Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Drag is the Black & White minstrel-ism of today

651 replies

Taoneusa · 25/02/2021 15:28

How long before the appropriation and exploitation is recognised more fully ?

B&W minstrels were cliched, cartoonish, and “for entertainment”, as well, weren’t they.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
15
PheasantPlucker1 · 25/02/2021 17:26

A career mocking and ridiculing people?
How delightful.

So what were that mans intentions in re-enacting an abortion live on stage?

Liquorishtoffee · 25/02/2021 17:27

They aren’t the act who... nominative determinism? In no way hilarious or entertaining.

Notimeforaname · 25/02/2021 17:27

I absolutely dont see blackface as the same as drag. It doesn't compare in my mind.
I dont agree with blackface and I love drag.
That may be impossible for some of you to understand but that'll have to be your problem to solve or figure out.
I also have no problem with straight people playing gay parts or gay people playing straight parts.

Liquorishtoffee · 25/02/2021 17:30

I don’t like it. My sister used to be a king...

PheasantPlucker1 · 25/02/2021 17:30

I appreciate you have no problem, Im asking why.

One group of men put on makeup and impersonates a group they have historically opressed.

You find that hilarious.

If the same men then put on makeup and imprersonated another group they have historically repressed, you would be horrified.

Why?

StaciesSpace · 25/02/2021 17:32

[quote BrumBoo]@StaciesSpace

That's the most attention seeking and self validating thing I've ever heard. I actually can't believe it. Maybe get off this thread and stop complaining about things that have little affect on your life and involve yourself more with things that do.

Ah here's comes the melodrama. You haven't been on the internet long if that's how you feel about my post. Regardless, I'm a woman. Misogyny has everything to 'do with my life'.

It's not transphobic at all. Do you understand what transgender is?

I do. You evidently don't.

Drag acts don't pretend to be women, they are MEN in DRAG. They don't claim to change gender, they just play a role. Like actors do in movies.

They use female pronouns, and it is transphobic not to accept drag queens as a female side of that's man's personality. Again, perhaps brush up on what trans is dear. Everything comes back to gender ID. Why do they need to be women to play this role? What makes them 'women' when they put on makeup and wear their ridiculous outfits? If what they do is no big deal, why not say they're men when playing this role?

I'm not brainwashed unforunately sweetie, I just don't have a stick up my

Sure thing.

Blackface was solely about mocking black people and putting them down. That was the purpose and people didn't claim they didn't see colour. The entire thing with black face was that it was about colour.
Drag on the other hand is dressing up and showing your talents. The same as people did on The Mask

Really, for someone who hasn't got their head up their - the fact you cannot see the correlation between the B and W Minstrels and Drag suggests otherwise. The fact you regress it further for being 'like the Masked Singer' is utterly laughable. Last time I checked, people appropriate other singers though nasty stereotypes wasn't the name of the game.[/quote]
I don't want to even reply to you, but you don't understand what Transgender is. From someone who has experience working with trans youths, your words are very offensive.

Drag is performance art, like an actor. You don't change your real identity for it. Therefore they are men. Their gender identity doesn't change. They like different pronouns in drag because it's part of the role. The same way as you know Disney Worlds Mickey Mouse is someone in a suit, but you'd still call them Mickey Mouse (funnily enough, because of the height of the suits in WDW - majority of male characters are played by women!).

Trans is when you do not identify with your assigned gender. So were male, but now you are a female, regardless of how you dress. You are a different gender.

Many transgender people are also drag queens, they are not interchangable terms, but they can co-operate.

Notimeforaname · 25/02/2021 17:34

Because I dont think it's on the same level. How black people are/were treated vs how women are/were treated.

BrumBoo · 25/02/2021 17:37

I think Anna Bortion is a hilarious play on words, and idk if you know this but a drag queens name has nothing to do with their performance, it's just an attention grabber.

I'm going to start an act called Phil Mearse, where I play a gay man. I'll make jokes about how I shove tampons up my bum and how tena nappies are the way to go after all the action I get, being gay would make me such a man-whore. It's ok though, I will balance it out by wearing arse-less chaps, with tight t-shirts to celebrate that fantastic 'gay man look'. Or would that just be disgustingly offensive?

WowStarsWow · 25/02/2021 17:39

@StaciesSpace I’m going to help you out here (unless you’d rather have a spade to keep digging that hole). The attached images (from 2 different sources) show what falls under transgender nowadays. You’ll see drag is in both. You are wrong.

Drag is the Black & White minstrel-ism of today
Drag is the Black & White minstrel-ism of today
PheasantPlucker1 · 25/02/2021 17:41

NoTime How many women have been murdered by men this year?

