‘RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars’: Pythia was ‘scared’ to be judged by RuPaul, bringing ‘more queer history’ to the show

One of Canada’s most unique and artistic drag queens, Pythia (featured in Canada’s Drag Race Season 2) is representing the country on RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars (streaming on Crave in Canada, Paramount+ in the U.S.). This time being judged by RuPaul and Michelle Visage, the drag queen from Montreal is competing for the title of Queen of the Mothertucking World, with impressive storytelling, makeup and fashion.

“When I got the call, they told me the concept of the show. They told me that it was going to be the original hosts, and obviously it’s such a huge honour,” Pythia told Yahoo Canada. “I waited the last three years, since the airing of my season, really travelling the world and educating [myself on] several different types of drag and performing in my home country of Greece, and everywhere all over the world. … I performed with some of my icons, like Sasha Velour.“

“I just felt I had learned so much and I was so ready to apply it into my drag. And it just came at the perfect opportunity where I was like, OK this is the time to do it. I was very excited to showcase even more queer artistry and performance and costumes.”

Pythia did also stress that being judged by RuPaul and Visage does feel different from the Canadian judges, and more nerve-wracking.

“It was so scary and intimidating,” Pythia said. “I was so nervous the first few episodes, but then I settled in, I think.”

“Brooke [Lynn Hytes], she knows all the girls in Toronto, she’s a local girl. … Her drag started there. So it was a little more homey. It was a little more calm. I felt a little more comfortable with her. But Ru is a legend, a staple in the drag community. She has [been a trailblazer for] what drag is in the modern times. So it was a huge, huge, huge honour, but also I was very scared.”

But for Pythia, being part of the Global All Stars show was an opportunity to show “even more drag” and “even more queer history.”

“I just feel like this is the time where our voices and our art needs to be seen in the world,” Pythia said.

“I really had to focus and be like, OK you have to do this, and you have to be your true self and showcase why you deserve to exist in this world, when so many people are against you. I think my drag really evolved towards that direction, I was just more driven. … And hey, there was a bit more budget, so there’s going to be a lot more rhinestones, for sure”

Back in Season 2 of Canada’s Drag Race, Pythia called out that “gender is fake.” Showing up on the runway with a hairy chest, the non-binary drag queen pushed the boundaries of what fans of the Drag Race universe had seen in the franchise.

“I still stand with what I said in my original season,” Pythia said. “It doesn’t take a gender historian or a sociologist to realize that gender is a construct.”

“I feel like for my drag I’m very happy to be able to break that and just be like, well sometimes I can have my hairy chest out and my hairy legs out, but to have a really, really beautiful, beat face. … Sometimes I don’t pad, sometimes I don’t wear breasts. I feel like this concept of, I guess what you would call female illusion, or what drag had been thought to be for so many years, it’s not just that. It’s actually just a commentary on gender and an exaggeration of gender, and a commentary on these rules that humans have put on each other, based on our gender.”

The storytelling element for Pythia is still a guiding force for the drag queen’s work, drawing inspiration from fantasy, literature, comic books and video games. But the star stressed that drag is “entirely political and will always be.”

“A lot of drag queens in the past have been [on the frontier of] queer rights and have stood up to a lot of hate, and a lot of violence,” Pythia said. “I think a lot of drag queens have been trailblazers for the queer community. A lot of trans women and trans women of colour have been trailblazers in the queer community.”

“Drag queens can use their voice in order to make a change in the world and with this platform that we have been given through RuPaul’s Drag Race and all the different franchises, I think it’s so important in this time where we are so persecuted, to use it for good and to stand up for what is right in the world. To protect each other and find freedom and equality for all, because if we’re not all free, then we’re not all proud.”

Canadian drag is all about being diverse

In terms of how Pythia would describe Canadian drag, in comparison to the other countries represented on Global All Stars, it’s the diversity that stands out.

“If you go from the west to the east coast, drag is so drastically different, but even within their assigned regions I think it’s so diverse,” Pythia said.

“I think you will find many different avenues that drag is expressed in Canadian art. There’s a lot of theatrical drag, there’s a lot of underground, … rave sort of dance party drag. There’s a lot of cabaret drag here in Montreal, which I absolutely love. … I mean in Toronto it’s very much about entertainment, like these girls do marathon drag, … they do literally 10 songs back to back. I don’t know how they have the energy. … I think any one of us could represent Canada and we would have brought such a different piece of art on that table.”