Elektra Shock On Being The Focus Of Everyone’s Shade
Episode seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under landed on Saturday, and sadly it was time for Elektra Shock to sashay away after losing out to fellow New Zealand queen Kita Mean. Of all the queens in season one of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, Elektra was time again the one queen that would always tell it like it is, but how was her time in the competition?
“I loved it,” Elektra told Star Observer. “It’s the opportunity that we all want as drag queens, to showcase our talents to the world and I was blessed to be one of the first girls down here to do it.”
‘The Shade Cut Me More Than It Should Have!’
In the episode, Elektra was named unanimously by the other remaining queens as the one who should be eliminated. That was a theme through the season, and Elektra said she had a tough time dealing with the shade.
“I learnt that I can be confident in myself again, I was confident going in, you have to be, but I think over the last couple of years, critique has really got to me more than it should,” revealed Elektra.
“This show was a really good example of this as well, the critique and the shade cut me more than it should have, it took me a while to get over that and to realise that not everyone is against me, and they are trying to help me grow.”
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“As soon as it clicked that this is the biggest gig in the world for us, and that I should enjoy it and just be myself, that was the best decision I could have made, but also to defend myself and back myself up a bit, to think that I do have something positive to bring, I do have something worth showing. Finding that self confidence that was what the show bought me.”
Elektra said that for a while she “felt like everyone’s stress ball for a couple of weeks there.”
“Drag Race is a pressure cooker and people love a bit of a shade, but for a while it did feel like I was the focus of everybody’s shade, I was like, ‘all right guy’s time for a new joke, maybe let’s pick on someone else for a day’. It got me down, I had a bit of a cry in my hotel room, it’s part of the competition, everyone is trying to get to the top and showcase themselves the best way. I really was concerned what everyone thought of me, but I shouldn’t have been.”
‘Drag Was An Escape From The World’
On the show, Elektra had discussed about how the dance studio she set up did not turn out the way she had hoped for. Showcasing her dance on the Drag Race stage, provided the redemption and healing that she had been looking for.
“A few years ago, now I used to have a dance studio, but as businesses go, I made mistakes and tried to make it something bigger than it should have been. I ended up losing everything I had, and dance became something for me that was hard to do. Drag was an escape for me from that world,” said Elektra.
In this week’s maxi challenge, the queens had to turn it out in a talent show that showcased the queens’ charisma uniqueness nerve and talent, and for this challenge, Elektra showed another side of her in a sickening dance number.
“It was this healing moment for me on Drag Race when I first choreographed it, it was going to be telling that sad story that we all want to see from Drag Race, but by the time we got the talent show, I had changed so much as a person, it became a release. I left everything I had been through before Drag Race on the floor and showed who I was and I couldn’t have shown who I was more other than ripping my wig off. It was nerve racking dancing in front of the world, that was terrifying.”
From Go-Go Boy To Drag Queen
Looking back Elektra tells us that they have been dancing since they were five and for most of their life had always danced and travelled.
“When I came to Auckland eight years ago, I was dancing as a go-go boy in the gay bars here in underwear and heels, and I was spotted by my drag mother Miss Trinity Ice. She asked if I would ever consider doing drag and I had always dabbled in punk and gender fuck and all that cool stuff as a performer, and I thought yeah, I’d give it a try, and it stuck.”
“As a young queer performer, there’s nothing more fulfilling than having everybody in the room look at you, you become the pop star, I got to apply my dance to my drag, and it just blossomed into something that people have really come to enjoy.
Elektra of course appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under alongside Kita Mean and Anita Wiglet, with the trio performing together regularly at Auckland venue Caluzzi Cabaret, which in 2017 was taken over by Anita and Kita. And as Elektra tells us, she felt a fair amount of pressure going into the competition alongside her drag sisters.
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“We are friends, so there wasn’t so much of a rivalry, but there was a lot of pressure on behalf of the rest of the drag scene in New Zealand. Kita and Anita are really established, they’re not untouchable but they’ve really accomplished something fantastic. There are a lot of other drag queens here who want to be at that same level, so to be put in the same realm was really cool, an honour, and to do as well as I did, shows that I deserved it.”
On the effects that RuPaul’s Drag Race Down will have on New Zealand’s Drag scene, Elektra said that “People are looking here now.
“We have such a huge scene. We like to fuck things up, we like to be a bit ugly. The Drag Race in America is based around pageantry, but the New Zealand scene is unique, political and very young, fantastic, with people doing new and inventive thinks that are going to change the face of drag again. I can’t wait to see what it continues do for our scene over here.”
Elektra’s advice for younger queens is fairly simple: “Just don’t stop, and be yourself, that’s the lesson I learnt on Drag Race, if you have good intentions and a good heart, you’re not going to come across bad, just be yourself.”
“Everyone’s drag is valid, doesn’t matter, whatever it is that is you, it’s going to be someone’s joy.” Elektra said. “Whatever it is, you being bold enough to chuck on a wig a dress and a pair of heels and jump on a stage and lip sync to your favourite Britney Spears song is going to change someone’s life in some sort of way.”
“Even if it’s just a reminder that they need to go home because they are too drunk, if you have that confidence and a drive to perform you have a duty to change people’s lives.
When asked about her future plans, Elektra admits she hasn’t given it a thought.
“I’m leaving my options open, I haven’t tried to plan, because Drag Race is such a huge platform, so I wasn’t sure where it was going to go, I wasn’t sure if people were going to hate me, if it was going to be a flop. Even filming during a global pandemic, we weren’t even sure we were going to get through the whole season.
“I want to travel and will be touring later this year, but I want to teach again, working with Maxi on the show that was fantastic, she sparked a lot of joy in my teaching again,” Elektra added.
Video Interview With Elektra Shock
