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.

Well I'm a woman and I don't feel parodied. Drag queens aren't women.

Anyway I have too many real life problems to be offended by any of this stuff

😂
Anyone who doesn't agree with me must be a sock, know each other or related!
Ffs 😁

Parody isn't an emotion.

Parody is exaggeration for comic effect. Drag at its most simplistic level is precisely this.

You may not feel demeaned but drag is quite clearly a parody. The qualities drag queens choose to exaggerate are surface ones. Reducing women to hair, make up, tits and sexual innuendo.

You may not feel demeaned but drag is quite clearly a parody
In your opinion. Others see it as people wanting to express themselves outside of what is rightly or wrongly gender norms, which is their choice.
They're not doing the usual argument on here of " I don't want them in women spaces" as they're not saying they're literally women. They're in a character and still usually identify as men.
Yet still people have a problem and take it personally and think they're being mocked.
My opinion.
You have yours.

I'm getting at the fact it is never negative. I gave you an example of very negative female attitude pattern, there are others - but this never gets "parodied". All we can see is the portrayal of a strong, sassy, independent female - and in what way it is a bad thing?

I dont feel parodied or offended by drag acts. Firstly, I dont take it seriously as it essentially a comedy act; secondly, its so out there it loses any seriousness - and to take it seriously you have to be grimly non-humorous, which I'm not.

But also - opinionated, strong, funny, independent, confident. Dont tell me drag acts are not any of these thing.

It reminds me when Spinal Tap were premiered, Metallica walked out as they got offended ) Even though they were not the focus of the parody.

Do people hate drag acts because they see themselves in it?

A man wearing a dress is outside gender norms. I wholeheartedly wish more men wore dresses and redefined clothing choices for men. Harry Styles is doing just this. He's not parodying women, he's stretching the boundaries and expressing himself.
No parody there.

Drag queens create characters by exaggeration for comic effect.

The guy who won strictly has done some horrid advertising mimicking eating men. I hate drag. It makes a mockery out of women and has become increasingly acceptable beyond adult entertainment. Today I watched a short clip of a 'drag artist' incorporating disability into his routine, it was horrid. I will never understand why we have become so permissive towards it. If we did the same for ethnicity or religion there would be outrage, but womanface is deemed acceptable. It's become a conduit for pushing boundaries and any criticism is often met with negativity.

Harry Styles is doing just this. He's not parodying women, he's stretching the boundaries and expressing himself
Yes, and good for him.
I still don't see drag queens as parodying me though. They're not me. I'm me.
If they want to express themselves by a character every now and again, that's up to them.

What has that got to do with whether or not they parody women?

Drag has its place as adult entertainment and yes there are very funny drag queens. There are some, but not many drag kings, probably because there is nothing intrinsically hilarious about about women dressing up as men whereas the other way round…apparently.
Its become totally mainstream ‘you go girl’ in your face cliche at this point, while at the same time being normalised as appealing to children, when at its heart its an over sexualised, quite unpleasant mockery of women. ´Fishy’ anyone?
It should be kept in the club where it belongs.

I hate drag. It makes a mockery out of women and has become increasingly acceptable beyond adult entertainment. Today I watched a short clip of a 'drag artist' incorporating disability into his routine, it was horrid

Why watch something you know you hate, especially what sounds like an extreme and yes unacceptable version?
Makes no sense to me.

If drag wasn't parodying women, it would be impossible to have female drag artists.

Female drag artists exist because they exaggerate their own female aspects and characteristics and presentation .If exaggeration wasn't part of it, they'd just be a woman stand up.

I think the poster is trying to say something about so-called camp gay men being labelled effeminate precisely because they’re seen as acting ‘like’ women.

However, if we did away with regressive stereotypes then a male, gay or straight, could act / dress how they want without being labelled anything. And if we did away with regressive stereotypes there’d be no place for drag acts either as these are incredibly regressive representations of being female.

Dame Edna seemed harmless in its day (again perhaps because the delineation between character and Barry Humphries was clearcut?) but drag, like everything else, has to keep pushing to the extremes. Does absolutely nothing for me.

It makes no sense to me why you keep turning these broader points back to yourself in a very ego-centric way.

I am not personally affected by drag, as I don’t watch any of it. However this does not mean I’m ignorant to the concerns women have expressed about it, in terms of parodying and stereotyping women. We can be effected by things in indirect ways.

Well yes, they aren’t parodying you specifically but they are mocking women on a class basis.

Do you think every black man or woman in the world thought the black minstrel show was parodying them as an individual?

Women are, were and remain an oppressed class in every civilisation across the globe and yet men are not just allowed, but appalled for mocking women. Do you not feel the slightest bit of indignation, if not outrage, at the continued mockery of women on mainstream TV?

@CountZacular "I still don't see drag queens as parodying me though. They're not me. I'm me.
If they want to express themselves by a character every now and again, that's up to them"

Do you think the same blackface?

@CurlewKate I think you've tagged the wrong poster. The quote was from @MakeYourOwnMusicStartYourOwnDance

It's a " who me? Oh you can't criticise me? I need to have my own safe space "shite

100% this @CurlewKate

The same way that, even if you’re not a person of colour, you can still appreciate and understand that for white individuals to parody black people “by expressing themselves by a character every now and then” is completely unacceptable and “not just up to them” or a bit of “fun”

Years ago, comedy used to portray and stereotype POC as subservient, lazy, thick and devious for laughs. Now it seems as though women have become the entertainment target and we’re reduced to being depicted by men as rampantly sexual, hysterical, emotionally unstable and obsessed with our looks.

So they making reference to smelly fishy fannies is Ok?

@MakeYourOwnMusicStartYourOwnDance

"Why is drag appealing to me?
I like watching Drag Race because
Bit of escapism
Bit of fun
I like sparkly dresses
I like hearing stories that I wouldn't otherwise in RL, like their experiences of growing up gay and the struggles and non acceptance that can come up with that, or feeling that they can't express themselves"

So you feel for their "struggles " and feel that it is ok for them to use women as an outlet because of that? Surely if they were oppressed and unsafe etc etc then they should be the LAST people to do that to others?
Is this an excuse? Oh well I'm gay and I suffered so badly so I will take the piss out of others now but you can't say anything because I'm gay?

Drag came out of gay clubs. It's male entertainment, really. Men dressing as women for the benefit of other men in the audience. 'Women' are just stylised costumes in this context. Not actual humans with agency.

The entire joke that drag is based on is that it is absurd for a male to take on the stereotypes usually foisted on women. It's a sexualised caricature of women.

They are males subjugating themselves, abdicating their male power by imitating women, who are portrayed through the lens of sexual desirability.

Arguments that drag isn't misogynist because lots of women enjoy it, that it's harmless fun, that the queens are 'sassy' and therefore drag can't be based on demeaning caricatures, remind me a bit of this article:

'The BBC says that the Black and White Minstrels is "a traditional show enjoyed by millions for what it offers in good-hearted family entertainment". '

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/people-nation-empire/make-yourself-at-home/the-black-and-white-minstrel-show

Drag was one thing in gay clubs. It's quite another when it's primetime TV, or 'Drag Queen Story Hour' or 'Drag Kids', and presented as some kind of aspirational personal liberation journey. Context really matters.

No what is really fuckiing offensive is your insistence on equating a bunch of celebrity blokes putting on costumes to parody women with actually being black.