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Original poster

Why so anti drag?

319 replies

nicetoseetgesunsout · 10/04/2023 16:44

I've just watched the Paul oGrady tribute programme and it brought me to tears.
He did so much for children and their families and for so so many animals, plus against social injustice for gay people and anti section 28, not being scared to raise its injustice on mainstream tv.
My 75yr old mum is very upset about his passing.
Why the hate for drag performers?
My children grew up with Boy George,Marilyn and Leigh Bowrie RIP as they are friends. My children (boy and girl, now a woman and a man) always knew that they were, and are, men and saw them without costume wigs and makeup.
I'm also friends with a married couple who were drag queens a long time ago. My children have always known that these guys are men, dressing up as women, as they liked to and it was entertainment.
No offence meant to women. They saw them dressed as their drag persona but also without costume and mostly as men.
One couple of ex drag queens I know are now a Director for a hospice and his husband is a social work manager. Reputable jobs, no desire to be women and have two cats who are their babies. Lovely men.
Pantos have always had men playing women but we all know that they're men. Shakespeare plays had men playing women - that's more offensive to me.
Female authors like SE Sinton wrote and published amazing books without her obviously female first names - as she couldn't get published otherwise. These upset me much more

OP posts:
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6
TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl · 11/04/2023 22:59

Newnamenewname109870 · 11/04/2023 21:11

I completely agree. Honestly I’m as feminist as anyone but there’s a point where you’ve got to draw a line and realise that nobody will ever be able to do anything. Man aren’t allowed to wear dresses because thats secretly showing that they hate women. Men can’t talk to women men can’t do anything that involves women because it must mean sexism. It completely ridicules all the valid points feminists make.

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Wow, what a way to spectacularly miss the point

Throckmorton · 11/04/2023 23:00

I don't like drag for the same reason I don't like blackface.

PlinkPlonkFizz · 11/04/2023 23:05

Apologies for not reading the entire thread but has Kenny Everett's Cupid Stunt been mentioned yet?

POG/LS was legend, never personally nasty that I know of but I'm sure he was no saint! I like some drag but the nastier misogynistic Ru Paul stuff is definitely offensive.

Inkblue · 11/04/2023 23:07

Pluvia · 10/04/2023 18:06

I'm a lesbian. A moderately butch lesbian. Short hair, checked shirt, jeans, boots. Clearly a woman, but not a woman in a push-up bra and a face-full of make-up. For years I attended Pride. For years I endured the insults of drag performers who, under the guise of humour, called me an ugly bitch among many other things. This was at Pride. Lots of drag queens are angry gay men who really don't like women.

You wouldn't black up and then, in blackface, insult the black people you were imitating, would you? Why is it okay for men to dress up as women and insult us? It's not.

That sounds utterly grim and I’m sorry you had to deal with that.

I’m not a fan of drag myself. I find the bitchiness unpleasant but also feel it is misogynistic. I take the point of the poster upthread who explains the history of it and how it is meant to be subversive but it’s not for me and I’m a tad baffled at the current popularity. It’s always been around but not so mainstream.

Lemonyfuckit · 11/04/2023 23:11

OhhhhhhhhBiscuits · 10/04/2023 16:55

Older style drag such as Paul /Lily was very much taking the piss out of themselves and others but in a non offensive way to women.

Modern drag in my eyes is very offensive to women ie. Fishy and the names they call themselves are horrific ie Anna Bortion, Annie Rexic, Ginger Minge etc.........

This sums up why I don't like the vast majority of drag these days and don't really understand a) why it's so popular (Ru Paul's Drag Race) or b) why it's considered acceptable as 'mainstream' entertainment when it's so misogynistic. I see it as womanface. All the worst misogynistic stereotypes of women (bitchy slutty loud fishy slaggy slatternly screechy etc) and very focused on being overly porny / sexualised.

Granted I don't believe POG/Lilly Savage fall under this category in the slightest and I didn't mind his act. As others have said, there's a nuanced but nonetheless v clear distinction between the humour of acts such as Lilly Savage where the humour was in taking the mick out of themselves, and modern day drag where the 'humour' is in denigrating women as a whole. I genuinely don't understand why this isn't treated the same way we would anyone doing a black and white minstrel show - which we would rightly be up in arms about it being racist.

