Drag, drag, drag....

[Yarboosucks]

I have never been a particularly sensitive or active feminist, but all this drag rubbish on TV is getting to me. How at a time when rightly you could not broadcast in black face or similar is it OK to mock or at best caricature women so ridiculously?

Oh god not this tedious topic again

Because it goes under the rainbow flag which means no one is allowed to challenge anything about it.

[quote ABingThing]@AlsDiner exactly what I was going to say!

As for the relation to blackface:

Example 1: oppressing class dresses up as oppressed class and uses jokes and songs to parody and demean them

Example 2: oppressing class dresses up as oppressed class and uses jokes and songs to parody and demean them

I'll leave you to decide which example is drag and which example is blackface[/quote]
This.

Remember that Drag Race is a sanitised version and not really representative of what you would see in a club before saying you don't find it offensive based on Drag Race.

@Doyoumind

Remember that Drag Race is a sanitised version and not really representative of what you would see in a club before saying you don't find it offensive based on Drag Race.

This is true. But it's also true of all comedy, isn't it.

I think Drag Race shows that you can present a sanitised version of it and still keep all the skill.

I haven't seen drag recently in a club, only about 20/30 years ago when seeing boys looking glamorous and like girls was something exciting! I'm sure it can be misogynistic, men often are, but I don't think of the whole genre as 'womanface' because there isn't a type of face that only women have unlike whether someone is of a certain ethnicity. Wearing make-up can only be 'womanface' if only women could ever wear make-up and this is not true.

FluffyHippo you wrote white men, I was simply correcting you, not patronising you.

Make up isnt only for women anyway, neither are dresses actually.

Drag is about makeup and clothes, which is a choice that anyone can make. Look at the 80s, were the new romantics being offensive?

Blackface is a totally different thing altogether.

If you choose to look at the drag that is offensive to you and not explore it any further then you are completely unable to make an informed argument anyway. You're winding yourself up about one aspect of a huge part of the entertainment industry.

There are many interesting points on here and I do appreciate the debate. I suppose it is the Drag Race (to the bottom) type of drag that I dislike so much and distinct from RuPaul too actually/strangely. The platform of Drag Race is giving airtime and space to a particularly base form of drag that is, I agree, completely difference and incomparable to Pantomime dames. I have known drag queens at the performance art end of the spectrum and it this is often a celebration of womanliness. Drag Race seems desperate and unnecessarily crude to me.

I like drag, I don’t get the problem

My Nana liked the Black and White minstral show, she didn't know any better and used to say, that the singing was really good and it was. It was just racist and insulting to Black people.Hense it was stopped.
I (and many others) find Woman face insulting. Even if they are entertaining and can sing well (some of them)

Look at the 80s, were the new romantics being offensive?
I didn't find then offensive, just different, but they weren't really try to be women, just elaborate men. I don't even connect drag with New Romantics

How did Blackface eventually get banned and seen for what it was? Is there any sign of Drag going the same way and if not how can those who find it offensive highlight the sinilarities to places like the BBC who seem to normalise it? I dont mean just by not watching it, but something more powerful?

But it's not about taking the piss out of women. It's not about you.

Here is a short video of Sasha Velour talking about what it means to them: www.instagram.com/p/CCHgNXBlqaB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Thought I was the only person who had an issue with drag, it certainly seemed that way when discussing it in 'real life'. It didn't even occur to anyone else that there was something decidedly iffy about it and I wondered if I was perhaps being unreasonable.

It is not the wearing of makeup, it is not the wearing of dresses! Its is the parodying of women that is offensive to me. The slap and frocks are merely props in the act in the act of degradation.

If drag is just about makeup and clothes, why the need to pretend to be women?

The New Romantics didnt pretend to be women, they werent in womanface, they were men.

The new romantics wore make up and traditionally feminine clothes and there were lots of people who dressed like that and were entertainers.

I dont see a difference between them and drag queens.

Again with comparing drag to the black and white minstrel show.

Drag is make up and clothes. Make up and clothes aren't gender specific, unless you wish for the world to conform to gender stereotypes.

Completely different from being racist.

The New Romantics didnt pretend to be women, they werent in womanface, they were men.

This.

You only need to look at some of the names drag acts use to see that it is most definitely about mocking and humiliating women.

And that is just one area of drag.

One of many.

There are some offensive drag queens out there. Not disputing that one bit. In every area of the entertainment there are people who are deliberately offensive to make a name for themselves though.

Should we ban all music because there are some artists who sing about rape?

Should we ban all art because one artist depicts paedophilia?

Should we ban all comedians because there is one that is disablist?

If someone offends you then target them specifically, not a whole area of the arts.

It's interesting that when every group under the sun is insistent on their rights not to be appropriated, parodied, made fun of or disrespected in any way, women are repeatedly told that they must accept men parodying women in drag for...reasons....

The double standards as as usual, breathtaking.

"One example is using the word 'fishy' while waving a hand in front of the groin with a repulsed facial expression. Because, you know, women's vaginas smell of fish. They've shortened it now to just calling a woman a 'Fish', it's used that mush by drag queens that everyone knows fish means woman."

I've never seen a drag artist do it, but the connection between women and fish smell is an old one not invented by drag artists.

@PurpleButterflyAway

I think it’s absolutely disgusting to have a fetish paraded about on tv.

This, exactly.

Men claiming they can do "woman" better than actual women because we are messy and smelly etc., etc., and should know our place.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

Do female comedians not also make jokes about vaginas. I can think of several who have done this. Also I have heard them make fun of penis size/shape/smell.

Dont judge any group of people on the actions of a few.

I saw Sandi Toksvig criticise a woman for not being totally clean shaven in the pubic area and I find that more offensive coming from a founder of the Women's Party.

The New Romantics and drag have northing at all in common. The New Romantics challenged gender stereotypes in a progressive way, meaning anyone could wear what they wanted and have the hair and make up they wanted regardless of their sex. Drag just parodies women.

I can't believe this misogynistic shit is still all over the tv and other media in 2020. It's so regressive and offensive to women.