Drag Queen Storytime at my local library (photo attached)

[Carla786]

I had a lovely trip to my local library yesterday. Spent a long time there choosing books, basically the whole time there was a very noisy toddler event going on in the next room. I didn't mind, they host a lot of stuff for various people & that's good.

As I left, I looked at the posters of various things they were advertising. I saw one for 'Mama G', clearly a drag queen, which I photographed for identification purposes. I thought this nonsense of drag story hours might be quietening down, but clearly not at my library. I'd never seen them advertise anything like that before 🤦‍♀️

Checking the photo when I got home, I saw the event had taken place that day, while I was choosing my books. I wasn't listening particularly hard, but from what I heard it sounded more like a 'panto dame' style event than anything sexualised. It still seems odd and inadvisable though. If a drag Queen wants to do panto style entertainment for kids too, he should have a separate line in that, rather than mixing it up. 'Drag queen shows ' are by nature sexual and adult, so 'drag queen' shows blur boundaries whatever the content/intention.

Nah, your comment was based on "Men are free to mock and abuse whoever they wish, and women should suck it up, and those who don't are bitches who deserve even worse."

Or say a postal worker, police officer or fire officer. I'm sure these services could spare an hour for someone to read stories.

Seems like I've touched a raw nerve. (Sgwn i pam?). The repeat bookings don't mean a thing apart from it being a mutually beneficial thing for the drag queen and the staff who misguidedly think it's cool and inclusive. And of course there will be lesbian, gay and bisexual people in care homes. Many don't conform with regressive stereotypes, including that being LGB means you're into entertainment based on mocking women and lame sexual innuendo. Drag is not representative of LGB people and those who actually like it are often straight. The idea that there is an 'LGBT+ community' is manufactured and is an example of forced teaming. Please follow your own advice and stop speaking on behalf of other people and assuming you know anything about their sexual orientation.

Yea, it's only hundreds of years old. We need to get on top before it lasts too long . . . . . .

I've heard Lily Savage, and Julian Clary, might be getting popular. We need to stop it before it starts. There's a new figure called Danny La Rue, it's all getting far too much.

I have no idea what's going on for you that you've interpreted my post in that way. It bears no resemblance to what I've written.
For a thread about libraries there's some questionable reading comprehension being demonstrated here.

I wouldn't approve of that at all. A pantomime is different somehow.

You think I'm patronising because I showed you up for commenting when you couldn't be bothered to read the thread? Surely reading the thread is basic manners? It's like standing around a group discussion, not listening to what anyone has to say and then monologuing your point because you assume that you're the only one worth listening to. And then complaining that the person who called you out on in was rude! I don't think you're someone I'm going to take advice about manners from, if that's how you treat people.

I know that drag was around in 70s etc (I think drag per se dates from late 1800s gay black men in New Orleans but I need to check that).
But drag is different from female impersonation, which is the hundreds of years old one.

I think also older 70s-style drag queens differentiated more between what was appropriate for different audiences. I'm sure I've read that Danny LaRue differentiated between his adult drag work and family-friendly panto stuff,,though I need to check this.

I'm reading your posts in which you insist that men should be free to mock and abuse women, on the grounds that some men (you claim) don't have a "power imbalance" with women, and therefore have a licence to present golliwog-style caricatures of women without this being offensively misogynistic.

And women who don't accept this should "live and let live"...

Panto style you say as in when men dress up as female main characters?

I saw the documentary Paris Is Burning a while back, about a community of black drag performers in 80s US. It was interesting and I didn't get the sense the impersonation was done to mock women. Similar with Danny LaRue, from what I know about him.

I wonder if the catty, bitchy, hypersexual performances many do now are influenced by the TV show?

Dydych chi ddim wedi - rhagdybiaeth ryfedd i'w gwneud.

I have mentioned upthread that I work with care homes and people like the performances, sorry that you don't, but you're not in those care homes are you?

