[Shaun]

65th Place: Tyra Sanchez (Season 2) - finished 1st

If I were to be far more impulsive with my decisions in this ranking, then sure, Tyra would've finished far lower. But even with all of my bargaining and rationalising about how she's clearly not a terrible queen, I still have difficulty placing her any higher. Tyra Sanchez is a complicated queen to unpack, so I'll give it my best shot.

Season 2 is one of the best seasons, that much is a given. The drama is real, authentic and complex, and the personalities are too. Even the fan favourites had layers of nastiness and that kind of humanity that's all too lacking now thanks to season after season of trying to mute themselves and not get into any controversy with the fans. Tyra Sanchez was never a fan favourite, though, but still maintains a shroud of notoriety that it's unlikely any other winner will claim (unless, like, Eureka wins AS5 or something).

Let's dissect her strengths: Tyra's youthful drag had a hell of a lot of polish that her contemporaries did not. Tatianna, Jessica Wild, Jujubee and Mystique were the only other super-young queens that season and all of them struggled a lot with the runways and makeup, but Tyra almost always looked faultless. In terms of performances, she did very well at the Crisco Shortening advert challenge playing a baby with a goofy voice, she showed a hell of a lot of commitment in the wedding makeover challenge by literally hot-gluing lace to her skin, and she made a whole host of clever ploys for attention on the runways (spray-painting the word 'SANTINO' on some shopping bags , turning a look into 3 options for her country runway).

Unfortunately for Tyra, Drag Race is a lot more than 3 episodes and she really showed her ass in some of the other ones. Back in the days of immunity, it would've been hard to explain why she shouldn't have been bottom 2 for her woeful Beyonce in 'Snatch Game' (but I would argue she shouldn't have been: Sonique and Morgan were pretty much indisputably worse). I mentioned in the Pandora Boxx writeup just how awful her makeover for her 'Golden Gal' was, and she also had immunity for the 'Ladyboy' live performance challenge which uh... I'll let you see for yourselves.

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This time I would've indeed placed her in the bottom, but a Tyra vs. Juju lipsync before the top 5? That would've hurt the show.

Of course, the biggest problem with Tyra is... her personality. The show attempts to portray the first of many "growth" arcs that would later explain the likes of Violet, Aquaria and Sharon winning, but unfortunately for Tyra it was just hard to make a brat seem loveable. Her monotone voice didn't help, but even throwing in workroom interactions with Ru about her son just didn't really do anything to lift her public opinion. The season-long drama with her was pretty entertaining but did nothing to portray her in a good light: she spent many workrooms singing loudly and intentionally trying to unnerve the other competitors, she fought with Tatianna in Untucked and had other queens like Pandora and Jujubee gunning for her on the main stage. Even head judge (at the time) Merle Ginsberg was actively campaigning for her to be eliminated, going so far to say she had a 'stank attitude'.

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Post-show is where it gets more interesting of course: there's the time she announced that Morgan McMichaels had died, there's the time she threatened to bomb Drag Con, there're the times she told fans to kill themselves on Twitter, the time she leaked Tatianna's phone number, the time she pretended to not know who Sasha Velour is, the time she compared Raja to Abu from Aladdin, the time she threw a burger at a waiter and attacked Pandora & Tatianna for corroborating the story, the time she threatened to sue RuPaul and World of Wonder... I suspect we'll have another 20 instances before Season 13 is out.

I am fully at peace with the idea that too many gays absolutely idolise this form of reality TV contestant and thrive off of such negativity and violent hostility, so will lap all of this up with fervour, but maybe I'm just a boring old queer who thinks such people are just...assholes.

And finally, no write-up about the show's most talked-about winner would be complete without her reaction to winning. Raven and RuPaul also get a shout out for the absolutely MARVELLOUS drama (at about 4:15).

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Tyra deserved the win, but as Jujubee said: she was always just UNT.

Memorable quote(s): "Maybe next time I will sing and maybe she'll [Tatianna] wear another horrible dress like she got on now." is a hell of a clapback
Best Runway(s): Definitely her eleganza for the Ball at top four.
Best Moment(s): Copying Raven's reaction to winning an award at the DIVA Awards and embellishing it with an "I didn't even know I was nominated!!! "
Tearing off Raven and Jujubee's wigs in the 'Jealous of My Boogie' music video challenge