“Racers, start your engines”: an analysis of the hit series RuPaul’s Drag Race and its Italian translation

RuPaul’s Drag Race has taken the art of drag to new heights. The goal of this dissertation is to discuss the impact that the show has had on drag and the queer community, as well as provide an analysis of the Italian subtitles available for the show. The three chapters of this dissertation all provide important information about drag, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and queer translation. More specifically, the first chapter contains all the theoretical background needed to understand what drag and queer translation are. The second chapter will focus on the show, discussing how it was created, what a typical episode looks like, and what kind of impact it has had on the world. The third and final chapter will take a more practical approach, with an analysis of certain translation challenges that were resolved in Netflix’s Italian subtitles for the show.