Feminism and Drag Queens

[usernamenottaken]

I was just wondering if anyone else shared the same opinion as me and this article;

www.feministcurrent.com/2014/04/25/why-has-drag-escaped-critique-from-feminists-and-the-lgbtq-community/

I've always been uncomfortable with drag, but it's got worse recently as shows like RuPaul's drag race have started gaining widespread acclaim. I'll add as a disclaimer that this is nothing to do with homophobia.

Thoughts?

[Pallisers]

We go to Provincetown, MA in the US every year for holidays and drag shows are very popular - including family friendly ones. I don't have a problem with them because I don't see drag as men pretending to be women but gay men expressing some aspect of their personality and sexuality that the usual societal presentation of men doesn't facilitate.

I am very very worried about the trans issue but I see drag as an aspect of male gay expression. Most of the time they are commenting on gay men rather than straight women (well in the shows I have seen). If it steps over into a commentary/critique /stereotype of women then that is different.

[DJBaggySmalls]

I dont like drag, but generally you have to go looking for it, so I dont worry about it. Theres nothing I can do to change it.

[sticklebrix]

I don't like drag, pantomime dames etc. and share your opinion OP. As DJ said, we won't change it although I would prefer not to see drag on TV or directed at children.

[BasketOfDeplorables]

I've never enjoyed drag. I think a lot of it hinges on the fact that a man dressed as a woman is inherently funny - like a pantomime dame. I don't find it funny just because a man is dressed as a women, but I know plenty of people do. I work in the arts so see a lot of audiences responding to things like this, and lots of people do find a man dressed as a woman funny in and of itself.

[CryptoFascist]

Drag shows I've seen have usually involved some misogynistic, often gynaecological humour

[cuirderussie]

Yes, remember Kenny Everett's Cupid Stunt? Really horrible. I don't like it either and the misogyny of some gay men is an inconvenient truth.

[Alltheprettyseahorses]

I have no problem with drag - from what I've researched of the performers' POVs, it often stems from a genuine love of women and a wish to be like us rather than misogyny.

Pantomime dames can be more problematic. On one hand you have performers like Paul O'Grady who are passionate about the art and defending women - he said that he ‘hate[s] that traditional dame thing, which is basically a heterosexual man taking the piss out of women,’ and on the other Wyn Calvin, Ian McKellen’s Dame coach, who said, ‘I tell everyone who asks about playing the dame: you must fail to be feminine.'

The Dame is often portrayed as a distorted manifestation of female sexuality that is reduced to its constituent fetishised body parts, mainly breasts, and this is obviously problematic.

Yet there is more to a Dame than this. She played as angry, self-sufficient, dominant, sexually demanding, manipulative and vain, as well as being kind, practical, brave and generous. She enjoys a freedom that real women are often denied by society, where the message is generally along the lines of ‘Stay in your box and know your place.’ A Dame’s place is generally where she wants it to be. In Germaine Greer's essay on Jan Morris from The Madwoman's Underclothes, she argued ‘Women have long been considered saints. Quite reasonable men are more disgusted by drunkenness and foul-mouthedness in women because they think of them as above the ordinary coarseness of mankind.' Perhaps a Dame can be not only a parody of womanhood but also a pastiche of how women could be if only we had real societal freedom to act as we wished.

[Lottapianos]

Pallisers, I feel the same about most drag and I also share your concerns about the trans issue.

[WhereYouLeftIt]

Never really considered drag queens TBH.

I grew up watching Danny La Rue who I knew was a man playing a woman. Also Dick Emery who had both male and female comedy personae in his show. And Stanley Baxter, ditto. Between the three of them, they sanitised drag for me.

I've never watched a drag show or Rue Paul's TV show, so I can't comment on them.

[Seachangeshell]

I don't mind drag queens or pantomime dames.
I recently read a very interesting essay by Angela Carter called 'In Pantoland' where she links it back to 'The Feast of Fools' from the Middle Ages.
Another interesting character from panto is the 'principal boy', played of course, by a fully grown woman.

