Please can someone explain the appeal of drag? ***MNHQ TWEAKING TITLE TO POINT OUT STRICTLY SPOILER IN THE OP***

[CurlewKate]

Watching Celebrity Strictly last night, it was obviously set up for Tayce to win. Why? A group of celebrities of varying degrees of charm and bumble- then they are all soundly beaten by a clearly skilled dancer who's a drag queen.
There have been drag queens on Sewing Bee and Masterchef and House of Games. And loads of other shows I can't remember.
What's the appeal? And why no drag kings? Strictly has been great at featuring same sex couples- why not do more of that?

I would love it if we could discuss this in a way that doesn't get the thread deleted, so please post with care.

Can you educate me then please? As I understand it trans women ie men we’re supposed to call she. Drag Queen on strictly was also called she. I do t understand why either are being called that.

I really don’t care what they believe, they are offensive and don’t belong on TV on Christmas Day!

They are very old cultural attitudes…beliefs about fishy smells in women’s genitalia and them being impure go back to Aristotle. Even Anais Nin described female genitalia as smelling of the sea, and she wrote soft porn for women.
And men being ruled by their sexual urges are as old as that if not older. Comedy and theatre is built on gender mocking.

Why not ban panto? It is no different really…slightly gentler, but still of the same genre.

Most gender norms are completely absurd, and if you see them as such, it is very freeing, or I guess you can spend your life taking offence. I choose not to.

As a black woman, I completely agree. I actually find drag more offensive than blackface.

Yeah strangely for years we had Paul O’Grady a.k.a. Lily Savage on our screens on Christmas. Nobody made a big fuss up until nowadays that we have imported this big tree from America sidelining as some sort of fake feminism. It’s fucking pathetic.

Violence against women and girls is rife in this country. On average, two women are killed each week by someone with whom they have had an intimate relationship with. Domestic abuse and femicide doesn't hit the headlines (as teenage stabbings do) and the majority, once hearing a murder or attack was 'just a domestic' breath a sigh of relief that it means that it wasn't just an innocent women being attacked by a stranger. How fucked up is that!

The above doesn't mean that no humour or jokes can be made about women. Different people have different appetites for 'inappropriate jokes' and free speech is important. I have far more understanding of those who find drag funny as a result of it being so offensive than those claiming it's empowering or art.

Why are you comparing black people to drag queens?
One is a race of people that have been oppressed and persecuted and have had to fight for the right to be treated as human and equal and the other are men that like to dress up and parade around as OTT bitchy women.

I don’t enjoy drag, in the same way I don’t enjoy lots of things, it isn’t for me.

Many people clearly enjoy it and that’s fine.

Some women are offended by it and hate it and that’s also fine.

Why are you so angry about it and acting as though it’s the same as racism or homophobia?

Men have been opressing women for centuries.

Black men were able to vote almost 50 years before women could.

The comparison is actually very logical and your ignorance is showing.

Women are the most opressed group of people on earth. That is just a fact.

Drag is the oppressor taking the piss out of the oppressed and if we don't laugh along we are bigots...

Can’t men be ‘beautiful, attractive, sassy and sexual’ without impersonating women, and if not why not?

Never once heard Lily Savage speak about her yeast infection, period pain, “fishy minge”, galloping vagina. Drag has become normalised and as a result, more risqué. Risqué is pushing boundaries and becoming more and more offensive to women.

Yes. Two people - David Sylvian and his beautiful brother, Steve Jansen.
More makeup than I've ever owned and bloody gorgeous.

Yeah strangely for years we had Paul O’Grady a.k.a. Lily Savage on our screens on Christmas.

Throughout the 1960s we had Black and White Minstrel Show Christmas Specials. In 1967, for instance, the Special was on Christmas Day itself.

I just think people have become snowflakes now I really do and I think we’ve imported this from America. We’ve had a long history of drag queens in this country and yet we are now all getting our knickers in a twist and it’s just the rise of the right again all over the world doing this.

Drag acts are predominantly gay, some gay men like to appear "feminine" while remaining men. Do you have an issue with male influencers doing make up tutorials? Or male models wearing feminine clothes?

I think trans ideology and everything it stands for done a lot of damage to tolerance and understanding of gay culture, it eroded the hard won trust that the alternative lifestyle communities are decent, self policing and not a danger to children. Which is very sad to see. Gays never let their culture seep too far into mainstream or children's education, most of the gay guys I know would be terrified if kids were exposed, for example, to fetishes, or if parents were dumb enough to bring kids to a gay rights march. Which TRAs were doing without any consequences. No wonder people who generally had very little exposure or understanding of gay culture are feeling disguised with the whole LGB community as a result.

But as explained that’s very very different power dynamic is very different gay men have also been persecuted themselves. It’s not even the same power dynamic.

We get it, you love drag queens, for whatever reasons, but I can't believe what I've just read: racist, much? FFS.

@Abbyk1980 I'm sure there are many here like myself who don't give a shit about whether a drag queen is gay or whatever label they choose. People know they are not trans. People know they may be homosexual or not. None of that is important. They dress up and pretend to be queens - they don't look like women but love to take the piss out of women.
I see no difference in that from myself dressing up as a minstrel. Are my "skills"
imitating the dancing and singing style of a black petson while singing ""Can't Yo' Heah Me Callin' Caroline" No it's not . It's fucking insulting.

"Can’t men be ‘beautiful, attractive, sassy and sexual’ without impersonating women, and if not why not?"

This!

If drag artists didn't pretend to be women, nearly all of the objections raised on this thread would disappear. The only ones remaining would be those based on conservatism and wanting to uphold male and female stereotypes.

I don’t think there was anything there that is racist. I think she’s claiming that some people on the right can’t stand it when they see black people in adverts which they do on this particular group as well they say oh it’s too much what she is saying is it’s the same sort of thing claiming there is too much drag queens. It’s just a representation of a community now much more open than it once was.

Yep. Cross-dressing is a very long and cherished tradition, from widow twankey in pantomimes in the late 19th-century onward. Some great lines by men in drag:

Monty Python (Life of Brian).."he's not the messiah"

Dick Emery.."Ooh, you are awful...but I like you"

That’s where I have to on a strictly power dynamic the power dynamic is not there because gay men have never persecuted on a whole women whereas white men in general that played minstrels were from a group that had persecuted black people

You do realise that most drag queen's are straight men who actively hate women these days

My best friend is a drag queen. It's incredibly impressive how his make up skills mean he can make a face appear a completely different shape!
I fully understand that some people hate drag with a passion and thats totally their opinion that they're entitled to. There are plenty of things I hate with a ppassion.

Drag is really loved by many, many people so it won't be going anywhere.
Luckily we all have a choice to watch or not.

Really? How do you know that?

I think that it's an attempt to normalise this behaviour . Children will have been brought up on it as it's on prime time TV. Personally I think that it's just boring.