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?

Hate it. It's awful. And why have drag queen story time? Surely there is, you know, an actual woman out there who could read to the kids as a positive role model, I don't know, maybe a fire-fighter or a police detective.... Rather than a heavily made up caricature in woman face?

Really interesting perspectives. I do think a shift is underway.

I wonder why they are called ‘queen’?

It is very jolly when men are making a mockery of Adult Human Females. SICK TO DEATH OF IT ALL!

The word "women" has become a dirty word. I am sad for my daughter.

Yanbu. Been saying it for years. You should have seen the frosty reception I got on Mumsnet when Conchita won the Eurovision Song Contest - everyone loving "her" for "her" bravery etc. I pointed out that she was parodying women in the most derogatory and derisory way. I'm sure the thread was deleted.

‘Women’ now seems to be whatever men deem it to be. Even if it’s a man. It’s really not good.

I don't understand why libraries have these sessions with someone in drag? Surely they could have a librarian/storyteller/author who is gay or lesbian or reads an inclusive story?

every gay man I know loves women

I have a lot of gay friends, my brother and SIL even more through their work, I have met their friends and so on, and have heard some stuff sometimes (often from guys who were younger and/or very camp). Being a gay man, even a gay man with female friends, doesn't make you immune from misogyny.

Just from memory, talking about a woman and speculating about her having nasty saggy tits, fat-shaming women, generally enforcing some pretty regressive ideas of what women should look like and behave. Talking about another friend and how she's a "total fag hag" (and not in a nice way, but like "she's so pathetic, she can't even get a man" kind of way). Talking about butch lesbians at pride and saying they were totally gross and ugly. A friend of my brother's said to me directly that I'd "actually be kind of attractive" if I lost weight - I was taken aback that someone I had met a few times socially would even consider saying this to me, but when I mentioned I'd had a baby recently he literally said with a sickened look on his face "ohmigod, GRO-OOSS".

A lot of the gay men I know seem to surround themselves with beautiful women. Ugly ones aren't allowed. Neither are ugly men. One in particular is the shallowest and vainest person I know, he thinks nothing of openly judging people on their looks and ridiculing anyone he deems unattractive.

@Moonmelodies

I was hoping this would be a thread celebrating the re-opening of Santa Pod.

Disappointingly, even the BBC are using the word “fishy”, to describe a feminine looking drag queen in their Drag Race quiz
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/901f2d19-5e92-498b-ae6a-85c90b438f30

Well, for starters drag isn’t mocking women.

I hate drag, it's creepy.

With these types of things it usually comes down to who is higher on the oppression ladder.

For example, it's not considered offensive for black women to straighten their hair in the same way it's considered offensive for white women to appropriate black hairstyles, because the former are considered to be more oppressed.

In this example, gay men are considered more oppressed/marginalised than the white, heterosexual and usually middle class women who complain about it.

Maybe it's the fact that TV is a one way medium without the ability to interact with the people on it with the added fact that all reality style television is known for its deceptive editing which is purposely done to make the shows appear more dramatic than they are (all reality TV is guilty of this). I know that this is definitely part of some issues being brought up here.

All I can do is speak from experience, and being that my godmother is a lesbian as well as my mother's first girlfriend I've spent my entire life growing up around LGBTQ culture, I attended my first pride parade at 7/8 and it was wonderful. That being said, due to the time spent with the LGBTQ community I've known two men who performed as drag queens at clubs. They were both dear friends of my family and as an inquisitive child I asked one of them why he liked to perform dressed up as a woman. I'm 33 now, so it's been almost 2 decades since I asked so please forgive my paraphrasing. He gave me the most sincere smile and told me that he thought women were absolutely beautiful, and the biggest role models in his life had always been strong, outspoken women who not only took everything life threw at them but survived carrying themselves with a dignity and grace he wished he'd felt as a child when he was being picked on and beaten for being effeminate as a kid. Basically he wanted to channel all the strength of his women heroines because they got him through the toughest times in his life - and did it while looking amazing.

