Don't cross a Sugarbaker!
An iconic "Designing Women" moment took on a new life for the Friday, July 8th episode of "RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars: Winners" streaming on Paramount+.
During the episode's lip sync battle, for the first time ever in the history of the reality franchise, a spoken word performance was used. The monologue picked? Dixie Carter's iconic speech known as "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."
From only the second episode ever — "The Beauty Contest" — that aired on Oct. 6, 1986, the "Designing Women" scene has gone down in history as one of the greatest in the series that ran for seven seasons until 1992. The moment quickly become a favorite in pop culture and the LGBTQ community, with many drag queens performing the bombastic speech during shows over the last three and a half decades. On Friday’s episode of “All Stars: Winners,” the top two queens — Monét X Change and Jinkx Monsoon — performed the bit with X Change winning in the end.
After Charlene submit's Mary Jo's daughter to the Miss Pre-Teen Atlanta contest, the gang gets involved with the local beauty pageant circuit, something Suzanne Sugarbaker — Miss Georgia World 1976 — was a part of when she was younger. Reunited with her arch nemesis from those days, the snotty Marjorie Lee Winnick, Carter's character Julia Sugarbaker overhears Winnick mocking her sister, and well, she embarks on a fiery tirade putting Marjorie in her place, reminding her of her sister's pageant prowess.
Burke was a pageant queen herself when she was younger. She told Barbara Walters in 1990, "This is similar between me and Suzanne. I love crowns. I have a definite thing for crowns. We have worked this into the scripts; trophies and things like that. So, I thought this was pretty good! You got a tiara, some presents, your picture in the paper. I liked this. I liked winning, so it became a hobby."
Here's the full 'The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia' monologue from 'Designing Women':
Julia Sugarbkaer: I’m Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker’s sister. I couldn’t help over hearing part of your conversation.
Majorie Lee Winnick: Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here.
Sugarbaker: Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don’t know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn’t know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn’t know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was thee Miss Georgia. She didn’t twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie — just so you will know — and your children will someday know — is the night the lights went out in Georgia!
Winnick: I'm sorry. I didn't know
Sugarbaker: Well, now you do.