Studying the Representation of the LGBTQ + Community in R u P aul’s Drag Race with LLM -Based Topic Modeling (2025)

Abstract: This study investigates the representation of LGBTQ+ community in the widely acclaimed reality television series RuPaul’s Drag Race through a novel application of large language model (LLM)-based topic modeling. By analyzing subtitles from seasons 1 to 16, the research identifies a spectrum of topics ranging from empowering themes, such as self-expression through drag, community support and positive body image, to challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community, including homophobia, HIV and mental health. Employing an LLM allowed for nuanced exploration of these themes, overcoming the limitations of traditional word-based topic modeling.

## introduction the representation of lgbtq+ identities in mass media is an important area of research to gain a better understanding on what kind of an image of the lgbtq+ community is broadcast to the public. media representations contribute significantly to the shaping of public perceptions @xcite and they influence on societal attitudes towards marginalized communities (see @xcite . within this context, rupaul's drag race (rpdr) 1 has emerged as a prominent cultural artifact, offering a platform that foregrounds the art of drag and simultaneously engages with themes of gender, sexuality and queer culture (see chan 2024). the series, which debuted in 2009, has garnered widespread acclaim and critical attention 2 , becoming a touchstone for lgbtq+ representation in mainstream entertainment. media and television studies have long studied the role of popular culture in reflecting and shaping societal norms and ideologies (calvert et al., 1 a show produced by world of wonder 2 https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/rupaulsdrag-race 2007). television, as a mass medium, occupies a unique position in the cultural landscape, blending entertainment with implicit and explicit narratives about minority identities @xcite . scholars have argued that television serves as both a mirror and a mold that offers audiences representations which both reflect their lived realities and influence their perceptions of the world (ott and mack, 2020). for this reason, it is important to study what kind of a picture of the lgbtq+ rpdr paints, especially since it is one of the few widespread lgbtq+ shows that is broadcast globally. furthermore, television studies have emphasized the interplay between audience reception and media production in how viewers actively interpret and negotiate the meanings embedded within televised texts @xcite . these interpretations are shaped by cultural, historical and personal contexts, and thus they create a complex feedback loop between creators and consumers (see @xcite . recent advances in large language models (llms) provide new opportunities for analyzing large-scale textual data, which makes more detailed topic modeling possible as we no longer need to rely on word-level methods that were in fashion before llms. topic modeling with large language models (llms) has emerged as a powerful tool for exploring thematic structures in text corpora @xcite @xcite . this study employs llm-based topic modeling to analyze the representation of the lgbtq+ community in rupaul's drag race subtitles from seasons 1-16. by analyzing the transcripts of the show, we aim to see how it reflects and represents the lgbtq+ community. this method helps us explore narrative and in-group attitudes portrayed in the show. our goal is to contribute to conversations about how media portrays lgbtq+ identities and 1 to show how our method can help us understand these representations better. in the analysis of rupaul's drag race (rpdr) by @xcite , the author explores the interplay of authenticity, competition and consumption within the show, arguing that these dimensions both reflect and complicate the format of reality television. the study examines how authenticity is negotiated through drag queens' performances, revealing tensions between personal identity and constructed personas, while competition emphasizes individuality in a space shaped by neoliberal values and historical marginalization. additionally, the author critiques the show's commercial underpinnings the highlight the role of branding and consumerism in shaping perceptions of drag culture. in their article, @xcite analyze the interplay of race and gender in the third season of rpdr. they argue that while the show challenges traditional notions of gender through drag performance, it enforces rigid racial authenticity, particularly for african american contestants. this duality allows gender to be fluid and performative, while race is treated as fixed and essential, leading to racial stereotyping and tensions among contestants. the authors highlight how these dynamics reflect broader societal patterns, where racial identities are commodified and constrained even within ostensibly progressive queer spaces. @xcite examines the complex interplay between reality television, queer identity and neoliberal ideals through the lens of the show's first season. the analysis critiques how rpdr employs narratives of transformation and success, tying them to aspirational themes of the american dream. while the show celebrates diversity and individuality, the study highlights the underlying contradictions, particularly its reliance on cultural and linguistic