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

This is exactly how I feel. I've been reading a book called Yellowface about a white woman writing a book about the Chinese community and there's uproar from the Asian community (in the book). Same with Rachel whatshername who said she was black. What exactly is the difference?

I find it boring and cringy. Not funny at all. The types of people who find it funny are also the types who find mrs browns boys funny.

I voted YANBU. There are a few drag acts I used to enjoy. But those guys were funny and talented in general and had developed a persona , often based on a somewhat affectionate take on older women.

Thinking Danny La Rue , Dame Edna , Lily Savage. There weren't claiming to actually be women. That was kind of the point.

Not this ' its just like Panto Dames ' bit again please.

Danny la Rue played both Panto and drag and said they were completely different forms. Drag is Adult Entertainment. Nobody ever mistakes the Ugly Sisters for women - not even 5 year old children.

I don't mind it because it's just another form of entertainment. They still know they are men, they are not intentionally trying to pass for women, and it's not supposed to be real life. I don't enjoy though. It's just not my thing. I did like Lily Savage when I was growing up.

Are people really saying that "fish" is about catfishing? Seriously?

It seems impossibly naïve but apparently, yes.

Do drag queens go and read at residential care homes?

I feel indifferent to it. I don't, however, feel it mocks women. I think it's a pastiche of campness – to be overly theatrical and flamboyant. They aren't supposed to look like women, they are supposed to look like drag queens.

I enjoy it, I think it’s fun, entertaining and not very serious.

They sometimes do drag bingo events at a residential home for adults near me.

That was a reply to @mumda but the quote didn’t work 🙄

Straight women, for whatever reason, arrived at a situation where they degendered gay men in their dynamics together and began occupying gay spaces. To these women, the kind to hold their hen dos in gay bars, gay men became commodified and almost seen as "not men". But it's worth remembering that all men, irrespective of sexual orientation, can show misogyny, and that by appropriating we invite appropriation in return.

Yes, we have drag bingo at my grandparents home. Its very popular.

But crack on with your insidious suggestion and spit it out. Go on, be brave. Say it.

Incorrect. HTH.

I don't enjoy it. I find it insulting. Hearing Michelle Visage accusing women of being transphobic if they don't like drag was the nail in the coffin for me.

It's a theatrical performance nothing more nothing less but the screaming transphobeandhomophobes will make a mountain out of a molehill.

Drag queen story time with children is weird. Drag is adult “entertainment”. Involving children in that in any guise is wrong.

you don’t have to be brave to say it, it’s not an edgy take.

@Longagonow96
"It's a theatrical performance nothing more nothing less but the screaming transphobeandhomophobes will make a mountain out of a molehill."

OK. Why is it transphobic or homophobic to have issues with drag? And could you tell me how you would explain the play on words in Cheryl Hole to a 10 year old?

Thanks. I think my opinion is valid thanks. Generally drag can be funny. I am not keen on some of the extremes and at the margin it can be offensive. That though is pretty much a summary of all types of comedy.

It's not just one thing or the other though.

Some drag is reverential and some is plain old misogyny. Some I find hilarious and some is crude and offensive. Though like some people are offended by that IT crowd episode of whatever, its okay to be offended. Watch something else.

It’s really not. The ‘Widow Twankey’ character in panto is not supposed to be seen as female most a particular type of costume.
I don’t like panto either though…

Oh yes it is!

They looks scary and freaky to me. Like clowns.

Oh no it isn't