Will there come a day when Drag Acts will be seen in the same way as Black and White Minstrel shows are today?

[lolaflores]

Frankly, I am getting a bit sick of them. The more I watch of Drag Race etc. the more convinced I am that they are a puerile cover for hating women, degrading them and not in anyway a vehicle for celebrating womanhood.
All drag is is a man showing women he can be a better, more perfect woman than could ever be.
Using words like fishy, fish sauce, cunty, etc. Bitch this, bitch that. So on.
Bit over it now.

When I look at young women/teenagers with their painted eyebrows, eyelashes and pout mouth all I can think of is drag queen look. There is no need for all this makeup! Think of the money they would save!

Drag is all about stereotypes and not the most flattering either. Sneering, snarling women with an air of despair about them. Lashing out at the world through cynical eyes and brittle one liners.
I don't see them as liberated but locked into a very constricted view of femininty that isn't relevant anymore.

I would love drag to be an extension of masculinity. Sadly, I think this is not what it is.

I think the word 'drag' is the problem though. Coupled with 'queen'.

Anyone can see this.

There are drag Kings but it doesn't seem to get the same coverage.

I cannot see any difference between drag and the black and white minstrels. I've always hated drag. These men are parading as caricatures of women. Why wouldn't that be offensive?

I don’t like drag, and I never have. For years the fact I didn’t like drag made me feel uncomfortable because I didn’t know how to articulate what I didn’t like. I wondered if I was just a boring stick in the mud who couldn’t appreciate something which pushed boundaries, or worst still, was my dislike rooted in homophobia? It wasn’t until fairly recently when I came across the term woman face that the penny dropped, I don’t like drag because i feel like it mocks me, and by extension all other women.

I’ve seen vintage footage of minstrel shows. I’m not talking about the black and white minstrel show, which bad as it was was a watered down, British version. I’m talking about the authentic, early twentieth century US blackface. In spirit those shows, with their over the top depictions and stereotypes, are not a million miles away to modern drag.

“When he wears drag, he is still a man. He doesn’t believe he somehow becomes feminine or is parodying women.“

But he is parodying women. Whatever he believes.

What does woman face mean? I have never heard that.
Drag is parody. Not in.more nuanced than that.

Woman face is used in the same way ‘black face’ describes white people colouring their faces to play a caricature of a black person.

How can drag not be a parody of women?

Many people already view them as the same mockery as a minstrel show.

I think drag can be clever and entertaining without mocking women, but to do drag like that takes effort and nasty, mocking drag gets cheap easy laughs. So unfortunately you end up with more of the latter. I'd like to see that become unacceptable and vanish.

I hope not, though I admit I don’t know the extremes mentioned on this thread and I think I’d dislike them.

Done properly and cleverly, it’s good entertainment: the pantomime Dame is always one of the most popular characters.
But then, that does rely on the skill of the actor.

“Done properly and cleverly, it’s good entertainment:”

You could say the same about the Black and White Minstrels..........