It’s Snatch Game on The Stan Originals RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under tomorrow (already! The absolute chaos of it all!!!) and from what we’ve seen already, we know that there are two queens who are fighting for the honour of portraying Bindi Irwin. But here’s the thing. It is my PASSIONATE belief that portraying disgraced cancer scammer Belle Gibson would be an absolutely winning Snatch Game. Hear me out.
For those unfamiliar with the legendary Snatch Game, it is hands down the most important challenge of any season of Drag Race. A parody of the 70s game show Match Game, contestants pick a character to parody for a fill-in-the-blank contest where the only true objective is to make Ru laugh. It’s the defining challenge that can make or break your race to the crown, so the stakes are high.
In order to win Snatch Game, you need a person or character you can embody and parody. In an ideal world, it’s someone everyone will know and recognise, but you need to have enough to work with so that if a viewer has never heard of the person or character that you’re playing, they’ll still laugh. This is what makes Belle perfect.
Even if you’ve never heard of her, the only information you truly need people to know is that she faked having cancer and pretended to cure it with whole foods. Everything else is information you’d work into your performance that will add layers on layers to the basic idea of “cancer scammer Belle Gibson”.
Costuming
Let’s start with the obvious: A fuzzy pink jumper. A honey blonde wig pulled into a respectable, neat ponytail. We want the look to scream: “Believe me, I BELIEVED I had cancer!!!”
But let’s take it a step further. Remember when she rocked up in court wearing Saint Laurent sunglasses and was like, “I know I just got back from an international holiday BUT I’m literally poor so obviously I can’t pay any of these fines I owe???” Thus, sunglasses are a gorgeous touch.
Props
Okay, preferably you’d have a canvas shopping bag with you, from which you would pull a battery-operated Nutribullet and some vegetables.
If you really wanted to go all in, you could buy a secondhand copy of her cookbook The Whole Pantry on eBay. I smell a winner.
Talking Points
Here’s your background info: You’ve claimed to have had three heart operations, two cardiac arrests, died twice on the operating table, had a stroke, and you were diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and given four months to live. Later, you went on to claim that you shat out a 60cm rope worm, which shrank your tonsils by 30% and changed your eye colour. Turns out: it’s all a lie. Absolutely normal areas! Lots to work with, though.
Your main character study will of course be the 60 Minutes interview she did with Tara Brown.
Obviously, you’re going to plug your cookbook, and use whole foods for answers. You’re going to be working from a place in which you thought coming on Snatch Game would be some kind of redemption arc for you.
Most importantly, you’re going to be cagey as fuck, and you’re not going to give a direct answer to any question. Remember when Tara asked Belle how old she was? This is what she said: “Um, I’ve always been raised, um, as being currently a 26-year-old. I live knowing, as I’ve always known, that I would be 26… I believe that I’m 26, I have two birth certificates and I’ve had my name changed four times. The identity crisis there is big.”
I think about that at least once a month tbh, and that’s the energy you want to be bringing to all your answers.
If you’re pressed on anything you said earlier in the game, you’re going to say that you simply do not recall that, but that you believed it to be true then and you’re telling the truth NOW.
You can also play the victim. If anyone calls you out, you apologise but immediately talk about how hurt you are that there’s a perception that you’re a liar.
Also? Cry! Nothing says “don’t question the holes in my story I’m just a nice lady who scammed hundreds of thousands of people, we all make MISTAKES!!!” like the tears of a white woman.
Stunts
First, you could blend some vegetables into juice and talk about how it’s cured you. Later in the game, you fake some kind of medical emergency, fall off your chair, reach up for your green juice, and bam, you’re cured and can carry on with the show.
Background knowledge
You might be thinking “okay sure, this all works, but Ru’s probably not going to know who Belle Gibson is, so will any of this land?” and I hear you, I do. But here’s the thing: all you really need to know is that she’s a disgraced wellness influencer who faked literal brain cancer and claimed that she cured it with vegetables.
Once you tell Ru that during the walk-through in the workroom, all you need to do is lean all the way in, make it as big as possible and be as ridiculous as you possibly can. Even better, you don’t have to worry about offending her or taking it too far because she’s an objectively bad person!
Thank you for attending my TED talk.
Above anything else, Stephanie Anderson is a Britney Spears stan. She’s also a freelance writer. You can find her @stefinitely85 on Twitter and Instagram. #FreeBritney
