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.

Yeah, sure you are 🙄

Care home patients who likely grew up with Danny La Rue, John Inman, Dame Edna, Lily Savage....

I assume you know the difference between a Trans person and someone in Drag?
Yes drag artists (and they amazing artists) do perform in care homes.. many years ago I used to work in one and we’d have a drag artist a couple of times a year, was always well attended and the residents did have a choice about if they wanted to watch it or not.
been watching Drag with my DSC for years, now they’re older we do go to some of the more adult versions - but the jokes are no worse than some end of the pier shows my mum and dad used to take us to told by “household name” comedians

What an ugly post.

Sure I am what?

Why? If all parents have a problem with it it, it will die out pretty quickly. Clearly many are OK with it in this form.

Again, totally missing the point that gay men are men, and men historically have been responsible for the oppression of women.

And there is no intelligible reason for gay men to use gross and demeaning caricatures of women to express anything positive about male homosexuality.

And the gay men I know can't stand drag queen "culture", and agree with me that it's insulting to women and indeed, insulting to gay men as well.

Behind you .....

My kids are adults now but I was thinking this too about Mr tumble. Its been going on for years OP. Get over yourself and stop trying to turn it into something it isnt

I add Hinge and Bracket - my Nana's favourite.

🤣, yes, this was tongue-in-cheek. I'm not going to tack up Wanted posters for Mama G!

There were actually several women impersonating men who were very popular music hall acts in Victorian times. From a drama history point of view, men were impersonating women on stage since Ancient Greece. Most of Europe accepted women on stage before England, and it wasn’t until the music hall era that women could impersonate men on stage without getting in serious trouble, but that’s a tangent too far. Vesta Tilley and Ella Shields are a good start if you want to know how male impersonators made a career.

Two things that are very relevant here are that toddler groups are a child + their responsible adult activity. It’s not drop and go. Any parent/carer is able to get up and leave at any point if they don’t like the performance.

And probably most importantly, if you want to see other types of guests at your library, volunteer! Encourage interesting people you know to volunteer! Reading to children or answering questions from children is rewarding work and libraries have limited resources.

Yes, those well known effeminate men in positions of power, can think of so many 🙄
And I must be imagining the discrimination and abuse of gay men historically, silly me.

Can you expand on “OTT about minorities or diversity” please.

I know, god forbid children are taught to respect and care for each other, that really would be going too far!

When my friends fiance passed away, he hired a drag artist for the celebration of life after the cremation.
I wouldn't say he toned down his act to be appropriate for the bereaved as there were young children there all while the skirt of his dress went up 'Marilyn style', to reveal a giant bush.

The kids didn't get the innuendos but it made me question if it was appropriate or not for children to be hearing/seeing what is meant to be adult content.

A friend of mine worked in the 'alternative' performing arts industry and she came across lots of wrongens in the form of drag entertainment and other things.

Child exploitation is rife.

Good point re volunteering. I should do this as I'm very grateful to have such a good library.

I agree re cross-dressing performances having a long history. Drag is a different from just cross-dressing in general though, it's a specific thing. A panto dame or Dame Edna etc isn't the same thing as a drag queen, just as a panto principal boy or for that matter Vesta Tilley (hasn't heard of Ella Shields, interesting) isn't the same thing as a drag king.

Incidentally, do pantos still do principal boy roles played by women? I've never been to one (My mother didn't like them so I never went as a child) and I know historically they did, but I read more recently that that's less common.

Cue the be kind, look at me, aren't I cool?mothers.

It's disgusting.

The OP’s post brought this article to mind. I agree, creeping normalisation of this is a slippery slope.
www.city-journal.org/article/the-real-story-behind-drag-queen-story-hour

But that particular "drag queen" was basically the same as a panto dame so...why did you feel the need to post complaining about it?

I don't think drag should be associated with kids. If his act for kids is essentially panto dame, he should bill as that for those kinds of performances. Otherwise it paves the way for bad actors imo, judging from articles I've seen about more worrying Drag Story Hours, let alone the strange & disturbing stories of preteen 'drag queens' like poor Desmond is Amazing

Oh of course, gays are special magic men who don't count as "real men", and therefore get a free ticket to mock and abuse women.

It's the usual expectation that women will be happy to play the role of "human shields" for every kind of male problem, and if we don't, we're "bigots" - and people like you will remain laughably blind to the irony of such a claim...

Dame Edna wasn't a drag queen. A drag queen is a specific type of female impersonator,, not just any man dressed as a woman. John Inman wasn't in drag on Are You Being Served- was he in some other thing?

I agree on Lily Savage & Danny LaRue though.

I would much rather listen to a man doing an over the top version of Beyoncé, than Micky Flanagan making every punch line about his wife’s nagging

You said yourself it sounded very panto like.

If it's not appropriate, parents can remove their kids and make complaints. The library should be vetting to make sure they're advertising to the right audience and ensuring it's appropriate for those they're marketing to.

I don't think changing the word "drag" in this scenario would make anyone feel better or worse about it tbh. It was a character telling stories to kids in a library. In national story telling week.