Drag Queen on Strictly

I imagine that training and practice will not be performed in full make up and costume. I imagine the ‘artist’ will also not be ‘in role’ during training. It takes focus and concentration. It’ll be interesting to see what he is like as a person. My money is on him not being particularly extroverted.

I loath drag. I struggle to see why males need to parody ‘women’ if the interest is really just fashion and aesthetics. Why can’t they just be males performing as males?

More than 2 females are killed each week in the UK, by males, and violence against women and girls is at epidemic levels. When there is irrefutable evidence relating to the power males wield over females each and every day, one has to question why it is deemed acceptable for this particular powerful group to parody those they oppress in a way that isn’t the same for other protected characteristics.

I wonder if it’s a contractual thing. Drag Race is BBC3 and previous winners got their own series on BBC America. Danny Beard was on radio 2 for a bit. This time round it was a cash prize and, of course, Strictly is on the BBC.

Strictly has always had some focus on sex appeal. There's a reason for the so-called Strictly curse, after all, and that has been among straight couples.

I don't see what the issue would be if this person wanted a male partner. 🤷‍♀️ Hardly 'regressive', unless he was barred from female partners, which I doubt happened.

Otoh, I don't think the sex appeal elements is good for anybody in the sense that a lot of the time it seems to break up marriages.

Wasn't Matt Lucas a guest presenter?

If an actor had parodied someone in a wheelchair and toured that round the country under the guise of entertainment I'd bet money on them not making the SCD lineup.

Actors pretend to be different people all of the time. Im sure theyd have an actress on who has acted being pregnant, or acted needing to use a wheelchair.

What would be odd is if the actress insisted on being casted as being pregnant for every role. And when being interviewed as part of the PR , insisted on being referred to as 'expecting'.

Drag dont pretend to be women in the same way trans identifying men do, but they do take their female parody off the stage with them and get other people to interact with them.

"It's disrespectful to pretend to be a different ethnicity or to pretend to be disabled.
Strictly wouldn't employ a person pretending to be pregnant or pretending to need a wheelchair."

Don't go giving them ideas!

I hope they have a drag king on next 😊

Drag then is not the same as RuPaul-style drag.

Paul O'Grady even said he wasn't a fan of it.

Fair point. However, Lily & Shirley went on to become TV presenters as themselves (Paul & Declan). Both very talented, drag aside. But, hat was 20 years ago, things have changed.

I agree, just because its always been around doesnt mean its quality TV and doesnt mean it needs to be on tv now.

I remember the old school drag on tv, and i remember it being dated by the late 70s and into the 80s. We didnt need danny la rue 40 years ago, we dont need a new version now.

I don't know the last two, @Gowlett , but Dame Edna was never a 'drag queen'. And just because something has been on tv 'for years' does not make it right! Is misogyny ok, just because it's on tv 'for years'? Blackface was on stage and tv 'for years', was that ok?

Aww. Perhaps if the B&W minstrels came with a glitzy teevee show featuring a bunch of sob stories about the challenges they've faced in their lives before bravely donning some black facepaint, people would be cheering on that, too.

It's not easy to give a single, clear answer.

Quite a few posters have referred to "old-style drag" as in Dame Edna Everidge and Lily Savage. Danny la Rue went into drag performance (1950s/60s) after being told he was good at making people laugh and should concentrate on that www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/jun/01/danny-la-rue-obituary#:~:text=Yet%20what%20La%20Rue%20achieved,saucy%20jokes%20and%20sentimental%20songs. I remember several comic drag acts in TV sketch shows in the 1970s - Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough as Cissie and Ada, Stanley Baxter did sketches in drag in his comedy show, drag duo Dr Evadne Hinge (George Logan) and Dame Hilda Bracket (Patrick Fyffe). Then there was Kenny Everett, whose drag name in the show was Cupid Stunt, "all in the best possible taste".

I was a teenager in 1970 and didn't know quite what to make of these drag acts and sketches. I never liked Hinge & Bracket and I didn't find Cissie and Ada very funny. I liked Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everidge and found Kenny Everett's drag sketch incredibly provocative (bearded man as "woman") but it made me laugh. Danny La Rue was all ruffles and old-fashioned elegance (from a previous century), so I wasn't interested in him.

I was after something clever and very funny. Hit-and-miss. Never liked pantomime dames, so when in my 60s I saw some Drag Race episodes (because friends liked them) I was curious. It's artifice to the nth degree, but there's also artistry at times. No-one else I know watches it apart from this small group of much younger friends. It's like a secret vice, mostly harmless, but can be addictive. The formula isn't that different from any reality tv show. There's wit and creativity and stories of overcoming difficulties in life, not merely smut and innuendo. The costumes and makeup are sometimes extraordinary.

Perhaps watching that drag show is the antithesis of everything else in my life. It's an escape. I had/have no idea why men would wish to perform as women, and being unable to imagine it properly, got drawn into to the stories they tell.

I was interested in the discussion here because the show under discussion is Strictly. I don't like Strictly and part of that not liking it is (ironically) all the artifice. How the women must dress in high heels and revealing gowns. The illusion of a man lifting a woman when the woman has to do just as much work as the man does, to make it look elegant. How the woman must be smaller and lighter than the man. I'm nearly 6ft tall and have never learned to dance. I feel clumsy. I can't wear high heels. I don't wear makeup.

So if a drag queen is to appear on Strictly, it's not so important in my eyes. But I can appreciate the dislike of drag queens per se having considered the discussion here. If I were a big Strictly fan, no doubt I'd feel differently.

Also, I agree with the posters who say that the drag queen persona is not the one that should compete - it should be the man behind the act.

It's disrespectful to pretend to be a different ethnicity or to pretend to be disabled.
Strictly wouldn't employ a person pretending to be pregnant or pretending to need a wheelchair.
It's no different to accepting a man who's mocking women.
Drag isn't neutral. It's not non-comforming to stereotypes. It's all about taking the worst known stereotypes thrown at women to mock them.
I'd be happy to see men wear makeup and dresses as the true men they are, bringing their full selves to the dance with long hair if they like, red lipstick etc.
Non conforming and choosing non expected outfits is fun.
The stereotypes, strained voice, head tilts, playing with fake breasts is purely disrespectful to women.

I'm afraid I still don't understand. Could you explain the bit about drag and misogyny again?

I think the angry, shouty, rude posts attacking other mumsnetters for their opinions meant "no debate" in my eyes - that is, we're right and you're wrong. That's what I meant by "outrage". It's uncalled-for and counter-productive in any debate especially where there are strongly held views. Shouting and insulting others isn't debate. Women must remember the very recent attacks by trans rights activists saying there was to be no debate.

Have drag queens not been on telly for years?
Dame Edna? Lily Savage? Shirley Temple Bar?

Are you incapable of reading the previous 10 pages?

See my previous posts - that's my problem with this mockery of women by men.

What exactly is your problem?!

6 women/9 men split, or 7 women/8 men if we assume La Voix is classed as competing as a women.

Oh no we're not.😂

Yes, let's choose an old-school drag queen and then we can all pretend that they're all just such wholesome, entertaining characters - there there, nothing to fret about, it's just a bit of fun, don't be such an old fuddy duddy, blah blah 🥱

Exactly. Then maybe men wouldn’t think it was ok to mock women with names like. Anna Norton and Miss carriage. And call women “fishy”. Do are you saying you’re ok with men mocking women? Why?

Feel free to move on then 😀