If you enjoy drag, to ask why?

[ForestGoblin]

I don't get it at all. It looks to me like a crude mockery of women. Even on the presumably somewhat sanitised RuPaul, the word for a "realistic" (ie could pass as a woman) drag queen is "fish"... A reference to being so womanly it's as though they have a vagina. I feel like they hate women and are performing all the things they find ridiculous about us in a really hammed up way. Making us seem bitchy and preening.

Also, more fundamentally, I don't understand the entertainment factor of "oh haha it's a man who looks a bit like a lady haha he's in a dress haha". So? On which note, how on earth are the lady boys of Bangkok still going strong with their tour. Don't give me oo the costumes and skillful songs and dances - as if people would go to see "the costumed dancers of Bangkok". There's some wow factor to seeing "ladyboys" specifically.

But loads of my friends love it. So it can't actually be as bad as I think. (Can it?)

Yanbu - drag is offensive to women or just not entertaining

Yabu - drag is awesome

I believe Cheryl hole was in a drag girl group version of girls aloud so the name is a spin on Cheryl Cole.

@forgotmyusername1 I think that makes the name even more offensive - that it riffs on the name of an actual woman. Urgh

It's nothing to do with men wearing dresses and makeup. It's about the "fish" attitude.

I don't get the over the top clothes but there is something to be said with Grayson Perry's attitude of I am who I am accept me as that or not

I respect that more than people who play mind games

So why hole, and not pole, mole or role then? It's pretty obvious isn't it.

I don’t know much about Grayson Perry but generally I quite like him.

I agree that “fish” is disgusting and am glad it’s been banned from RPDR. That it took the first female contest for that to happen is a miserable indictment on the show-runners.

@Underthelightofthefullmoon

Yes, or even "parole", referencing her antics with the toilet attendant

But not all drag has the “fish attitude”. Condemning all drag because some of it’s like that feels like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Agree with most other posters that drag is horrible, offensive and women-hating. I used to be able to enjoy the odd talented performer up to a point. Like Lly Savage and Hinge & Bracket (and Edna Everage of course). But now the misogyny has been ramped up by the aggressive pretence that men can actually be women just by donning an intensly sexualised "woman costume" - and by the insistence that the sexual exhibitionism in many drag acts is completely acceptable in all sorts of contexts where sexual exhibitionism would not normally be appropriate.
And at the same time that all this has been happening, drag is somehow being presented as progressive, rather than a throwback to male-dominated TV light entertainment in the 1970s.
It pisses me off that so many brilliantly funny women never got a real chance at success in TV comedy until recent years, while male entertainers (Dick Emery, Les Dawson) and all-male comedy teams (the League of Gentlemen, Monty Python) were happy to drag-up and parody womanhood rather than being open to the idea of, you know, an actual woman colleague.
And now that actual women are able to occupy more space on stage, male entitlement has gone into an anxious overdrive, demanding more and more space for they themselves to be a woman on stage. Just to keep things fair for them.

Drag isn't inherently misogyny. It isn't about men mocking women atleast not anymore. It is often about exploring and mocking the concept of gender today. I mean sure there is misogyny that crops up just like all other comedy unfortunately. Drag Kings are an increasingly common thing though.

It is crass and it is meant to offend (note the tasteless names) and tbh I don't find it that funny alot of the time, but can appreciate the artistry and I appreciate the creative outlet and confidence building it has given some of my friends.

Honestly the comparison to blackface is just gross and all the "omg why should we say she" comments are just silly.

I've been involved in a lot of pantomime and I think many performers draw a clear line between daming and drag. While there is some crossover between the two, and many pantomime dames in recent years have veered towards drag, the two things are not the same, not least because of the gender role-swapping that you find in every pantomime. It might not be panto without a dame, but nor is it a traditional panto without a principal boy played by a women.

There is, at least traditionally IME, something benevolent about the dame character that I don't see in drag. This is why the ugly sisters in Cinderella aren't considered by some purists as dames - they are baddies, and the dame is always a goodie!

What I don't like about the drag acts I've seen - mostly on TV I will admit - is how sly and nasty and bitchy the "humour" often is. I couldn't watch Drag Race because I found it incredibly offensive, just horrible, regardless of the costumes. If it really is about that, why can't they be alter egos of their male selves, dressed up, rather than horrible pastiches of surgically enhanced women.

I think Dame Edna or Lily Savage or Mrs Doubtfire were closer to the traditional dame than to today's drag acts, and maybe that's why I did not find them offensive.

