"Mama, kudos for saying that. For spilling."
Explaining these instantly canonized, now-indelible seven words.
“Are you excited about the runway today?” Q asks Plane Jane during a prototypical “getting ready for the runway” segment on the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. “I am very excited about the runway today,” Plane tells her, adding: “I’m just, like, in awe at how outstanding and gorgeous I look.” Q rolls her eyes at Plane’s self aggrandizing and says to forget she asked before shifting the conversation and revealing that she’s doing something “very sentimental” for the runway, where the category is “Flashback Drag Con 1980!”
Q: It’s inspired by the generation of gay people that we lost to the AIDS epidemic in the ‘80s.
Plane: Fierce.
Q: So, it’s, like, really, really special to me and um…
[Music fades]
Q: I have also been HIV positive for like two years now.
Plane: Sisterrrr.
Q: When I first got my diagnosis I felt like… I felt, like, really lost and, like, I was super alone… you know people have said, like, really awful, nasty things to me and almost, like, dehumanized me. But, like, I’m here, I’m on Drag Race, like, I know I’m living my dreams and I know I have a loving husband that really supports and loves me no matter what.
Plane’s response to this became instant meme canon: “Mama, kudos for saying that. For spilling.”
I immediately posted the above meme of the exchange online with the caption: “Plane’s response here is ABSOLUTELY sending me. So unserious.” What I was intending to highlight was the impersonal nature of this response to a person’s vulnerability tied to the AI-generated Drag Race parlance that Plane seems to often speak in (see: her response of “fierce” when Q mentions the AIDS epidemic as her inspiration). As one fan noted on Twitter, “It’s like she only learned English from Drag Race and is trying to navigate America with that knowledge. I love her.” I want to highlight the critical “I love her” addendum which more plainly states the same sentiment as my “so unserious” in highlighting that this is a light-hearted ribbing and not an attempt at character assassination. Plane ended up responding to my tweet in what we’ve come to understand as true Plane Jane fashion:
So how did the moment make the jump from viral meme to viral meme template, a critical but not always reached Phase 3 in the life cycle of a viral meme? How that happens isn’t all that complicated, really. Chronically online gay men (me!) and the occasional well-trained ally have folders full of reaction shots. Nicole Kidman pictured throwing her arms in the air as she left her attorney's office after finalizing her divorce from Tom Cruise back in 2001? Yeah, I’ve got it. Vicki Gunvalson on the floor of her kitchen after finding out on the corded phone that her mother had died on the Real Housewives of Orange County? An oldie and a goodie. Mo'Nique responding “I would like to see it” during her 2017 appearance on The Jam Show while discussing wage equity? I’ve got it queued up and ready.
So when we’re given a new phrase (think: Dakota Johnson’s “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen” or Gwyneth’s “I wish you well”), it becomes something of the LGBTQ version of a pissing contest to see who can find the right image that can be applied to the new phrase. You want to go deepcut enough to show off your acumen, but not too niche that it doesn’t tap into the wider net of those who don’t know the phrase’s origin but are giddy at the prospect of being “in” on a quickly developing but ultimately insular joke.
Here are some of my favs:
Of course, there’s always the risk when riding a viral wave that it will crest too soon. Think: Cady Heron in Mean Girls (the movie based on the book, not the movie based on the musical based on the movie based on the book): “I could hear people getting bored with me but I couldn't stop.” That’s why these things tend to move quickly, with a life cycle that often extends no longer than 48-72 hours. It can be brought back in rare circumstances once the meme has apexed, but that’s a bit more advanced.
This instance has some nuance in that the meme-ification of the moment actually takes away from both Q and the show’s attempt to highlight the stigmas that surround living with HIV — and the surrounding conversation of disclosure. “Part of de-stigmatizing HIV is treating it as any other treatable illness… because it is,” read a response to my tweet from someone by the name of “Lou M. Taylor Belongs In Jail”. They continued, “Plane’s reaction was perfect, a bigger reaction would have just perpetuated more negative stigma towards HIV. I get it’s emotional for Q, but crying or throwing hysterics just makes people scared.” This post got enough traction via “likes” to cause me to want to explain myself by noting that my IJBOL-ing had nothing to do with any conversation about HIV or de-stigmatization and everything to do with the responding to someone trauma dumping with “Mama, kudos for saying that. For spilling.”
But let’s dignify their response by exploring this very show’s history. HIV has been a present theme since the very first season of the show when, in Episode 4, Ongina breaks down on the runway after winning the challenge. “I just wanted to say and I’ve always been so afraid to say it, that I’ve been living with HIV for the last two years of my life and this means so much to me. I didn’t want to say it on national TV because my parents don’t know. You have to celebrate life. You keep going. And I keep going.” In that instance, Ongina’s emotion and admission were related to the challenge, which saw the queens create commercials for Mac’s Viva-Glam, a collection that donates 100% of its proceeds to HIV/AIDS programs. Ru’s response: “Ongina, you’re an inspiration. You’re a survivor. I love you, sweetheart.”
Flash forward to 15 years later on that same mainstage runway, where it felt like familiar ground by way of storytelling. I wanted to argue that this instance hit different due to the fact that Ongina’s admission was brought out via bubbling emotion, whereas Q’s felt more akin to self-producing — going onto the show with an intention. But in Q’s defense, trauma dumping is an unspoken prerequisite on this show. It’s a crucial ingredient to the heart of the show’s success, revealing the vulnerability and perseverance of the queer experience and, hopefully, the universality(ish) of resilience and strength amidst adversity. Also: As familiar of a beat as this is for many viewers, there’s a swath of them, even perhaps the majority, who have not been exposed to storylines like Ongina’s in 2009, The Real World’s Pedro Zamora 15 years before her and Project Runway’s Mondo Guerra a year and a half after her or even the stories of HIV-positive queen like Trinity K. Bonet and Charity Kase on this very show.
Many things can be true: We can recognize Q’s strength in sharing her truth with the world while also recognizing that she did so on a television show with a precedent for doing this (and one that encourages storyline-driven narratives) while also recognizing the humor of the disclosee responding with these seven now-indelible words: "Mama, kudos for saying that. For spilling."
If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Ramona Singer complaining the gays took something else from her. #kadooze