While the premise of reality TV is authenticity, the majority of modern audiences are skeptical of the actual "reality" being portrayed. In fact, "the more entertaining a factual programme is, the less real it appears to viewers." (Hill 56) However, the authenticity of performance is not completely relevant to RuPaul's Drag Race. Most viewers are educated enough in reality tv to recognize that often the drama portrayed is scripted (reference the below screen cap of a comment board for a particular episode of RuPauls Drag Race). And while reading a reality competition show as providing a means to learn is not common it is a reading that to a certain extent I see as true. The wide reach of reality tv combined with the political nature of drag means that it is the exposure to drag that is powerful and not necessarily how entirely factual the events depicted in the show are. This is not to say that the show is completely unrealistic, in fact, while a lot of elements are scripted, the show offers important insight into the "behind the scenes" of drag, something that people who first encounter drag at a club performance don't receive. This "behind the scenes" is especially important in the audience's understanding of a drag queen as first a three dimensional person and not their one sided drag persona. Furthermore, while a lot of "drama" between queens is played out in an exaggerated form for entertainment purposes it does provide an important insight into inter-personal discourse among the queens, especially in how they conceive their drag personas and how they perceive others.

Furthermore, while the argument can be made that reality shows are completely unrealistic in that everyone on a reality show is chosen to "act","On reality shows you're made more of a persona, a personality" (Huff 172). This is irrelevant for the drag queen who comes on the show as her drag persona making the audience aware of the dimensionality of what is "real". The queens even introduce themselves as their drag personas and speak about themselves in the third person, contributing to the audience's understanding that although it is a "reality show" the queens are quite intentionally performing.