You've got lots of mixed and muddled assertions in your response to me, so I don't really know where to start with responding to be honest. I never said anything about anything being representative of anything else. I said people enjoyed it - you can't police that, in case you didn't know - and they did.

I made the point that people from all shapes, colours and flavours - and interests - are in care homes. It's nor forcing an agenda. It's entertainment. Most OAPs know that - I guess the maturity of age.

'Forced teaming'? Sorry I don't speak in over-therapised language. If you meant to say that there is an implication of manipulated bonding then you can just say that.

I am not assuming anything on other people's sexual orientation - I bet everyone you know is as a dry as a cracker though, Whoops! I assumed!

I know Mama G personally. They are a wonderful performer and a wonderful person.

It is no different to a panto dame which no one seems to have an issue with.

Of all the things you care about and this is it. Shame on you.

Dunno why they can't just call it panto then.

John Inman would often dress up as Mrs Humphries, his own mother, and was regularly dressed in an overly effeminate, almost female way. As well as dressing up as a woman to get rid of the new sales assistant they didn't like and going to a party with Mrs Slocombe whilst dressed as a woman. There were probably more. Captain Peacock also dressed as a woman at one point too

Let alone the fact John Inman was also a well known panto dame (which isn't so far removed from drag queens...)

Pantomime is absolutely for kids, pantomime dames are funny, kids find them funny, there is innuendo, but its harmless. It similar to "adult" jokes in kids cartoons - something to amuse parents, but to go over heads of children.

Pantomime is kind of like drag but not the same as it evolved from the ancient street theatre and not from the night club/ carnival scene like drag. Men have been dressing up as women on stage since the stage was invented - its a performance it was done primarily for the comical effect (and sometimes because women were not allowed to preform).

I personally think Drag Queens are fun. They are not for kids, and they are generally entertaining. For some people on here saying they make fun of females - isn't it in the same way, for example, Cathy Burke or AbFab make fun of females - is it that bad? Yes its sexual, yes its rowdy - but all the acts I've seen were really funny. Also, drags are generally "in character" when performing and without make up are male and act male (maybe gay male but still male).

I do agree that mixing sexualised characters dressed inappropriately and children should not be allowed. As well as promoting anything sexual to children - its child abuse, pure and simple.

But the drag artist in OP's port is simply a pantomime dame, a cartoonish character like a mascot - and I cant see what the problem is here.

I really hope he doesn’t get to see this thread.

My point is why do they need to dress as a woman to do it?

These 2 are in my local panto every year. Always good fun and appropriate for children to watch. For the last few years they have also done a separate adults only panto.

Gay men, especially feminine gay men, were marginalised, but not because they were men, and they still had privilege on that account.

I think you've hit one big issue I have with drag which is that the character seems to take over the man's life. See pp on page 1 I think who says she knows Mama G and refers to him as 'she'. The worst example of this I've seen is when poor The Vivienne from RuPaul's Race died young. He was referred to as 'she' and Vivienne in the obits even though he was referred to as 'he' and 'James' by his grieving family and boyfriend, the people who actually knew and loved him rather than the character.

I think a big issue is when the drag queen becomes referred to as 'she' in everyday life. Lily Savage, Danny LaRue'z characters etc were clearly characters,,and they did not call themselves 'she' in ordinary life. I think doing that blurs dangerously into trans people pressuring others to use incorrect pronouns.

As a kid in the 90s I remember loving the time Matthew Corbett in Sooty was Sue Preem.

I saw LOADs of pantomimes

I found it funny. I wasnt confused. I understood it as I understand any acting/drama/dress up

Matthew Corbett was wearing a ladies dress and being funny because he likes that I find it funny. Didn't overthink it or worry in the slightest.

If someone dressed as the gruffalo was reading stories and telling jokes no one would care..

That sounds brilliant! I wished we had something like this where we live...

What a silly, childish comment.

Do you remember the whole scandal about Sooty and Soo not being able to touch each other?! He couldn't have a girlfriend on TV!

God it's depressing to see how we've really not moved far past that point!!