Vintagecreamandcottagepie · 11/04/2023 23:23

Men in women's clothes give me the creeps, especially when they're very obviously men. And especially when obvious men playing hideous women.

I liked paul o grady. When he was himself.

Lemonyfuckit · 11/04/2023 23:24

WinterTrees · 10/04/2023 17:18

The character of Lily Savage was a strong, sassy older woman that Paul O'Grady based on the women in his family - his mum and his aunties - Scouse women from a certain time who spoke their minds and stood up for themselves when it wasn't easy for women to do that. It was a parody, sure, but one that came from a place of affection and admiration, not objectification or disgust (for women's bodies - hence 'fish' etc) which seems to be the basis of most over-sexualised drag now.

The object of the joke was men not women, which was funnier and less cruel because everyone knew that it was being made by a man. And it was clever and incisive, like all the best comedy, not just shocking or crude.

Exactly this. The joke was told by a man and men were the object of the joke. His admiration for the women he had based the character on was evident.

That is a completely different scenario to men (drag queens) making (usually utterly humourless) 'jokes' the object of which are women. Whenever the oppressive class makes the joke about the oppressed class (in exactly the same way as eg white people making jokes about black people via blackface) it's not only not funny it's offensive. And the jokes were all unpleasant stereotypes about women's bodies and characters.

Nanaof1 · 12/04/2023 06:49

Dungarees41 · 11/04/2023 21:36

Would it be okay then if a woman dressed up as an exaggerated stereotype of an effeminate, camp gay man and made offensive jokes about gay men?

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I'd like to hear an answer to that. To me, it doesn't matter if the man is gay or not; he is imitating what he thinks a female is and an exaggeration of how women behave and feel. Something he knows nothing about and will never know anything about. It's still MEN oppressing and denigrating women.

I bet fur would fly if women started dressing up like effeminate, campy gay men and exaggerated how "we" think they behave and feel. After all, it's just all in fun...correct?

margegunderson · 12/04/2023 09:15

Knullrufs · 10/04/2023 18:05

Drag has a long, rich and complex history within gay culture and a bunch of (largely) straight (largely) women are not the intended audience. There are many tropes within drag which are actually about challenging and subverting the kind of misogyny which drives homophobia. But the nitty gritty of the cultural context is so specific to gay men’s experiences that to an outside audience it appears impenetrable, open to misinterpretation, or even offensive.

Many gay men find the current feminist angle on drag-as-mockery perplexing because the idea that it is mocking couldn’t be further from their minds. Most drag personas are derived either from an aggregation of strong women in their own lives, or a kind of fantasy figure of a powerful, take-no-shit personality who nevertheless still holds appeal to men.

The naming conventions (punny stuff like Anna Rexia or Dixie Normous) are intended to be subversive, not funny. If you think it’s a joke, you’ve missed the point. Taking the kicking-down shit that women and gay men get from straight, patriarchal society all the time and making it into a name, a badge of pride, a bold performance, a two-fingered salute. It’s meant to be a fuck-you to the world, not a joke at the expense of women.

I do understand why some people do but personally I don’t see drag as ‘womanface’ because it suggests that there’s automatically something demeaning about being a woman; that there is something inherent in women that is there to be mocked. It feels a bit internalised misogyny to me. But as I say that’s just my view and I know many of you think differently.

Of course some drag acts are offensive but then there are offensive performers across all mediums. Finding an individual performer or performers offensive doesn’t automatically mean there’s a problem with the whole medium, or the entire culture.

I bet the Black and White Minstrels reckoned they were being respectful as well. If I as a woman think it's disrespectful and womanface, then it is. Surely?

midgemadgemodge · 12/04/2023 09:31

Morris dancing has a long rich cultural inheritance

Still don't do black face anymore

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 12/04/2023 10:05

roarfeckingroarr · 10/04/2023 17:24

Nothing wrong with drag

Big problems with drag queens in revealing, overly sexualised outfits, performing for children

I think this sums it up for me.

I'm amazed so many people can't see this is a problem.

Knullrufs · 12/04/2023 10:07

margegunderson · 12/04/2023 09:15

I bet the Black and White Minstrels reckoned they were being respectful as well. If I as a woman think it's disrespectful and womanface, then it is. Surely?