The only form of drag that I find acceptable is the sort you'd find at Santa Pod. Even that is as dull as watching paint dry (well, if paint were somehow particularly noisy). If you find trouble getting to sleep one night, fire up one of their many archived livestreams on youtube and you'll be snoozing away in no time.

When I lived in Brighton year after year there would be adverts for the "Lady Boys of Bangkok" and a big tent thing erected for their shows. Year after year I wondered why this was seen as acceptable in a city which saw itself as particularly liberal. To me drag is the same blackface which wouldn't have been accepted in Brighton even fifteen years ago.

I really like Grayson Perry as a person, if you watch any of his TV shows (Art Club etc) he comes accross as an incredibly intelligent, joyful and kind man

The fact he enjoys wearing dresses on occasion is a fairly minor aspect of his personality. He has never suggested that he is anything other than a man who sometimes likes to wear a dress.

Surely if you are gender critical then you should be accepting that some people don't conform to the stereotypes imposes on them by their biological sex. We all seem to agree that it is fine for women to wear clothes that are stereotypically male so why is it automatically offensive for a man to wear clothes that are stereotypically female (dresses, high heels etc)?

@UltramarineViolet Why are you talking about Grayson Perry in a thread about drag?

I understand it is supposed to be “gay men emulating women with respect, admiration and gentle fun-poking” but I just don’t believe it is. I don’t believe there is respect or admiration there.

There was a trope in the 90s and 00s - movies etc - of women finding themselves/finding their sisterhood through the support of drag queens, and it made me deeply uneasy.

It's a good point re the massive sexualisation, I'm not sure when exactly or why that changed, but it makes a massive difference.

It used to be that drag had innuendo for sure, but that was only one minor aspect of the drag queen's performance or "character".

Now it seems that the sexualisation has become the focal point, and I don't know why this has happened.

Drag acts used to be comedy acts first and foremost, and the costumes used to be almost willfully slapdash. The drag queens get up and its OTT, clumsy look poked fun not just at society but also at the perfomer themselves, there was almost a self deprecating edge to it. But these days I feel the comedy has been stripped back, the emphasis is on sexuality, and theres definitely very little self deprecation. It would very interesting to see why and when this shift happened.

Finally, it can be interesting to reflect on:

1. why drag Kings are much, MUCH less popular and mainstream than drag Queens
2. why straight men aren't as interested in drag as straight women

It doesn't mock the concept of gender though. If they wore the fabulous costumes and make up and did some cockney geezer shtick with no mention of she or women then maybe that would be mocking gender but it's just more bad stereotypes of what women 'are like'.

I always found the 'fishy' thing deeply disgusting. Do they know that women's vaginas don't naturally smell like this? So fishy isn't praise at all, it's a sign of something not quite right, but on Rupaul's show they seemed to think it is high praise whereas it just smacks of teenage boys being crude.

I have seen many types of drag queens and some are excellent and very talented when performing, or doing say a Cher or Madonna act. It's done with skill and respect. They don't deliberately say offensive things, that's not the whole act. I have seen others who think the more offensive they can be, the better their persona/drag and the funnier they are. They are not funny at all to me. Just old hat and washed up. These are the type who just push stereotypes against women, yet would be up in arms if I came at them with a stereotype of gay males. The best drag artists I've seen are the ones who dress themselves in a flattering way with hair and make up skills and who can actually sing or dance. The worst just stand there in OTT make up and ridiculous clothes and mock women for existing. Interestingly I have also seen drag kings perform and they don't attempt any of the bitchy 'humour' they are just telling funny jokes.

@CurlewKate sorry, it was a response to someone earlier in the thread who asked "what about Grayson Perry" - I should have tagged the poster in question

I have contributed to the thread already about my general feelings about drag

It was me who asked what we thought about Grayson Perry. I thought the connection was obvious.

I find it offensive. It is adult entertainment and has no place in the mainstream and especially not for kids.

Yes good point. I guess I've never really given it much thought before

When I queried "Cheryl Hole", the BBC said it was a "cheeky play on words easily explained in a family context". I have asked them how.

I dislike it and think it is anti woman.

Drag is rooted in misogyny though. It originated in theatre because women weren't allowed to perform. So mens did it instead. In America it came from blackface where white mean progressed from mimicking black face minstrels to blackface women.

It's history is rooted in levels of hate and the fact it's still allowed, as black face wouldn't be, deepens the breadth of misogyny that exists in modern society.

I hate it. I have a very low opinion of those who do it.

Pantomime, yes you could call it the same, but there are difference in the context of the performance and style that make it comical rather than offensive. And women always have the lead roles. It almost makes a mockery of patriarchy in theatre which I appreciate.

It’s offensive, and I boycott any venue that supports this so called ‘art form’.