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.

What was the book? Inappropriate or just boring?

Something I'm wondering is why did the UK panto dame tradition start?

It began in the 19th century- women had been acting since the 1600s so it wasn't due to women not being allowed on stage. Why did it begin?

There's no similar tradition in other European countries, not as prominent anyway.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-story-of-pantomime?srsltid=AfmBOoq51FFe3EyYhcAo2e4YHG_KcKyvXe5j20E0dgFCIbKc5ATk27FN

Pantomime dames have seeped into other areas : eg. Frederick Ashton designed the ugly sisters in Cinderella, Widow Simone in La Fille Mal Gardee & I think maybe some others to be danced by men. In musicals, The Trunchbull in Matilda and Miss Hannigan in Annie often get played by men.

In a way that annoys me more. Pantomime traditionally at least had principal boy roles for women to shine in too. But taking older women's roles in other art forms is another matter

Mumsnet terf logic:

'its impossible to be born in the wrong body, because gender is a social construct that no one has to conform to. Also any man who is interested in anything stereotypically feminine is a misogynistic autogynophilic sexual predator who should be banned from being around children'

It was a fairly family show and being shown again at 3pm

Not some secret adult entertainment

Peter Pan is still played by a young woman sometimes. Paddington is a female inside the boy bear.

Gender swapping happens to the point we've had a female Jesus and a female Dracula

Trunchball in both films was played by a woman but the male casting on stage is to help add to her "scary" and "intimating" presence and Miss Hannigan is occasionally played by a man but very often is not

But musicals are still theatre. And theatre defies gender norms since Day One

Cross dressing is a grand old British tradition in fact

Search almost any British actor and "in drag" and you'll find them dressed as a woman.

I saw the most amazing performances of Matilda the Musical in November and yes Trunchbull was played by a man. He made the role his own. The very best Trunchbull I have seen.

Oh and a curve ball last year I saw a performance of A Christmas Carol and Scrooge was a woman!

It's a cheap & lazy way to get a laugh.
It's tired and has run its course.

Female actors got to play the "Principal Boy" for the titillation of Victorian men at a time when exposing an ankle was deemed shocking.

I'm not opposed to sex swapping for roles sometimes but I think it's wrong when juicy roles for older women which are thinner on the ground generally, are habitually taken over by a man. Glad that's generally not the case for Miss Hannigan.

Re the Trunchbull, why can't a woman play 'scary' and 'intimidating'? Dahl wrote the character as female, after all.

I agree re the titillation aspect but the role isn't simply someone to be leered at. Entertainers like Vesta Tilley, Ada Reeve or Nellie Farren were widely known as talented performers, not just pin-ups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principalboy

As I said in earlier post, if it were solely a sleazy role to be leered at then the royal Family, certainly concerned with respectability, wouldn't have let Princess Elizabeth be the principal boy when during the war they put on Cinderella.

That's true, but it's also true it was a good way for many women to establish a name for themselves and earn a living as comic performers. There were very famous and successful female variety show performers at a time when most other avenues were closed to women. They were regarded as talented and funny. And there were cases of all female acts where some or all of them were playing men. Plus variety show.performances.etc were usually attended by men and women. It wasn't a closed male gaze only space.

Men find every damn thing titillating apparently. If you aren't careful you can end up disregarding everything women do artistically because it appeals to the male gaze one way or the other.

God, it must be exhausting to be this uptight

Great post. I agree that just because a woman's performance was sexually titillating to some degree doesn't mean the whole tradition etc should be thrown out with the bathwater.

The last sentence in your post makes me think about some research I was doing about film & literature by and about lesbians historically. Both historically and now, there's been worry over whether lesbian writers & directors are compromising to play to male titillation (take the pioneering film 1930S German Madchen in Uniform, originally called Yesterday and Today but renamed by the male codirector to draw in a male audience 🙄). This can often be the case to some extent, but it doesn't automatically mean the whole work is compromised. I think that applies to women's work more generally.

Are you a drag queen by any chance?

It's not about being uptight.

It's about knowing about men and their motivation, particularly the ones who seek access to other people's children.
This is a normal concern for any parent who doesn't put being seen as progressive ahead of their children's best interest.

Drag queens need to make up their mind about what drag really is.
For most people it is adult entertainment, which by definition is not suitable for children, and which begs the question:
"Why do some drag queens specifically target children through "Drag Queen Storytime"?

When supporters argue that it's no different to the panto dames, I believe them.
I don't think either are suitable for children.
I find modern panto dames creepy as hell.
They bear no resemblance whatsoever to the first panto dames.
Most of them are drag queens now anyway.

It also doesn't help that drag queens have been convicted of molesting small children, including at a Drag Queen Storytime event in 2019.
Tatiana Mala Nina / "Bad Girl Fairy Queen") (aka Albert Garza) sexually assaulted an 8-year old boy at a Houston Public Library.

Popular German drag queen “Jurassica Parka” (such a nice child-friendly name) aka Mario Olszinski was convicted of distributing child pornography
in 2023.

Drag queen Christopher Jan Laudato Wicker was sentenced to 10 years in jail for raping a 12-year-old girl.

Drag queens have evolved from the comparatively quaint female impersonators of the sixties, such as Danny la Rue, to the hyper-sexualised misogynistic performers of today.

Some gay men think they have a free pass when it comes to misogyny -
they don't.

I thought that about some of the criticism of Chapel Roads outfit. As a rule, it is icky to see award shows where all the men are suited and the women in very skimpy clothes. I think in showbusiness women often are pressurised to show flesh/look sexy to do well. And that's wrong and unfair. I don't like the idea that "because a woman does it it's automatically empowering". But in Roans case the outfit was so extreme it was sort of funny. She so clearly isn't someone who dresses for the male gaze as a rule (it often comes across as quite aggressively anti male gaze). So it felt like an odd criticism to make.

What? Why does that post mean I must be a drag queen? 🤣

I'm biologically female and very happy to be so

Hmm...I like her songs. I'm a bit ambivalent about other stuff she's done (the drag queen look for one thing) but I agree her image doesn't exactly seem like she's playing to the male gaze.

Thank you for this post. Very disturbing information.

Re this : Tatiana Mala Nina / "Bad Girl Fairy Queen") (aka Albert Garza) sexually assaulted an 8-year old boy at a Houston Public Library
How was this able to happen? Why were the librarians leaving children alone with this person?

Googling, it seems no assault took place at the library, thank goodness. The issue was that the library invited him to read, apparently unaware he had assaulted an 8yo child in the past. Unbelievable...

https://www.newsweek.com/sex-offender-busted-drag-queen-who-read-book-children-city-library-1365384

Yes, go ahead. Accuse women with legitimate safety concerns of being 'uptight'.

You're going all out to justify drag queens being allowed to do child-specific events - that's why.
That's odd behaviour for a woman in my experience.
Women usually put children's best interest ahead of unrelated males' desires.

You're muddying the waters with long-winded explanations of Victorian theatre traditions (so not a very old tradition in the end) in an attempt to downplay concerns about grown men in frocks specifically wanting to target children.

I think the whole idea is a bad one from start to finish and I think it has damaged the public opinion of drag queens as a result, so I don't see why any drag queen would want to be involved in the first place.

It's a bit like a certain comedian who was very funny until he started going into women only spaces. That kind of behaviour changes perspectives.

There's a very thin line between funny and creepy.