.”Most World of Wonder projects, he explains, have sprung from the same question: wouldn’t it be cool if …? “You know: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Adam and Joe had their own show?’ or ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Ru had a No 1 record, and there was this big black drag queen at the top of the charts?’”It was with Drag Race that they really hit their stride. Drag had been part of the couple’s life since their earliest days together: they made a film at university about a drag queen who moves to suburbia, and they would often skip classes to watch drag shows at the Pyramid Club. “We called it super drag because it took all of popular culture and slapped it on, mocking and celebrating it at the same time,” says Bailey. “That mashup seemed the perfect way to synthesise all the media madness, the bombardment of stimuli, that was becoming the new normal.”‘It really is a world of wonder, made by all the freaks and outsiders’ … Randy Barbato, left, and Fenton Bailey.Photograph: Mathu AndersenThe tradition survives on RuPaul’s Drag Race, which combines reality show, talent contest, sketch comedy, spoof and musical. “The show is like a drag queen. It’s this, that and the other. It’s a TV show, but it’s also appropriating all these things from different elements of the culture. The format itself is in drag.”What cultural differences have they observed in the various Drag Race series around the world? “WhenBaga Chipzwalked on set on the first UK season and said, ‘Ooh, I just shit my knickers’, it was very much end-of-the-pier, back-of-the-panto hall,” marvels Bailey. “British drag is different from the US version: it’s a bit dirtier and more truck driver-y.”Barbato is shaking his head. “I’m going to disagree here,” he smiles. “It’s hard to pinpoint specific cultural differences because no two drag queens are the same.”Bailey takes the point: “I suppose the only thing any drag queen has in common with another is that they’re drag queens. That said,the ones in Australiareally are much ruder to each other.”As Drag Race has progressed, there have been landmark moments, such as the first final to be populated entirely by queens of colour (season eight). Its political power, though, has been a constant, even before competitors were required to give gay US military veterans a drag makeover (season five) or to take part in Trump: The Ru-sical (season 11), or to welcome Nancy Pelosi on the third series of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.The excitement of ideas … The Adam and Joe Show (1999).Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer“Ru always says, ‘Every time I bat my eyelashes, it’s a political act,’” Bailey points out. “The essence of the show is political because it embraces outsider voices. It’s all about empowerment, and giving the establishment a big ‘fuck you!’”Among the many upcoming World of Wonder projects is Queen of the Universe, a Eurovision-style contest in which drag queens will sing – rather than lip-sync – for their lives. Will the drag cupboard ever run bare?“We compare it to rap,” says Bailey. “Everyone said rap was a passing phase in music, and now, of course, rapisrock. Drag is like that. It had never previously been given a place at the cultural table but there’s a whole realm of talent that’s never been appreciated or recognised before. It’s out there.” In more ways than one.RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 3 starts on BBC Three on 23 September. It airs on Stan in Australia from 24 September.