Would Carlotta, Australia’s most celebrated drag queen, have made it on RuPaul’s Drag Race?

After the first season last year wobbled on its heels, the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under began last weekend.

In becoming the global beacon of drag, Drag Race has set new ideals for what it means to do drag. But while Drag Race may have brought drag into the global media centre, in Australia drag has long been celebrated in the mainstream.

Australia’s most enduring and adored drag celebrity has been a stalwart of Australian show business for almost 60 years: Carlotta.

Long before Drag Race, Carlotta (the stage name of Carol Byron) was foundational in establishing a specifically Aussie mode of drag that both queer and straight Australians embrace – one that is outlandish, flamboyant, irreverent and “ocker”.

Read more: RuPaul's Drag Race is still figuring out how to handle gender and race

Disappointment down under

Earlier this year, RuPaul made headlines describing Australian drag queens as “more ratchet” – meaning Australian drag is cruder and bawdier than US or UK drag.

Perhaps accidentally, RuPaul astutely identified a point of tension between Drag Race expectations and the localised relationship Australia has with drag culture.

Australia has its own drag aesthetics, histories and celebrities, often associated with a certain Aussie sense of humour.

In many ways, Carlotta epitomises typical characteristics of Aussie drag. She is glamorous, extravagant and charming – but also forthright and down to earth.

As Carlotta has told us of Australian drag’s mainstream popularity:

I think if [Australian] drag queens weren’t so ‘ocker-ish’ then it never would have worked, actually, in this country […] It’s a kind of sense of humour. They understand that sense of humour, straight Australians do. And if they don’t then they have a plum in their mouth!

An Australian drag icon, over many decades Carlotta helped foster middle Australia’s longstanding affection for drag, while always maintaining her connection to queer communities.

The queen of Kings Cross

Queer drag began its sashay into mainstream Australian culture in the 1960s via the widespread fame of the queer cabaret troupe Les Girls.

Based in Sydney’s then-notorious red light district, Kings Cross, Les Girls was a glamorous cabaret with sequins and feather boas abounding. The alluring “twist” was that all the beautiful, bedazzled showgirls onstage were “actually” queer men.

Les Girls garnered an international following and became a trendy Sydney attraction popular with straight Australians. This queer spectacle gave Carlotta the platform that would see her become one of Australia’s most treasured national celebrities.

Carlotta also became Australia’s first transgender celebrity. In the early 1970s, her gender confirmation surgery became fodder for the Australian press.

With her striking looks and engaging manner, she soon found her way onscreen.

Carlotta featured in a selection of documentaries about Sydney’s drag scene, notably The Glittering Mile and The Naked Bunyip.

She made history in 1973 as the first “out” trans person in the world to play a trans character on television, causing a stir when she appeared in six episodes of the risqué Australian serial Number 96.

By the 1990s, Carlotta was a household name in Australia.

Although initial media interest may have treated her as a curiosity because of her gender, Carlotta as a cultural presence became something much more than that.

Priscilla, queen of Aussie drag

When the three drag queens of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert flounced onto screens and into the hearts of Australians in 1994, Carlotta’s place in Australian drag history was solidified. She was the direct inspiration for the beloved character Bernadette, a showgirl drag performer and trans woman.