BrumBoo · 25/02/2021 17:43

@Notimeforaname

Because I dont think it's on the same level. How black people are/were treated vs how women are/were treated.
@notimeforaname really? You really don't see how women were and still are treated horrendously in society? The rates we're murdered, abused, denied medical treatment, denied rights to our own bodies, sold into marriage, raped, forced into pregnancy, denied jobs just for being women, we were denied the right to vote, hold property, do anything without a man (and still is the case in many places), where even in modern day some women are denied the right to drive a car because they're women... it is shocking and severely disappointing that you don't recognise the severity of your own oppression just for being born female. You better start recognising it for yourself and others, because the rest of the world is very happy to pretend it's not happening on a huge and horrifying scale.
FrostyChocolateMilkshake · 25/02/2021 17:43

But RuPaul's Drag Race is incredible.

I've only ever known women on Mumsnet find drag queens offensive. Pretty much all my friends and female colleagues past and present love drag and watch shows like Drag Race religiously. I've never known anyone in real life be offended by drag queens.

PheasantPlucker1 · 25/02/2021 17:46

Glasgow Pride recently banned drag acts, as it was considered offensive to transwomen.

Im guessing the people complaining there probably arent mumsnet regulars

BrumBoo · 25/02/2021 17:46

@WowStarsWow, there's no point. I had a similar poster with the exact same foot stomping but about non-binary the other day. They don't want to hear how they're wrong even when the evidence is there. The whole 'umbrella' is actually just the snake eating its own tail...

Lollyneenah · 25/02/2021 17:49

I don't like it one bit.
I understand that for some men, their impersonations of women could from a place of love - admiring the divas like Mariah Carey or Barbra Streisand or Beyonce.

But let's say I love I as a Catholic admire the Jewish culture, to express the love I have I wear a black top hat and style my hair into ringlets running past my ears. Then I go one step further and make jokes about how much I love money and live for Friday night dinner.

Is that funny? Is that accepting of cultures and an art form?

No. It's horrific and I felt a bit disgusting writing it.

Fuck drag.

FrostyChocolateMilkshake · 25/02/2021 17:49

@PheasantPlucker1

Glasgow Pride recently banned drag acts, as it was considered offensive to transwomen.

Im guessing the people complaining there probably arent mumsnet regulars

Probably not but I personally don't know a single woman in real life who is offended by drag. Obviously there will be people who are offended by it, just as there are people offended by lots of other issues, but I don't know any.

I don't understand the anger surrounding drag queens to be honest 🤷‍♀️

draughtycatflap · 25/02/2021 17:51

Why you all gagging so? Drag queens bring it to you every ball darlings...

OKAYRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!

Notimeforaname · 25/02/2021 17:51

Yes I absolutely see how women were treated.
Did I say I didn't? I said I dont see it the same as what black people had to go through.

BrumBoo · 25/02/2021 17:52

Glasgow Pride recently banned drag acts, as it was considered offensive to transwomen.

As I said, the snake is eating its own tail. As with all belief systems, once they've done fighting everyone else, the inevitable is for the infighting to begin.....

Notimeforaname · 25/02/2021 17:52

You better start recognising it for yourself and others, because the rest of the world is very happy to pretend it's not happening on a huge and horrifying scale.

You better not be telling me how to think 🤣

BrumBoo · 25/02/2021 17:53

@Notimeforaname

Yes I absolutely see how women were treated. Did I say I didn't? I said I dont see it the same as what black people had to go through.
Not the same, no two oppressed groups have the same story. Just as bad though, some things that women went and go through simply are not comparable to other groups.
PheasantPlucker1 · 25/02/2021 17:54

Easy Frosty.

What i find offensive is the way it reduces women to stereotypes. Put on some makeup and heels and suddenly they want to be called "she" because the whole joke rests on the fact they are women now.

Then theres the nasty jokes, bitchy attitude, and the emulation of a charicature of what they imagine women to be like.

Women do not act the way these basement dwellers think we do, and its fucking vile.

If they wanted to carry on doing it without the simpering "Im a woman" bullshit thatd be fine.
But they remove womwn from the act, because the whole joke is at the expense of women.

Notimeforaname · 25/02/2021 17:54

I didn't pretend anything wasn't happening. I said I dont think its on the same level.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 25/02/2021 17:55

Glasgow Pride recently banned drag acts, as it was considered offensive to transwomen

Well perhaps if you consider 2015 'recently'. And that's not exactly what happened anyway. They decided not to officially invite any drag acts to perform, it wasn't a blanket 'ban'.

BrumBoo · 25/02/2021 17:57

@Notimeforaname

You better start recognising it for yourself and others, because the rest of the world is very happy to pretend it's not happening on a huge and horrifying scale.

You better not be telling me how to think 🤣

No, how you personally think doesn't change anything how women are treated and I wouldnt tell anyone how to 'think'. Many people can recognise misogyny, they just choose to ignore it for their own reasons. I can still point it out though and hope something sticks amongst the desperation to think that the men involved in drag have a single ounce of respect for women as a group in society.
Swipe left for the next trending thread