I remember how sincere he was when he told me that he truly believed that women were much stronger than men - we put up with so much, we kick ass, and are elegant and beautiful to top it all off. This man was not a misogynist, he truly loved women and when he performed his lip syncing at the club where he worked he got to live as the strong heroines who helped him survive his darkest times, if only for a night once or twice a month.

This is already novel length but I'll just end this by saying that I've met some very bitchy gay men that did not do drag at all. With every group of people you get some good - some bad. The bitchy gay men I met weren't trying to emulate women at all, they were just ugly inside. So I'm sure there are some awful drag queens that are terrible people - but that creates drama doesn't it? And drama creates ratings so maybe they're choosing these type of offensive drag queens to drive ratings. I don't really know, all I know is the drag queens I've met loved and admired women.

I've always seen it as a celebration of womanhood too, albeit a very tongue in cheek one at times.

I always saw drag as gay/trans men being allowed to express that side of themselves, like a freedom experience, in the past when being gay was ( and still is ) punishable by death, drag was/ is a " safe" way for trans gay folk to enjoy themselves both by participating and by watching
So I don't get offended by it as I think it's their right to do what they need or want to do and for a few it was a way to make money. In the Olden days of theatre men had to dress as girls for practical reasons as women were not allowed on the stage. The tradition of men cross dressing for laughs is well known or centuries
Maybe it's had its day now especially if you compare it to black face but it should not be banned it should just slowly die out and fade away as tasted change in my opinion

I know a fair few gay men and I would say that in my experience quite a large proportion of them have quite repressive attitudes towards women. We smell, our bodies are repulsive ( yet our tits remain a source of endless fascination).

Anything to do with our reproductive capabilities is beyond the pale. They are convinced that all men are secretly gay, and that they'd be able to 'turn' your partner at a moments notice, thus able to not only rob women of their dignity but their sexual attractiveness.

Of course I know gay men who are not like that, but these attitudes contribute largely to why I am in no way a fan of drag.

I understand that gay men are oppressed by heterosexual norms but their privilege as men means that they are still punching down when performing in drag. It feels very much like ridicule to me. Women have been force fed the idea that we are the gay man's best ally when in my experience we are largely an irrelevance to them.

*Nitsandwormsdodger
*
The "olden days of theatre" were completely dominated by men. They didn't dress up as women for "practical reasons", ( which makes it sound like they just couldn't find any women interested in it) -they did it because they deemed it "inappropriate" that women take the stage at all because women wouldn't understand the grand art and weren't capable of enacting it. ( Upstart Crow pokes fun at this very adroitly).
So you could say that dressing up as women for entertainment comes very much from a place of male entitlement and misogyny.

In this example, gay men are considered more oppressed/marginalised than the white, heterosexual and usually middle class women who complain about it

When it comes to misogyny, which is the tool in use here, it's women who lose out every single time.

If there was a similar 'art' which was used to pilliory men I might see it more easily, but there really isn't. So, once again, the group who perpetrate most oppression get away with it and set their victims to arguing between themselves about who has/had it worse and why they should put up with it.

I wouldn't make too many assumptions about the straight, white, middle class bit, either.

It does feel like women’s rights are being eroded in several instances - some obvious, and some not so much. One issue currently having me question whether discrimination against women is taking place is the bizarre ‘rule’ (during Covid) that as a man you can visit a barber and have your beard trimmed, yet if you’re a woman you can’t visit a beautician to have a facial. Despite the government having been challenged on this, I’ve yet to hear a valid explanation. Arguments against drag have been raised previously, but are brushed off saying women are being ridiculously hysterical and silly.

Dame Edna Everage used to give me nightmares as a child...

I've never seen Drag Race, but did see an episode of Celeb Masterchef the other day and had a drag act person on. Baga Chips I believe. What did strike me though was they used her/she to refer to them. Is this also common in the drag world?

I suppose that was because they came on ‘in character’.

Why do that - because you would expect a drag act to mess about, make jokes about sausages and not take it very seriously. So were they seriously in a competition or just showcasing their act?

Well, for starters drag isn’t mocking women.

So a MAN, caked in makeup, an OTT wig, dressed like the very worst caricature of an 18th Century hooker, saying phrases like "fishy" to refer to body parts that they don't have, isn't mocking women?

So what are they doing then?