What do you think about drag shows?

[AWorriedMum]

Just as the thread title says, really. I have a relative who’s been to a couple of these. I’d just like to see what other posters impressions / experiences of these shows are like.

@EyesOnThePies so you think it’s ok for men to “celebrate being effeminate” by mocking and demeaning women? Why? Would you be ok with those men mocking snd demeaning any other group of people? If not, why not?

Apparently, within the drag community, a drag Queen who passes (for female) really well is called fishy. This is a misogynist slur, because what they are saying is that all women’s fannies smell of fish, so a ‘fishy’ drag Queen is so good at drag that they smell of fishy fanny.

No, I think it is possible that they mock the SUPPOSED ‘femininity’ of themselves.

I didn’t say that is OK (or not OK), and I don’t think mocking women is OK.

“we are mocked for being ‘effeminate’… so let’s celebrate that!’.”

As in ‘let’s celebrate the so called femininity that we are mocked for’.

I am appalled by them.
I hate how they are now considered mainstream, (masterchef, I'm looking at you), library's etc.

If a man wants to wear a dress and make up - go ahead, but drag queens reduce femininity to sexual innuendo.

Women are strong, capable people, not sexualised bodies for the entertainment of men.

So you think it’s ok for a group to mock another, More oppressed group just because they feel like it? Why? Would you feel the same about blackface? If not, why not?

I think it depends which show you go to. Some are offensive, some are trying to express and celebrate. There are female drag artist who portray men. They are called drag kings.

No. I don’t think it’s ok. I didn’t say it was.
My post wasn’t about whether it is ok or not but about what is or might be going on within the form of drag.

Ah, the old "women do it too" argument. I'd love to see some examples of women on the TV dressed as caricatures of men. Enormous cod pieces perhaps? Can't wait to see pictures of women celebrating masculinity.

I don't get them ... but each to their own regarding comedy.

They are fine occasionally but not thrust in my face every five minutes.

My DS2 has quite a few friends from all over the world who are drag queens, and the bar he works in has drag nights.

They are usually a good night out, but you do get some terrible ones , same as any show.

Always amazes me the transformation from quiet lad chatting to my DS to the beautiful creation that appears a couple of hours later. Some of those he knows are stunning and fabulous singers.

I don't get why it's ok. And I think if even a small subset of women think it's offensive then it's not ok, as would be afforded to any other protected characteristic.

I find it misogynistic, at best.

People say it is in a long tradition of Pantomime and that everyone loved it.

I was a child in the fifties. My grand parents, especially my grandfather, hated the pantomime dames. My mother and her friends disliked drag intensely, both on the stage and when done on television by ‘comedians’ . They were not ‘homophobic’ , although that term hadn’t really been invented, in fact my father had a friend who was a ‘confirmed bachelor’.

They didn’t like because for the same reason as I don’t like it now, because it mocked and trivialised women and the female experience.

Panto dame sort of thing - fine (like Craig Revel Horwood). A bit silly but essentially harmless in my view - and often amusing.

The type of sexualised tripe spreading around the country at the moment - definitely not fine. Wrong on many levels - the "woman face" aspect and also the fact that it is so sexualised - why would a parent think that was ok for a school aged child? And how on earth does it get past safeguarding checks for libraries etc?

I can't disagree with this, even though the panto dame side of it doesn't bother me personally.

I don’t agree with comparing black face and minstrel shoes to drag, I think that’s a weird conflation in white feminism and I do not agree with it. They come from very different histories, and comparing the struggle of white women to the struggle of enslaved people/black people is, at best, ignorant and at worst a little racist

I think your comment massively underplays the oppression that women have suffered through history at the hands of men. The treatment of many women has been just as bad as slavery. What is happening in Afghanistan now is shocking. What ISIS did (and does) to women was shocking. And closer to home, what happened to Sarah Everard and Emma Pattison is shocking.

Same. I find these performances weird and uncomfortable to watch

I've been to some that were knicker wettingly funny and some that were awful. It depends on the performer. Where I do draw the line is that they are adult only affairs. Certainly not for children!

@TeaGinandFags as someone who likes drag, would you go to a black snd white minstrel show? If not, why not? Just trying to understand why womanface is acceptable but blackface is not?

I’ve never been to a drag show just something strange and unsettling about it for me , feels like laughing at a parody of a woman, like we are all make up and dim, and I’ve no idea how they are becoming more mainstream I’ve never watched drag race I don’t find it amusing at all.

I've never been to a drag show and never would, however Kinky Boots is one of my favourite films, which probably makes me a big fat hypocrite. That film is a very toned down, funny look at the subject though.

I strongly object to it in anything but a purely adult environment because it is very much adult entertainment. I'm also wondering if there will be a backlash at some point and it will go the same way as blackface. One can only hope.

I loathe panto too for all the reasons, not just men dressing as women. I suppose that makes me very hard-core.

Op not been back to thank us for our contributions then? I wonder what they wanted and did they achieve it.

I think it's a bit outdated. I also think it was a way for some men to be freer than they could in daily life. Big, loud and colourful and flamboyant. I think 18thC dandies at court were a similar type, cruel wit, overly made up/dressed up.
Jokes and nasty wit almost exclusively adult content. Theatre, drag shows, pantomime dames. I agree it's more akin to clowning than anything else.