How is drag different from black face?

[RollaBowlaBall]

Long-time poster, name changed for this.

I love RuPaul's drag race. The stories and glamour really entertain me.

I was talking with a friend who said that to her, as a woman, she finds drag as offensive as black face!
(She is black, if that makes any difference).

I was really shocked, but couldn't find a way to explain why I think it is ok for men to do drag (over the top, stereotyping, etc) but am disgusted by black face.

So who is BU me or her?

No one is BU, everyone can have an opinion.

It is playing up to stereotypes for entertainment

The origins of drag comes from a period when gay sex was illegal.

Gay men, if outed, would be unable to hold many jobs and might be socially excluded. Due to this, most were closeted, and thus there was a huge demand for gay sex workers.

Drag became a way for gay sex workers to trade, becoming more approachable and easily spotted, whilst also actually becoming more acceptable to police and the general public. The effeminate man dressing up as a women was, in a strange way, more easily understood than a more normal looking man selling gay sex.

Drag workers were hugely important in gaining gay people the rights they rightly enjoy today (the Stonewall Riot was partially led by drag sex workers). They are a part of gay history and culture, and are celebrated for that.

The comparison with black face is reasonable on first look, but the cultural background couldn't be more different - and it is this difference that makes one acceptable but the other not.

@TheLastSaola Thank you, that's really informative and makes sense.

I could only say it was intent. Drag doesn't deliberately mock women, but black face is almost always designed to mock.

It just took me aback as I hadn't made the comparison and love drag.

I would say a major difference is blackface is about dehumanising black people, using stereotypes to make them caricatures. There is no respect for black people with blackface.

Drag is not the same because it’s a celebration and a performance, it’s theatrical and fun. It’s not about mocking women but celebrating feminity and camp. If a drag queen dresses up as a particular famous female celebrity (Cher, Britney etc) it’s meant as a celebratory tribute to them, rather than disrespecting them or dehumanising them. Women also enjoy going to drag shows and joining in with the fun and the performance, but the same can’t be said for say black minstrel shows.

I think there are a few reasons.

The most important one, for me, is that drag acts explore gender fluidity. Drag performers are experimenting with the parts of themselves that don’t conform with the gender associated with their sex. It’s an acknowledgement that gender isn’t a binary, and that we are all free to explore how we experience and express our gender. I appreciate that this is a controversial idea on MN, but nonetheless it is an important aspect of drag performance. By contrast, there is no possibility of racial fluidity in the way that there is with gender. You can’t choose to be a race that you aren’t - you can only ever copy and mimic. Blackface is the most offensive form of that mimicry.

I also think context is important. Drag has historical roots that in this county go back to Shakespeare and the riotous, celebratory Elizabethan theatre. It is also seen in other art forms across the world. It is a positive, thought-provoking, celebratory art form. Blackface on the other hand was popular for a short time in an explicitly racist era, and was created for the express purpose of denigrating and abusing black people. It has no context save that of oppression.

I also think it’s important to recognise the huge importance of drag acts to the LGBT movement. Drag queens and trans women were the instigators of stonewall - they started that movement. All LGBT persons (and I am one) today owe a huge debt to them for starting a movement which led to liberation. By contrast, blackface performers NEVER stood in solidarity with black people - never fought for them or shared their struggles or made sacrifices for their rights.

I could say more, but ultimately I think that to characterise both things as the same is to ignore both the important difference between race and gender, and to ignore the historical context which makes such a difference.

Great replies, thanks to all PP.

I agree with the previous posts but would add that some drag makes me very uncomfortable. There is definitely a misogynistic and dehumanising tone to some drag acts and as women we are fully entitled to be uncomfortable with such performances, we don't have to accept it if we don't like it.,

I don't disagree with drag or have a problem with it in particular. I think it's fun and I'm interested in the above explanations, that makes sense.

I'm a bit confused about the 'gender is fluid, race is binary' thing though? I'm tracing my family tree and it turns out my one of my ancestors was north african - I look completely white British. What does that mean in terms of race? Are you only the race you appear to be or can you claim to having different heritages? Or am I getting confused and is race more about cultural experience?

Drag doesn't deliberately mock women

A lot of drag does exactly this I'm afraid.

It is a male parody of how women act and behave. Not all, but many drag acts are comedic and the comedy often comes from this parody.

Drag is offensive to women for this reason but some of it is brilliantly funny and the historic reasons TheLastSaola identified (plus general male domination of society) means it isn't going anywhere soon. There are so many other issues facing women in society that it is hard to get upset about drag. No one was worrying about black face while slavery still existed.

People used to find Benny HIll and Bernard Mannning funny and acceptable. Maybe its time will come but not any time soon.

Drag definitely caricatures women.

Like all caricatures, these can often have an undercurrent of offensiveness to them. From the sassy black woman, to the hyper-sexualised popstar or the rotten old crone.

All of these, depending on who is representing them, can be very offensive. I think, due to the above historical context, a drag act does have validity in making people laugh at those caricatures, in the same way that a female comedian could. Whereas the same men, out of drag, doing the same jokes would be more likely to be offensive.

I don't think that being a women, or any characteristic, means that you can't be made fun of. Mockery is a loaded term, but it's often a reasonable one, and mockery can be funny.

But that doesn't mean that drag acts always stay the right side of good taste. I'm always on the side of allowing people freedom of speech to try to be funny, but at the same time there are comedians who I don't like because I find them offensive, drag acts are not excluded from that.

It’s an interesting question. For me, I feel a drag act tends to portray a persona; an individual. (Good ones anyway.) Black face deliberately mocks based on stereotypes.

TheLastSaola I am on the fence about drag, some I don’t mind, some I find offensive, but your explanation is all about gay men being oppressed and you don’t mention how women were oppressed by men! That’s why its offensive to some women, nothing to do with being gay.

It’s like saying, if Chinese people were oppressed back then, it would be ok for them to dress up in black face and play a parody of a black person, because they faced oppression too. It doesn’t really make sense.