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Original poster

Why is drag so popular now?

712 replies

Nothingcomesforfree · 17/08/2019 09:43

Genuine question. I have seen lots of posts on a Facebook this morning about attending some drag queen event. Mostly women and several bringing their teens ( both sexes)

It seems really popular but I have no idea why or what people going get out of it? Is it comedic or fashion or something else.

OP posts:
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15
EverardDigby · 18/08/2019 10:45

My daughter is gay and a few years ago was in the audience at an event where a drag queen was compere. He singled my daughter out and made fun of her clothes, how unfeminine she was etc. The place erupted with laughter. My daughter - who was 18 and not long 'out' - left in tears.

Sorry this happened to your daughter. This was also the frequent experience of my friends and me at the end of the 80s/90s, being mocked as ugly lesbians in gay clubs. I remember being picked on quite viciously once because we were daring to talk during one performance (everyone else was talking, it was a club FFS but they didn't pick on the men). That and calling women "fish". It's shit it hasn't changed.

Lyingonthesofainthedark · 18/08/2019 11:08

One form of drag I really object to is men dressed up as nurses for charity events. FFS.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 18/08/2019 11:10

Oh yes. Woman not doing ‘woman’ womanly enough.

Fraggling · 18/08/2019 11:14

Men dressing up as 'sexy schoolgirls'.

Why is /was 'sexy schoolgirls' even a phrase ffs.

All of this is by men for men.

Women are the object of lust/ butt of the joke etc. The object to be parodied, the ludicrous stereotype.

ExpletiveDelighted · 18/08/2019 11:18

Men parodying women for their own benefit. Who gains? Not women that's for sure.

MsTSwift · 18/08/2019 11:40

Exactly fraggling. And we are berated if we don’t laugh along like good little handmaidens. Well I’m not anymore sorry (not sorry)

KaySarahSarah · 18/08/2019 12:52

It was known as drag in 70s UK TV and was a harking back to earlier music hall comics.

Really the internet does some people no favours.

TemporaryPermanent · 18/08/2019 13:21

I would think that Les Dawson either

a. found wearing women's underwear of that era uncomfortable and restrictive, as women's underwear tends to be, or
b. did not ask for custom fitted underwear in case people thought he was a transvestite or gay, or
c. found it professionally frustrating that he did some extremely sophisticated and clever physical and verbal comedy but got the big laughs for putting on a dress, so much so that it was expected of him, or
d. told everyone that he disliked dressing up as a woman in case they thought he liked it sexually, was transvestite or gay.

howwudufeel · 18/08/2019 13:21

What worries me a bit here is that drag has it’s roots in working-class northern clubs and music halls (I can’t see what people’s objections to this are) too. A lot of people who still enjoy drag are a similar demographic and I wonder if it’s OK for the middle-classes to tell them their culture is wrong.
John Peel dressed up as a schoolgirl and still has a stage named after him at Glastonbury. He’s OK though because he’s cool as far as the middle-class are concerned.

OneEpisode · 18/08/2019 13:48

Well, apparently the internet has done me no favours. But in each of our lifetimes we have seen drag reach the mainstream from somewhere. As I write this the pp says from the Northern working class. I first saw it in the us, where it came from gay culture, where it came from 20s/30s Hollywood, where it came from vaudeville, where it came from the minstrels. I do see it as a caricature. I don’t see it as a loving art form. But I can’t say people don’t enjoy performing or watching drag. But I do say I can’t enjoy drag because of the echoes in it for me. And I’d rather watch something else.

sackrifice · 18/08/2019 13:53

What worries me a bit here is that drag has it’s roots in working-class northern clubs and music halls (I can’t see what people’s objections to this are) too. A lot of people who still enjoy drag are a similar demographic and I wonder if it’s OK for the middle-classes to tell them their culture is wrong.

That is what worries you?

That 'middle class' mumsnetters are telling northern men that their culture is wrong?

How very dare we.

What about working class northern women, are they allowed a say?

howwudufeel · 18/08/2019 13:56

I’m a northern working-class woman and yes it does worry me that the middle-classes think they can dictate their values on other people. It’s pointless anyway because drag isn’t going away as far as I can see.

sackrifice · 18/08/2019 14:01

I’m a northern working-class woman and yes it does worry me that the middle-classes think they can dictate their values on other people. It’s pointless anyway because drag isn’t going away as far as I can see

So you think it is the middle classes that are dictating values onto northern working classes and that is the issue with Drag?

howwudufeel · 18/08/2019 14:05

It is a complex area and it strikes me as one of the issues. So yes.
I thing drag has been ticking along without any problems for a long time and has been lumped together with the trans debate. I don’t really see them as the same thing to be honest.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2019 14:08

Lots of unacceptable entertainment had its roots in working men’s clubs. Vile sexist humour, for example. Racist humour. Damn right i’m going to condemn that, even though I am middle class. And so are working class women. Culture? Bollocks to that.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2019 14:09

“I thing drag has been ticking along without any problems for a long time”
So have many vile, sexist and misogynist things.

howwudufeel · 18/08/2019 14:09

I don’t see the comparison with racism and sexism humour.

RosesAndRaindrops · 18/08/2019 14:10

*a northern working-class woman and yes it does worry me that the middle-classes think they can dictate their values on other people

Same

What about working class northern women, are they allowed a say?

Yes they are. Don't speak for all of us; I think likening drag to blackface is fucking ridiculous.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 18/08/2019 14:15

I don’t. Dressing up as someone you are definitely not to take the piss is insulting.

0pheIiaBaIIs · 18/08/2019 14:19

What worries me a bit here is that drag has it’s roots in working-class northern clubs and music halls (I can’t see what people’s objections to this are) too. A lot of people who still enjoy drag are a similar demographic and I wonder if it’s OK for the middle-classes to tell them their culture is wrong

I'm a northern working class woman. My husband is a northern working class man. My friends are northern and working class.

None of us see drag as part of our 'culture' and we all think it has a nasty misogynist vein running through it.

BertrandRussell · 18/08/2019 14:23

“Yes they are. Don't speak for all of us; I think likening drag to blackface is fucking ridiculous.”

Can you explain why? They are both examples of a dominant group dressing up as and mocking a less dominant group, surely?

Dangerfloof · 18/08/2019 14:48

I thing drag has been ticking along without any problems for a long time
Time and how long things tick along for dont make things right, and I dont know if there were issues with it before the internet. I personally dont like drag, but I don't care if others like it.

Ligresa · 18/08/2019 14:49

I think likening drag to blackface is fucking ridiculous

Surely they are exactly the same!

sackrifice · 18/08/2019 14:50

Yes they are. Don't speak for all of us; I think likening drag to blackface is fucking ridiculous

It is the exact same thing. Hope that helps.

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