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You have reframed what I said quite cynically and disingenuously, Marge; I haven't talked about 'respectful'. That word doesn't appear once in my post.

But if you feel that drag is disrespectful then it is — to you. I'm not stopping you thinking that, or from complaining or campaigning if you think it's a problem. Crack on. I'm just giving my own contextualisation as to why it isn't an issue for me.

And no, personally I don't think the black and white minstrels worked to the same principle. I've explained why several times. There's a significant context of social history around the black community and the nature of blackface which is not the same as the social history around women and drag. (I'm not saying it's worse, or better; just different.)

But again, if you think it is the same, then I'm not stopping you. You do you.

midgemadgemodge · 12/04/2023 10:30

There is a social history of people in drag mocking women

I already posted acedemic articles about the misogyny of drag which you are happy to ignore

It is the same
And the deniers here are no better than the golliwog lady - not wanting to see and acknowledge their own misogyny

StormInaDcup99 · 12/04/2023 11:47

Old school drag i often found amusing.

Modern drag....i avoid like the plague...sexist, mysogynistic, cruel, extremely crude, not funny and so abhorrently sexualised

backinthestoneage · 12/04/2023 12:00

What people consider appropriate has now changed over time. Once popular comedy shows are now considered offensive.

People used to see drag queens like POG as very funny but now modern drag is in the eye of the social storm.

CurlewKate · 12/04/2023 12:03

Please can someone explain to me (factually and unemotionally) why drag and trans issues have become conflated?

MelchiorsMistress · 12/04/2023 12:09

Personally I just find it a bit creepy. The same way I’d feel uncomfortable being surrounded by people in any other type of disguise that hid who they really were and what they really looked like.

Lots of kids are scared of clowns or people in costume (I was one of them) and I can also remember being a bit freaked out by punks wearing loads of make up when I was a child of the 80’s. That feeling has just never left me and it includes drag queens. It how I felt even before I knew trans people existed.

Feeling creeped out by drag queens is nothing to do with being anti trans, it’s just a personal preference or it comes from a natural intuition to be wary of people when you can’t see who they really are.

DogFleece · 12/04/2023 12:24

CurlewKate · 12/04/2023 12:03

Please can someone explain to me (factually and unemotionally) why drag and trans issues have become conflated?

Stonewall, once the fight for gay marriage was won and they basically became obsolete, changed their direction and became a TRA loudspeaker.

As part of this new era they changed the definitions of transvestites, cross dressers, transsexuals, gender non conformity, to all be in one neat descriptor - Transgender.

Drag Queens are included under Stonewall’s trans umbrella, so are largely considered now to be trans and part of the “queer” community.

Tbh the umbrella is so ambiguous that anyone can identify as trans, or queer, which sums up the TQ+ and is why so many straight people are now part of the meaningless alphabet soup.

For some reason I can’t add the image, but if you google Stonewall Trans umbrella it comes up in images - it’s the purple one, with “cis” people out in the dark and dreary rain 😂

Baldieheid · 12/04/2023 12:27

The trans umbrella as defined by Stonewall is so fuzzy and ambiguous that I can't think of a single person I know who couldn't fit under it.

Original poster
nicetoseetgesunsout · 12/04/2023 12:29

Agree @LexMitior

OP posts:
CurlewKate · 12/04/2023 12:36

@DogFleece Thank you-that's very clear. It's good to see it expressed so well. I do wonder why drag and trans are so publicly linked- although I do understand the link that exists-and has existed - between gay men and drag.

CurlewKate · 12/04/2023 12:37

Incidentally, I have actually heard people defending the Black and White Minstrels as a celebration of black music. So that is a thing.

NightIbble · 12/04/2023 12:38

Those who don't think drag is ever suitable for children what about Mr Tumble?

MelchiorsMistress · 12/04/2023 12:40

Mr Tumble is a bit creepy too tbh.

Newnamenewname109870 · 12/04/2023 12:41

Dungarees41 · 11/04/2023 21:36

Would it be okay then if a woman dressed up as an exaggerated stereotype of an effeminate, camp gay man and made offensive jokes about gay men?

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I mean yeah that would be fine 🤷‍♀️

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