[BasketOfDeplorables]

That's what I find interesting, Seachange - the principle boy isn't assumed to be funny simply for being a woman playing Peter Pan or whoever. But a man playing a woman is seen as being hilarious. I don't really understand the joke so have never really 'got' dames.

[kesstrel]

It's at least partly about the incongruous, like a lot of humour. sometimes in Shakespeare plays, for example, the heroine-disguised-as-a-young-man is played as struggling to produce exaggeratedly stereotypical 'manly' behaviour - and that can be funny too.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

for example, the heroine-disguised-as-a-young-man is played as struggling to produce exaggeratedly stereotypical 'manly' behaviour - and that can be funny too

That is true but it is always a glamourous , attractive character, physically and personality wise, which the other way round isn't.

[BasketOfDeplorables]

Another difference is that when the character is pretending to be the other sex the joke is the same on both sides - man/woman pretending to be the opposite sex, playing up stereotypes and getting it a bit wrong.

When it comes to parts that are traditionally played by the opposite sex, like in panto, a man playing a woman is funny in and of itself, but the principle boy role isn't played for laughs. There is often a joke where the dame wants to kiss a male character and it's played that the male character or just the audience knows the dame is a man in a dress. This never happens when the principle boy kisses the princess or whoever.

[Miffer]

I watched some of Ru Pauls drag race recently and loved it. I think Ru Paul is brilliant. He (and the show) have been called transphobic in the past. My friend who is an avid fan says that later shows have contestants who are trans and they changed some of the format (ie they used to call messages from Ru Paul "She Mail" but dropped the name) possibly to avert some of the criticism.

One bit, in particular, stuck out. A few of the contestants were discussing when they first did drag, one of them said they had always felt like a woman. The others (may have been 2 or 3) said that they had never felt like women but that they were performing.

I noticed most of them don't try to "pass", one of my favourite contestants could have easily "passed" but he always wore very low hanging tops that clearly showed his male chest (it wasn't particularly sexy). I believe that looking too much like a woman is frowned upon in most drag circles.

[MineKraftCheese]

To me, drag feels like blackface.

[BasketOfDeplorables]

I'll have to watch Drag Race as I'm constantly hearing about it. I find a lot of the people I know who are into drag a bit confusing though - they often refer to Ru Paul as 'she' when not in drag, and I'm pretty sure he always uses 'he' about himself. Fair enough to call the character 'she' and if someone had stated their preference as 'she' but I'm sure Ru Paul hasn't.

The more mainstream interest in drag is similar to burlesque in my experience - it's meant to be empowering now, which annoys me. It's not something I find that interesting, it always feels a bit pantomime to me, which is fine if that's your style, and I wouldn't expect everyone to like what I like. But I do get annoyed at the way it's sold as being groundbreaking and destroying gender stereotypes, as meanwhile I'm in the office and my colleague is rolling her eyesnin solidarity with me because my opinion was shot down, only to be repeated by a man 5 minutes later and implemented as genius.

[SpaghettiAndMeatballs]

I've watched a season and a half of drag race on Netflix now. And. I think.. that based on that, I don't mind it - because women just aren't needed at all - we're not involved - it's gay men dressing up and, performing for gay men - they all know they're men, yes, there's the fish thing which is offensive, but it's entirely separate from me, I am totally unneeded and uninvolved.

I'm going to expect that the comedy routines in clubs might be rather more offensive, and there's certainly a thread of misogyny in it, but if men are going to go their own way, I think this is it and I can leave them to it.

Pantomime dames on the other hand.. well I went to Alton Towers with my kids a couple of years ago, and the dames in the pantomime were unbelievably sexist and offensive, and this was in front of kids. Pantomime dames can fuck right off.

[BirdBandit]

Agree that drag is the equivalent of black face.

I bet the black and white minstrel show was seen as a celebration of black culture by some, just as drag is viewed as a celebration of women.

