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.

Been to see pantomime earlier. Absolutely loved it, The Dame was magnificent and funny.

Tried to imagine who he could have been "parodying" and literally could not. 😂

Oh come on, you know that is a different thing from drag

Because they’ve historically been made fun of for their perceived feminine characteristics, for not being “manly enough”, so they’ve taken these supposed feminine qualities and cranked it up 12000 notches for comedy value. This is how I interpret it! I really don’t know a single woman who sees themselves or aspects of their behaviour reflected in/ridiculed by the work of drag queens.

Have you heard of the concept of “different perspectives”?

I don’t see myself or any other woman I’ve ever met reflected in the world of drag queens. I see camp people amplifying their campness for comic effect. So I in turn disagree with you! And that’s okay.

Drag is mocking and demeaning and a shit form of ‘art’. It takes the trappings of femininity and exaggerates them to create a grotesque caricature which, at its core, humiliates women.

They also are being used by the likes of the BBC to ‘tick the inclusion box’ but in doing so inadvertently offending 50% of the population 🙄

I went to see Julian Cleary a few years ago and I actually walked out perhaps 15 mins into the performance. He was rude and derogatory about women especially lesbians.

"Because they’ve historically been made fun of for their perceived feminine characteristics, for not being “manly enough”, so they’ve taken these supposed feminine qualities and cranked it up 12000 notches for comedy value. This is how I interpret it! I really don’t know a single woman who sees themselves or aspects of their behaviour reflected in/ridiculed by the work of drag queens."

I think the bit you are overlooking is what underpins your initial point that men who are perceived as being like women are ridiculed. They are ridiculed because it is considered demeaning for men to be like women, due to women being considered 'lesser' than men.

You are saying that rather than be cowed by this ridicule, they join in the ridiculing by creating extreme parodies - versions of women who are even more ridiculous than the standard ridiculous variety that they have been likened to.

Just made it through 26 pages so most of the points have already been made. A few that haven't...

On "blackface is different because it was done by privileged white people, while drag is done by oppressed gay people" - Many of the original "minstrel" performers were Jewish - notably Al Jolson. In early twentieth century America Jewish people were privileged compared to Black people but were not overall a privileged group. So the "punching up/punching down" discussion has been had around blackface as well. This is a senstive topic which deserves more than the quick comment I am giving it and there is further info here, but be aware this page includes images of blackface and quotes contextualising blackface that, while I do not believe they are intended to be offensive (or I would not post the link) I recognise may nevertheless cause offense https://www.jta.org/2019/02/06/ny/jews-and-blackface-its-complicated

On Strictly specifically and drag more generally, aside from the generally problematic nature of an "artform" that depends on its performers dressing up as a specific, real-life group of whom they are not a member, having a drag artist as one of the couples has resulted in an opportunity that would usually be given to a woman being taken by a man. I appreciate this would also be the case for a male same-sex pairing but somehow it feels more insidious and erasing of women when the man in question is "performing" a female role.

So the more drag acts are prioritised, the fewer opportunities there are for female performers and the fewer representations of women are actually being done by, well, women.

RPDR is basically a sausage-fest with a very occasional token woman. Without drag, having a show that excludes women to that extent on prime time TV would be being rightly challenged and criticised, but the faux-female, "diverse" nature of drag makes this pushing out of women less obvious than it would be if all those blokes were dressed in T shirt and jeans and doing Paul Merton type bloke comedy. Because the diversity is there, it's just that the actual opportunities are all going to men. As a PP said, do you think women wearing the same outfits and doing the same jokes/acts as drag queens would be anything like as popular?

It's important to remember that for all the "it's honouring women, it's satirising gender stereotypes, it's empowering LBGT+ people", drag is an almost exclusively male artform, in which women - our bodies, our experiences, our lives - are present only as material for the male performer, and shown not as we might present ourselves but as his interpretation.

I still don't know why they don't mock or caricature straight men.
Just women.

One of the posters on the F&WR boards posted this article a while ago and it has really stuck in my mind.

www.city-journal.org/article/the-real-story-behind-drag-queen-story-hour

Great post @FlirtsWithRhinos

Very, very interesting article - thank you for posting. It certainly feels like much of this supposed ‘boundary pushing’ is more political and about specific agendas, than it is about entertainment and expression.

I’m very happy for you that you don’t know a single woman who sees themselves
reflected and feels offended. But plenty of women do. The majority of posters on this thread alone for example, including me and most women I know.

Have you?

I’m always amused by such claims that the person ‘knows no one’ who is offended by drag, it’s very clear such posters won’t be bringing up this topic to critically discuss socially and also they are dismissing pages and pages of women on here citing their concerns!

Such myopic arrogance about it. ‘Oh well it doesn’t bother me, so it won’t bother anyone else’. Tedious.

Precisely @Plastictrees - it smacks of “I’m alright Jack (or Jackie)” so nobody else is can be either. Spectacularly tone deaf on a thread chock full of women describing how offended they feel. But no no, nothing to see here. Plus ca change.

I think it's a way of putting the issue aside, to not have to deal with the knowledge that facing it truthfully and with critical thinking would bring. Self preservation, if you like.
It's a total mind fuck, when you eventually realise just how much hatred men hold for women. Truly shakes your foundations. I don't blame the "fingers in the ears" crowd (much) for pretending it's not happening, but it's tedious to have them tell us it's not, so they don't have to face it.

I agree. Speaking up and speaking out is always tough for women, this issue is mistakenly used as one of diversity and inclusivity. It's not. You're not "cool" if you don't like the drag acts normalised on prime time tv.

And - getting back to the original post - the fact that mainstream ‘respected’ media organisations like the BBC are actively normalising and even promoting this social hypocrisy.

"It's important to remember that for all the "it's honouring women, it's satirising gender stereotypes, it's empowering LBGT+ people", drag is an almost exclusively male artform, in which women - our bodies, our experiences, our lives - are present only as material for the male performer, and shown not as we might present ourselves but as his interpretation"

100% this.

I understand, to some extent, the points made about the ridiculous caricaturing not setting out to represent reality and therefore not being offensive. However, they are overlooking the role that the imagery and tropes that drag performers conjure up, are based on harmful stereotypes and aspects of being female that underpin past and present oppression. Understanding this certainly takes the 'fun' out of it!

It's just an expression/entertainment. Drag queens aren't a mockery of women. They are men being a male version of women. It's not the same. I don't get the problem

Then you haven't read the thread. Take a look at the arguments, they've been explained very well.

@LeticiaMorales I've read the arguments I disagree.

Tbh it makes more sense on strictly than other platforms.

The one i disagree with is the story times in libraries as I would say drag queens are more an adult entertainment than children's . I can't see a connection between drag and children reading