Shea Couleé's Fight Is Bigger Than 'Drag Race'
It takes approximately 60 small, black rhinestones to stone one nipple onto a Botticelli-inspired bodysuit. In Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, the titular Venus has only one breast revealed. Her hand covers the other. Her sweeping golden hair covers the area where her vagina would be. On a reality television show runway, Shea Couleé covers nothing. There are 120 small, black visible rhinestones on her glistening gold bodysuit. The breasts and hips are contoured with amber stones that curve beyond where the eye can see. In place of blonde hair, a tight afro. Drag can be niche and camp, but in this instance, this illusion of Shea Couleé's body is not drag. It is a statement about a beautiful figure, oft-commodified. Or criticized. Or forgotten. In this moment, it is not drag. It is simply what this body has always been—worthy.
That runway, which aired on RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars last week, was filmed months ago, before a pandemic swept the world. Before the murder of George Floyd and the mass protests spread across the globe. For a moment, this season of RuPaul was on the bubble to be pushed back, fearing that the series might seem dismissive of current events. But on the day of the premiere, Shea posted a lengthy statement about her own mix of excitement and apprehension, adding that she hoped drag might provide hope for a community who needs it. "I feel like I have the opportunity and the obligation to be vulnerable about the experience," Shea tells me on a video call on June 9, fully painted, wearing a similar tight afro. "Your truth is important. You have to pay attention to what is going on in reality and what is going on in the world."
The 31-year-old, Chicago-based drag performer is a crowd favorite. A frontrunner to win her first season, Shea has launched a massive career since tying for third/fourth place in 2017. Before this season launched, she became the face of a Goose Island beer launch, cheekily named Shea Coul-alé. In a moment when drag celebrity has the potential to pollute a performer's mind with overconfidence, Shea is impossibly grounded, which explains why in this major moment, she's using her massive platform to advocate for Black, queer lives. The Drag Race crown is nice, but this moment is about the power of Shea Couleé, win or lose.
The overlap in this season's airtime and current events is an awful coincidence. "In many ways, it reminds me a lot of my experience during Season Nine because while that was airing, I had just lost my dad and my sister, within a month of each other, to cancer," she says. "I was caught between really wanting to celebrate myself and being caught in real life trauma." The trauma continues in 2020, but Shea has harnessed her voice to direct it toward change. "A lot of the time for Black people going through this experience, when they talk out about it to white people, it feels like it falls on deaf ears," she says. "However the microphone has been turned around, so it is my duty as a Black person, and a Black person with a platform, to speak out about this."
The performer got her start in her hometown of Chicago, after graduating college. She has since worked her way up in the scene, becoming a mainstay of the community. "Chicago is a scene that is really about uplifting the individual," Shea says. "Here, we really do blend all different genres of drag together―all different experiences of drag together. It gives you the confidence to say, I’m here." Years after her start, Shea has cultivated a whole fleet of Couleés. Successful drag queens create families, and the Couleé family, comprised of Kenzie Couleé, Bambi-Banks Couleé, and Khloe Couleé, is thriving. A working mother has a lot to be proud of.
Before speaking, she notes that she was back in Chicago, planning to speak at an upcoming march for Black Lives Matter in the city. "I think it’s really important for white people, if they want to be an ally, to listen. It’s uncomfortable. I understand that," Shea says. "But Black people have to deal with the discomfort of racism every single day. It’s something that’s deeply knit into the fabric of America. We need to talk about it."
Outside of drag, Shea (born Jaren Merrell) took the stage in Chicago, speaking to a crowd in a black hoodie and white bandana.
"My value should not be wrapped up in my talent. My value should not be wrapped up in Instagram followers," Merrell said at the rally last week. "My value should be strictly placed on the fact that I'm a human being on this Earth walking right next to you... I shouldn't have to stand here on a loud speaker and ask you for fucking permission to walk through the door."
That is, decidedly, not the soft-spoken, fully painted Shea Couleé speaking in a fluffy pink jacket against a soft pastel background over a Zoom call, but it is the towering feminine figure who emerged on a runway wearing nothing but sequins and gladiator sandals and confidence. "I’m just growing more and more every day into myself," she admits. "I want [viewers] to see this person they look at who is confident and seems like they have it all figured out as someone who is on a journey to self-actualization themself."
This week, Shea enters the third week of televised competition, though she won't reveal how far she makes it into the season. After winning the challenge in week two, she remains a frontrunner, and for fans of Drag Race, this summer and Shea Couleé offer a much needed respite from the turmoil that sandwiches this season of reality television. But to simplify Shea Couleé as a product of reality television is to miss the point of this era of pop culture entirely. Fame can be fleeting if left in careless hands. It can also create empires—even in the realm of reality television. "I am a firm believer in manifestation," Shea says. "I am also a believer of Adler’s theory of self-actualization; that for some of us, we have very clear visions of who we are and who we want to be, and we project that into the future."
The message and reach of Shea Couleé has not neared its precipice. As the art of drag becomes more and more mainstream, Shea threatens to topple an institution that devalues the monikers she holds dear: queer, femme, gender non-conforming. "[If I could talk to my younger self], it would absolutely blow my mind," she says. "Little baby Shea, baby Jaren, even at the tender age of four, saw this more so than I even thought. I just continue to think back and look back to that special sweet little person and think you absolutely saw this and dreamed this for yourself. Good on you for making it here."
Comparing the personas is impossible. On that stage in Chicago, Jaren stands as a voice for the Black, gender non-conforming who have been silenced for so long. On stage, Shea Couleé is a maternal vision in gold. And yet, both of these bodies, so different and similar in presentation, continue to fight for the validity that never should have been debated to begin with.
You Might Also Like