For me it is vile. Men performing a stereotype of women which is sexualised and painted. It is horribly degrading to women, and promotes a damaging stereotype. It states that not only are the societally determined signifiers of femininity (or women) of value and acceptable, but that they can be appropriated.

I can't imagine behaviour being tolerated, where white men or women went on TV show and competed to be the "best" at their interpretation of being black, with make up and performance. That would be viewed correctly as completely hideous. But doing the same to and about women is fine apparently.

[BirdBandit]

Sexual preference doesn't really come into it, unless you believe that gay men are allowed to do this because they are a bit like women?

I don't agree that they have a feminine role.

Wear the clothes by all means, all the clothes for all the people, but don't take the piss out of what you think women are, in the name of your art.

[Gizmo79]

I have always found it offensive but then I also do not understand the need for men on stags/nights out etc to dress up in women's clothes. When my DH was in the RN, on their nights out they all had to wear women's underwear to be 'allowed'. I found that pathetic, ridiculous, and undermining that it is seen as a derogatory thing to wear items of women's clothing.
Sorry for derailing.

[BeyondQueenOfLists]

I don't like it.

And we were watching some channel four programme recently with a drag queen on, and DH called it woman-face from nowhere - without me prompting him. So it's not just women who find it problematic.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I think.. that based on that, I don't mind it - because women just aren't needed at all - we're not involved - it's gay men dressing up and, performing for gay men - they all know they're men

I hadn't seen it and have just watched about an hour of YouTube clips. I think I agree with this comment. The costumes and make up are pretty stunning ; someone- whether the contestants or behind the scenes costumiers- is putting a lot of effort and imagination into them.The transformations from very ordinary men to these outlandish, other worldly creatures (I don't mean that pejoratively) is impressive. Whether it is a good thing or bad , I'm not sure.

I'm not sure I really get the point of it but I don't find it threatening.

[powershowerforanhour]

transformations from very ordinary men to these outlandish, other worldly creatures (I don't mean that pejoratively) is impressive
I don't mind this so much.

I never liked the stag parties with long blond wigs perched on top of a bestubbled head, with a bra stretched over those huge fake plastic "comedy" breasts. Why is it so funny? I remember getting drunk with a bunch of teenage friends one of whom was male. He agreed to let some of the girls apply makeup and style his hair for the laugh. I think he thought they were going to plaster him in smeared red lipstick and heavy eyeshadow. But a couple of the girls worked patiently and delicately away; he had good skin and fine bone structure and collar length hair to work with. He looked like a beautiful young woman. Like a model going for the natural look in a cornfield. We were in awe of how gorgeous he was; he was uncertain in the face of the praise and demanded a mirror. He gazed, fascinated, in the mirror for a second or so, then scuffed his hand through his hair to rumple it and ran to the bathroom to scrub off the makeup as fast as possible. We laughed, which seemed to upset him. Looking like a real, natural pretty young woman was horrifying for him and our genuine admiraton of his beauty and then amusement at his reaction was even worse.

[SpaghettiAndMeatballs]

just as drag is viewed as a celebration of women.

Sexual preference doesn't really come into it, unless you believe that gay men are allowed to do this because they are a bit like women?

No, I don't think women are involved at all. I don't think drag is a celebration of women at all - I think it's a celebration of sparkles and makeup, and probably stereotypical femininity - but that it's entirely divorced from women as a sex - and sexuality comes into it because, as gay men, they, too are totally divorced from women as a sex (except as any one living in the world is connected to others) - ie. a gay man, wearing a sparkly dress, and makeup, dressing up in this hyper feminine way, for other gay men to watch doesn't (or at least is much less likely to) contribute to rape culture because they're not even slightly interested in women, and the men who would be a danger to women, aren't in the drag scene because it is primarily gay men.

They know they're men. They want to be men, they're happy being men, but wear the pretty stuff too. As I said, it may be (probably is) that drag standup is horribly misogynistic - but since they're not asking women to be involved at all, since it can go on without any woman having to be anywhere near it, I just can't see it in anyway as destructive as all the rest of the misogyny in the world that I am forced to interact with.