Guardian: drag protests are a hard-right American import

We used to complain about lesbian invisibility in Gay Pride, but now gay menminus make-up and fishnet tights are being elbowed out too.

I think it was Talcum themselves who whinged about the lack of diversity in a picture of a group of mostly LGBT people. Everyone was baffled: there were a range of ages, ethnicities, sexualities, abilities.....?

It was the lack of people with blue hair, fishnets, tutus and basques apparently.

That's the trouble with transparent arse covering; you can see right through it.

that's just transparent arse covering. How much coverage did they give to Rachel Meade? Jo Phoenix? Meanwhile, Liew and Talcum are still on the payroll. Fuck them.

Another thing I hate about drag is the way it has supplanted 'gay', and those faces have become the face of Pride, Diversity, Inclusivity etc. We used to complain about lesbian invisibility in Gay Pride, but now gay men minus make-up and fishnet tights are being elbowed out too.

Here's an example:
A couple of years ago I was staying in a small provincial town in Ireland. There was an article in the local paper about how wonderful it was to have the first ever Pride event in the town. The accompanying photo was of a grotesquely made up man, l can only describe him as an ugly parody of a nightmare image of a woman.

Imagine being a kid from the area questioning your sexuality - you'd take one look at that photo and think ' well if that's what gay is, I'm not, and I won't go near that Pride event if that's what it's about'.

And of course there's the more general point that story-telling, especially for children, is about the story, not the story-teller. Well out of kilter with the current "Me, me, me" solipsism.
The Guardian piece seeks to suggest that objections to DQST come only from the far Right, and all decent, progressive folk don't have a problem with it. But the writer knows perfectly well that that isn't the case, he only has to pick up his phone and ask, say, Helen Joyce, or countless other people who I'm sure would be only to happy to give a quotable view on DQST.

It's as if they just can't read or hear anything women say to them. Or believe that women have any thoughts or perceptions of their own; so if they're malfunctioning they've been programmed by shadowy forces.

I go back to the re written poster I saw somewhere: paraphrased it was something like: 'give male (frequently with dodgy online history) wearing pornographic women's clothes access to your children hour'. That about nailed it.

Yes, but they're like, OLD and everything so they're probably nearly dead and who knows what, like, women were saying in the olden days?

This is such ahistorical bulshit. Feminists have been having conversations about drag for at least forty years.

Lazy, lazy guilt by association. 'far-right groups' etc etc. Same old dishonest shite. Whatever you think about Tootsie and Mrs Doubtfire, they have nothing in common with modern-day, highly sexualised drag. And Shakespeare and Principal Boys, even less relevant.

Not sure if this is accepted fact, but multiple academics over the last 20 years at least point to the fact that contemporary [American] ‘drag’ is actually racist in its origins. It is argued that it evolved from Minstrel shows where the black, fat mama was portrayed by a blacked up male performer as a comedic figure demonstrating an intersectionality between misogyny and racism.

Have seen a few academics speak on this and found this article in the National Geographic.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/drag-queen-drag-balls-early-history-pop-culture

ie. Drags origins are far right …

Well, it's the Observer, but it's a definite chink in their armour. Now, if they could persuade Kath Viner to look for another job, it could go back to being sensible.

Whew! The guardian is going hard this week!

@ChateauMargaux Nailed it. Spot on.

what gives you any hope whatsoever?

Well, it may be a forlorn hope, but in recent weeks, they've published a number of letters critical of their fawning coverage on trans and associated subjects.

what gives you any hope whatsoever? The gruan has been a TRA bin fire for years now and if anything appears to doubling down on the Kool Aid. It will need (along with a bunch of other institutions) a total clear out of the batshit mentalists pushing this garbage.

Any time that women have an opinion the Guardian don't like, they accuse us of being right wing 🙄

Why have rightwingers made even parkrun a battleground for trans people? | Sport | The Guardian

I'm actually starting to hope that it may become readable again, before too much longer.

The latest in the recent series of "Wow! Did the Guardian actually publish that?"

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2024/feb/18/private-school-pupils-must-pay-vat-observer-letters

A time and a place for drag

Drag is a fabulous, funny and fascinating art form that’s been around for over 100 years (“Drag stars are racing to the rescue”, Magazine). It’s also highly sexualised adult entertainment, which many people feel is pretty misogynistic. Nobody was protesting against drag when it was restricted to late-night pubs and nightclubs. In the last few years, it has moved into schools and libraries and many people find that concerning. Eva Wiseman writes that protests against this “often include anti-vaxxers, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists”. They also include men and women of all ages, sexualities and backgrounds who are concerned about the erosion of sexual boundaries and the impact that could have on issues of consent.

Katharine Rogers
**
Bristol

If only they had stuck with "Well nobody's perfect" ...

And then you see Dylan fucking Mulvaney, and this idea of how men see us, as per above ^^ is only reinforced 100%.

I have always disliked males parodying females in outdated sexist modes whether Justin Fletcher as Dina Lady, Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie, Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire. It doesn't make me right wing and this stereotype is very far from progressive.

Some Like it Hot is one of my favourite movies, and it probably always will be…..

…. but, it’s quite obvious, whenever men dress up and present as women, that they see us as silly, fluffy, flighty, shallow, frivolous, vain, looks/clothes-obsessed, daft, not too bright, etc, etc.

That’s always the default portrayal. That’s how men see us. All of us. It’s quite revealing.

Strange isn't it that in attempting to say it is part of a theatrical tradition I have not heard of any Principal Boy drag acts going to libraries.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm - I wonder why that is?!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_boy

What I find particularly strange is that the reason for the drag story-time events is totally based on it being a gay thing. It's supposed to support the school or library's social justice/inclusivity programming.

Rather than female impersonators, or Shakespeare, which are not a gay thing, except by chance. (Of course Shakespeare would support the library's reading and literature programming, but that is not emphasized so much these days. You have to be on-trend to get funding, and kids don't read anymore anyway.)

But I am more convinced every day that a lot of people are quite dim, and can't connect things that are in fact connected, or connect up things that are unrelated.

We should have stopped importing American culture after rock music and 70s Hollywood films