Another go woke go broke - McCains

Better hook out Halifaxes details too.

For anyone interested, or writing a letter, the company doing their ads is called We Are Social (appointed Nov 2021) and the apparent marketing genius behind the campaign is quoted as follows:

“Mark Hodge, marketing director, McCain Foods GB, said: “We Are Social’s cultural insights expertise and strategic thinking stood out for us, and their vision and creative execution are a perfect fit for us as a partner. The team came with a host of dynamic creative ideas that will help us strengthen relationships with new audiences on social, building on the brand love that McCain already has with families all over the country .”

This is the point, though — Barbara Windsor made her career out of being a caricature of the fruity young lady with the “knockers” in the Carry On films (which also featured famous gay performers like Kenneth Williams doing drag in exactly the same way as the Benny Hill sketch I posted — Carry On Constable, anyone?) Windsor herself might have been a lovely lady; but her whole career was based on playing the sexist caricature.

Yes, Carry On Camping is funny, but it’s also undeniably a sexist relic of a time when tits and knockers was everyday language, and older women were constantly parodied as hideous old bags (you didn’t comment on Bagga’s name as a pun on the sexist term “bag”?)

I don’t mind watching the odd Carry On film, I don’t want to live in a society where women’s bodies are parodied as caricatures for fun, and I don’t want my daughter growing up thinking that “knockers” is okay in 2022.

It’s fine to enjoy drag if it’s your thing. Just don’t kid yourself that it’s in any way subversive or radical, or that it doesn’t have its roots in blackface and mainstream sexist comedy.

A clever woman on Twitter @Riverlee who I won't name because women are being targeted for banning.

Where that from?

Evadne Hinge and Hilda Bracket would never have stooped to frozen convenience foods.

I don’t have a narrow idea of what drag is, and I understand you see it as ‘punch down’ humour because you feel like women are the butt of the joke. THAT view is narrow. Drag is so much more than that and always has been.

We are coming at this from different places, and on many points we actually agree. Where we differ is that I don’t see that drag is any threat at all to my rights as a woman and I think most women would agree a drag performer getting a gig because his stage name is about chips is probably not a problem even if he does mention tits (heaven forfend). I’ve said many times though that you are more than entitled to take that view, I just won’t be boycotting potato smiles alongside you and will be celebrating that Bagga got a cheque by buying up a load of potato smiles for the freezer. He’s a good egg, his influences are Cilla black and Barbara Windsor not hitler and benny hill.

Its ok thst we are both women and we disagree, neither of us speak for the majority as I suspect the majority don’t feel strongly one way or the other and that’s ok too.

Nothing wrong with saying big knockers when talking to kids after all

Yes, I don't see how that ad and similar is any better than Benny Hill. The only difference is that the men involved are mostly gay, but I don't see why that is a free pass for misogyny.

It may very well be empowering for a gay man to get paid lots of money by a chip company, but I am more concerned with the 10 year old , early developing girls, who will go to school tomorrow to hear people ‘joking’ about her ‘knockers!’ Break down all the stereotypes that you want but keep kids out of it!

Yeah, men, gay or straight, can quite happily make jokes about big knockers because it's not them who are the butt of the joke. To see a man being paid by a big brand to make these sorts of jokes is shit to be honest.

@Leftonread Just want to say thanks for sticking around and engaging. So often people just plop with 'ur all bigoted prudes and pearl clutchers' and run off again. Thanks for listening.

Strictly social media, it’s a short run campaign as well, literally a couple of days worth of content.

But the entire point is that this was part of drag culture of the time. In fact it was far more so than clubs! The same comedians who were drag performers, were also onstage and on television as part of these shows. Many of them had moved from comedy and cabaret clubs precisely to TV, like Kenny Everett. Dame Edna and Lily Savage et al were part of this “comedy” / “light entertainment” culture - that was how they built an audience. In particular, mainstream audiences took to drag on television precisely because it articulated all the same sexism of the popular culture of the time, and was especially unthreatening to straight men.

The point is that having a really narrow idea of what drag is, based on a current very narrow idea of a drag “community”, stops you from seeing the sexist and misogynist aspects of it that have changed very very little since the 1970s. Those of us who have been used to seeing drag acts on television and stage for forty years don’t find it all so thrilling and liberating - there’s nothing in the content of that ad that makes “knockers” any more subversive or less sexist now than it would have been on the Morecambe & Wise show or on Kenny Everett in 1983.

Ru Pul did some Olympic back-pedalling after the 2018 interview he did where he said any trans queen who had changed their body surgically wouldn’t be admitted to drag race - his argument was that drag was for men with penises and the drag community was in uproar about it.

the UK drag race had Victoria Scone (AFAB), so the issue was largely put to bed after that. Again this is the problem with drag race, it presents Ru Paul as the voice of the drag community and he’s very very far from that.

most of the ex UK contestants completely distanced themselves and have continued to do so. It’s actually a round about argument for why there should be other routes to the mainstream for drag performers..

Where is the ad being shown? Surely not on telly before the watershed? Is it a social media campaign?