hierarchies that privilege english and u.s. norms. the article also interrogates racial and economic disparities, showcasing how contestants like bebe zahara benet and nina flowers symbolize both the potential and limitations of inclusion, complicating the program's portrayal of upward mobility and integration into an idealized u.s. nation. ## data we use the subtitles of rupaul's drag race for seasons 1 to 16 that are available on opensubtitles foot_0 . the seasons vary in length. the shortest season is the first season with only 9 episodes and the longest season is the 13th season with 17 episodes. a typical length of a season is 14 episodes. the corpus size for each episode can be seen in the subtitle files were cleaned from timestamps and only text was retained. some of the subtitle files were not encoded in unicode format, which led to some encoding errors. these erroneous characters including some invisible unicode characters the main lgbtq+ conversation topics in these subtitles from rupaul's drag race, focusing on adore delano's statements, are: ## llm-based topic modeling we use gemini 1.5 flash @xcite llm to extract a list of lgbtq+ related topics for each episode of each season. this is simply done by prompting the model through the api. we use the prompt template shown in for the following subtitles from rupaul's drag race, give a list of the main lgbtq+ conversation topics. subtitles: <subtitle @xmath0: prompt template used for extracting the topics the prompt resulted in an analysis of the main lgbtq+ topics discussed in the episode (see an example in using the topic titles, we separate each topic along with its description into different strings for each episode. we remove all text in the llm answers that is not part of a topic description. this way, each episode is now described by a list of topic strings indicating the topic and description. we use text-embedding-004 model from google gemini api foot_1 to produce topic embeddings for each topic string. these topic embeddings are used to cluster the topics together with hdbscan algorithm @xcite using uralicnlp python library @xcite . hdbscan does not require a fixed number of clusters, but it will find an optimal number of clusters on its own. we tested with several parameter values for minimum cluster size and found that 10 resulted in a good number of clusters that was still manageable to go through manually. the algorithm found 43 cluster, which we further combined manually given that several clusters had similar topics but described using different wordings. the titles were often very similar if not identical, but the semantic contents of the descriptions were different enough for the clusters not being merged. we also tried affinity propagation clustering @xcite , but didn't find it producing any better results, for this reason we proceeded to manual merging. we removed a few topic clusters altogether because they did not deal with lgbtq+, but were rather about the competition itself such as judging, winning and elimination. we also removed clusters related to humor because they were not lgbtq+ related. the results of the clustering can be seen in although not in the list of the most common topics, rpdr also frequently visits negative themes that are typically seen as problematic for lgbtq+ people such as mental health and resilience, internalized homophobia and selfacceptance, hiv/aids awareness and activism, negative body image and beauty standards (including body dysmorphia) and homophobia and discrimination. an additional negative topic that is perhaps not as stereotypically seen as an lgbtq+ problem is ageism within the lgbtq+ community. some of the more positive and less frequent topics include sisterhood and community, representation and visibility, which means representation of oneself and visibility as a public figure, intersectionality (race and class), gender expression and identity and relationships and intimacy. ## conclusions much of the prior work in research on rpdr has taken a rather critical and negative view on the show as evidenced in the related work section. however, if we look at the lgbtq+ topic clusters found by our method, a different narrative can be perceived. a narrative of hope. many of the topics are empowering such as how one can use drag to express themselves or how one is representative of a bigger lgbtq+ community, i.e. one is not alone. one can perceive hope through the difficult themes such as coming out and it ultimately leading to self-acceptance. and regardless of the bad thing such as homophobia (internalized or externalized) or the unrealistic beauty standards set by the society, one can still overcome them. our intention is not to invalidate any of the existing and more critical research. our study simply revealed another side of the show. despite of the problems the show has, our nlp approach has shown that the show serves an important puprose as a beacon of hope for lgbtq+ people and, by discussing difficult themes that many of us queer people can relate to, the show delivers a message to their lgbtq+ audience that they are not alone with their problems. in the future, it would be interesting to study how the topics have evolved throughout the series from one season to another. also, rpdr has been adapted to many other regions and languages. it would also be interesting to study what kind of topics exist in those shows and how comparable they are to the main series.