To wonder why drag queens have to do those stupid facial expressions

[deadloud]

The stupid 'sultry' porno face. Why do they do it?

Drag is the poignant expression of men's empathy fail and god complex.

Pathetic and offensive.

Many of whom have had to apologise for past representations, which were also funny at the time, now, not so much.

Hopefully drag will go the same way.

I don't think drag makes much sense any more. It originated in times when the sexes were rigidly defined, so it was subversive and gave those (men) who didn't feel they fit into the masculinity assigned to them a space to express themselves (along with a hefty dose of what we'd now call misogyny).

But now we have gender woo so there's no real division. Where's the line between a drag queen and a transwoman? Are they the same thing? If they are different, what makes them different? Society has moved on, but drag hasn't. Logically, isn't drag transphobic?

The forces which seem to sustain it in modern society are consumerism and misogyny. It's not political, it doesn't speak for women, it doesn't speak for gay men (who aren't oppressed and have legal equality) and it doesn't speak for transpeople. There's no reason for its continued existence.

I personally find drag dull and dated

I thought Walliams and Lucas had subsequently apologised for some of their roles? So there has been an acknowledgment that it wasn't appropriate.

I'm not holding my breath though, as obviously "just" taking the piss out of women is fine... as Ru Paul says so.

What other forms are there? I’ve only seen the porny look. Only one exception, is Dame Edna Everage.

All these examples of men aping women are
DISGUSTING
and
MISOGYNISTIC

they should be never shown again in civil society !!’

Drag is v non eco. Micro plastics. I get the same feeling when I look at drag as I do when I look as an old plastic lawn.

Is a man dressing up as a woman always drag? I wouldn't have realised that Les Dawson or Walliams/Lucas were in drag. Or Mrs Brown. I just thought that was male comedians acting as women (or trans women) as part of their act.

Drag seems something different to me. It's men dressing up in a ultra feminine way while still being men. I do find it very offensive to call it "fishy" though.

I actually find them really intimidating!

@shmiz ... ah, I see, you've added a 'z' onto the word hater, and somehow that means that we're now all in some subset of people who are "right on", and too politically correct to find crude impersonations of women funny. Very clever.

I'd really like to hear about all the female drag acts. So prominent that there is no tv show dedicated to them, or Friday night acts parading up and down clubs. It just happens that parodying men on the whole isn't considered that funny to the mainstream. Like people parodying white people wasn't considered hugely funny either... back in "the day".

@shmiz my sincere apologies- it wasn't your post!

@ToffeeNotCoffee - it was your post that my reply should have been aimed at.

Victoria Scone, one of the contestants on the UK version of drag race, is female.

Happy to help.

That's my view and my hope.

I find drag offensive.

Yup, hate it, find it all massively misogynistic and cannot for life of me understand why people recognise that black face is massively offensive yet cannot draw the same parallels with drag queens. Hear what you're saying with the BBC loving them for some reason can you just IMAGINE if they did a similar show to Ru Paul's drag race but for blackface?

True.
I was at a major shopping venue a few months ago and there were men dressed as oversexualised versions of “women” performing a Dance routine on a escalator.
They were ok but I don’t understand why not just use female dancers instead?

All these examples of men aping women are
DISGUSTING
and
MISOGYNISTIC
they should be never shown again in civil society!!’

How can you say that about a list that includes the magnificent, talented and very funny Hinge and Bracket? If you truly believe that Hinge and Bracket were "disgusting", I really think you need to go and lie down in a darkened room until you feel better.

Yes, I thought that poster was completely wrong
But now they have replaced an S with a Z on the end of a word it makes them look so much more educated and deserving of our attention

I heard Matt Lucas on a podcast making this very point, in a discussion about the blacking up he did in Little Britain etc.

He said that maybe drag will one day be regarded in the same way that blackface is, and reflected that their reasoning for doing drag and blackface at the time might have seemed logical, but it doesn't hold up now.

I have no idea why the mainstream have embraced drag.

I can hazard a guess, albeit it makes no sense to me, and, ok, sorry in advance for bringing the trans thing onto AIBU and not keeping it in the naughty corner. My guess is because people / the BBC / the mainstream whatever think that embracing drag shows how inclusive they are and what an ally to the LGBTQIA++++ queer community they are. And to criticise this on the grounds that it's misogynistic would probably get you tarred with the homophobic/transphobic brush, even though that's not even remotely the same thing.

It's an entertainment for men, by men about women.

I used to work for an HIV-focussed LGB charity back in the day. Interestingly a lot of the drag artists I met then seemed to really hate women. Lesbian women the most but the contempt for all women wasn't uncommon.

So yes, it was always deeply misogynistic

I have to say I used to love drag, panto dames and RuPaul's Drag Race, but in the last few years I've really gone off it all and find a lot of it offensive. It is woman-face, and whatever the history of it in gay rights, that's not a good reason to continue with it now.

The origins of it in panto are a bit different, I've not quite consolidated my views on it in that context yet. That said, it doesn't really matter - it wouldn't be the end of the world if panto evolved.

@JunebuginDecember. Brilliant, screeching women. Love a stereotype.

... as funny as a... mnnnn, drag queen 🥳