Drag Queen story time and The National Gallery

[NellieEllie]

Just spotted this. 30th June. The “gender fluidity of childhood”. Giving children “queer role models”. Good Grief. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/events/drag-queen-story-time-30-06-2019

Cripes is there some kinda push on drag queens at moment

They are scary to me and mos5 kids.

Are well
Don’t know what to say that kids need drag queens to be their go to identify with

What the fuck is all,this drag queen stuff at moment

I would never take my kids to this stuff. They would be so confused as why the fuck I though5 this would be fun for them

Some dudes in fancy dress.

There is role models I can choose for my kids and this is not it

Head explosion over 🤦‍♀️😂

mobile.twitter.com/NationalGallery/status/1142026888392712192

I'd rather my kids met a gay theatre dancer or nurse or a lesbian fire fighter or surgeon. A proper role model. Someone who's done something other than put on a dress after jumping in a vat of maybelline.

Drag acts can be entertaining, though recently I feel a bit uncomfortable with the whole pantomiming women thing. But I just can’t see why a man dressed as a woman reading to young children is seen as a good thing?

I too don’t understand why Drag Queens are seen as a role model for children.

Just why?

I wouldn't have let my children within 5 miles of this. I cannot imagine any parent would.

Still, I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to tell us it's not sexual - just costume - or something.

I suppose it's the 'be yourself' Drag Queen message to kids, which I've always thought was a bizarre message when the whole point of dragging up was to obscure yourself in a ton of make up and glitz.

But shhhh, mustn't say anything, because Drag has become a fluffy, sanitized version if it's former self, all about the marketing, just like Pride, and the positive satirical challenges it presented are long gone, and now it's a cloak of progressiveness masking some really questionable shit.

I love a good drag queen performance - Lily Savage and the like - but drag is absolutely not suitable for children in any way, shape or form. WTF are the NG managers thinking?

Children do not need drag queens as role models. They really don't.

As an aside, a while back a FB acquaintance of mine put up a picture of her toddler with a drag queen at one of these type of events and the kid was absolutely bawling her eyes out. Some of the comments were quite 'WTF are you doing'...

I suppose it's the 'be yourself' Drag Queen message to kids, which I've always thought was a bizarre message when the whole point of dragging up was to obscure yourself in a ton of make up and glitz
Ha yes. Be yourself seems to mean dress up, take the piss out of and surgically alter your body to he completely someone else

There seems to be a big push-on, at the moment, for queer and kink and drag. It seems to be a theme across several threads.

Personally, I'm having none of it. Really, I should write a letter to the National Gallery to say, please have a think about what you're saying.

If we are going to present children with adult entertainment why don’t we send them to lap dance clubs too? How about an evening with Chubby Brown?

These as well - at the "National Centre for Children's Books":

www.sevenstories.org.uk/whats-on/events/862/elmers-special-%E2%80%98drag-strut

www.sevenstories.org.uk/whats-on/events/860/spectacular-drag-storytime

Childhood innocence is so passe now darling. We've moved on from all that, and the only people who object to children learning about what used to be quaintly termed 'adult themes' are Mary Whitehouse style pearl clutchers.

Brave new world. Boundaries are a thing of the past. Introducing kids to men dressed as caricatures of women, or wandering round with their erections clad in rubber, is just education, liberation...

So sick and fucking tired right now.

drag queen

n.     A man, especially a performer, who dresses as a woman.
n.     A male who dresses up in women's clothing, typically for public performance. The man's clothing and makeup are typically greatly exaggerated, so the end result is typically a parody of women in general.

Why involve children in mocking women? If that is acceptable and encouraged why is this not also considered progressive and inclusive?

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blackface

n. Dark make-up worn by a white person in order to look like a black person
n. Makeup for a conventionalized comic travesty of black people, especially in a minstrel show.

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/08/boglarka-balogh-blackface-offensive
www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7089591/why-is-blackface-offensive-halloween-costume

It is just another aspect of pushing sexualisation on children, as interpreted by certain men.

There's quite a lot of us women saying No, and indeed, Fuck Off Perverts, to such things.

What does drag have to do with children's books. I'm genuinely baffled about that. Is it the only early childhood weekly routine where they identified that they could access children?

What is the gender fluidity of childhood?

Do you mean boys who wear pink and girls who play football?

Do you mean kids wearing packers and having their breasts bound?

I've just been on another thread saying that I love drag, but it's not for children. This is just weird. I agree with you all - there does seem to be a trend towards pushing kids towards all sorts of bizarre, inappropriate stuff. It's worrying.

It is strange, it seems so random. Why not lumberjack story-time, or tax evader story-time, or - anything else really?

I assume that somehow one place started this and then others decided to copy it, but why?

I googled Aida Wotsit, the NG drag queen in this instance & didn't see anything overly concerning, at least not like James Makings' of the NSPCC 's activities. However, photos of small children on his FB with faces clearly visible - not acceptable, surely? Or is that just me?