I was a girl with 32ff breasts and a very hour glass figure. The sexual innuendos, groping and worse was relentless. I blame the culture or parody around women’s bodies, it was so mainstream, that I was the unreasonable one for not being able to take it in good humour. “Show us your knockers!”, “you don’t get many of those to the pound!” “Give is a tit wank!” I was a child!
I get that not everyone will have the same experience, but far too many women and girls have, and they are saying ‘it is not ok’.
It may very well be empowering for a gay man to get paid lots of money by a chip company, but I am more concerned with the 10 year old , early developing girls, who will go to school tomorrow to hear people ‘joking’ about her ‘knockers!’ Break down all the stereotypes that you want but keep kids out of it!

I see Mumsnetters have been all
Over the Twitter page 🤣

Howard Snape

Haven’t found an email address, but Howard Snape seems to be the man in charge if you want to complain to the company directly.

Sorry, the makeup community is a content creation community on YouTube and other platforms who do extreme makeup looks for internet clout - the bbc did a talent contest called Glow Up that’s just had its 3rd season all about this specific community.

So the answer to your question is if you’re regularly creating content about stage make up, you’re part of the makeup community. That’s probably the barrier to entry.

I’m not sure what you’re asking? Are you asking which drag you should enjoy and which you shouldn’t? Because that’s personal choice. It may be that you don’t enjoy any kind of drag and therefore wouldn’t watch it or engage with it, which is absolutely fine.

If you see a drag act from 50 years ago and think ‘blimey this is horribly offensive’ that’s ok, you don’t need to search YouTube and watch it.

My point about your clip would be that Benny Hill isn’t really a drag act is he? He’s a comedian that sometimes dresses up in womens clothing to do sketches that ridicule women. He has no ties to the drag community, never performed in a drag club or alongside other drag performers. It’s not really a representative example of drag culture at the time and as you point out, there are FAR worse examples of drag acts that ridicule women. They’re not representative either.

As people have said drag queen have existed for decades, they have been mainstream for decades, the fact that women are losing their rights isn't related to a few drag acts going mainstream.

A lot of drag queens are quite honest about being male, RuPaul has been accused of being transphobic, and even today we are transing drag queens (like Marsha P Johnson).

(I’m also now wondering how much makeup I have to use to be a part of the “makeup community”. Does popping to Boots for the occasional bit of Clinique count, or is that merely being “makeup curious”? What happens if sometimes I like makeup and sometimes I don’t? Can I be demimakeup? So many questions…)

It’s different because a section of the drag community gatekeep drag for the gay male community.

From experience though as a 19 year old woman with no tits and a beard (as I was back then) the vast, vast majority of the drag community are totally welcoming of AFAB queens. I had one knob who used to take the piss a lot but another queen has a word on my behalf and it stopped very very quickly. Knob was a new queen, it’s funny how on the whole it’s the newer generation that are less accepting. You’d think it would be the other way.

for what it’s worth I have both a male and female set - I drag up as a woman too. My female set is much more about self acceptance though and a bit less fun. It’s only about half way through that I reveal I’m female and the whole thing is hinged off a comedy routine to do with being a man in a dress, which is how I felt when I was a 13 year old girl with PCOS, no tits and a better beard than my dad. You get a fair bit of ‘is it really drag if you’re really a woman’ but only ever online, those kinds of bigotry don’t translate irl.

Those saying ‘I think it’s great!’ or ‘we should discuss this’ - don’t you wonder why women aren’t being listened to? Wonder why events and promos are carrying on regardless of the offence caused to women? Wonder why women in say a rape crisis centre is told that they have mens groups, trans groups but heaven forbid they have an all woman group?

Wonder why a mere sniff of ‘offence’ to sole very special people, and the sky falls down?

The scales are well and truly tipped - not in woman’s favour.

So how do we know which drag acts are subverting gender norms in an exciting dangerous queer celebratory sort of way; and which drag acts are just sexist old men parodying women because women are just such ghastly old objects of fun?

Here’s Benny Hill in drag, complete with saggy “knockers”, as a middle aged woman (arguably far less offensive than most current drag acts):

Where’s the magic button that tells us which is the fabulous glittery subversive drag, and which is just the sexist mocking of women b/c everyone knows old women are just such ridiculous old bags?

Agreed and actually your point reflects a small but growing shift in the focus of drag - there’s a lot more androgyny and generalised extreme ‘look’ queens in the community that are gradually becoming more mainstream. It’s morphing (as it always has) with the sensibilities of the day and feminist objections to drag has a lot to do with that I think. AFAB queens are also doing a roaring trade on social through makeup and the glow up phenomenon. There’s a significant cross over between the ‘new drag’ community and the makeup community online, and I think there’s a younger generation that would have in the past found a home in the drag community that through broader acceptance and visibility have found a home in the makeup community instead. It used to be that if you were a boy who wanted to wear make up but didn’t want to be a woman, you found acceptance as a drag queen. Now though there’s a community for you if you’re just a boy who likes doing make up and performing with other people who also like doing make up and performing.

Drag will change again and fall out of vogue and then back in as it always has, and there will always be die hard shock performers that delight in offending as there is in every branch of performance and entertainment. That’s not the community though, far far from it.