Drag everywhere

[ImaSababa]

Why has drag become the go-to LGBTQ activity? It's everywhere.

Manchester Jewish Museum's nod to the movement is a drag act called Chanukah Lewinsky. Call me a spoilsport, but I'd like to think that we LBGT Jews have contributed more to the fabric of culture and society than a fucking drag queen.

Just wanted to rant, really.

Women should just put up and shut up, right?

Not remotely what I said.

Do you think there are any valid points on this thread Signal? What about how offensive drag slang is? What about how offensive it is that a drag queen might appropriate the name of a dead girl or simulate abortion onstage?

Hecates Yes posters have been very clear about why they are offended by drag and I am not saying that those opinions are not valid. I just don't happen to think that Drag (as adult entertainment) should be banned even though it is offensive.

PlanDeRaccordement wrote - "I don’t think women’s clothes can be “appropriated” because there are no sex assigned clothes"

How many men who wear "woman-cut" dresses also feel the need to enlarge their breast size to fill out the baggy bust area of a dress? Almost all.

How many women who wear "man-cut" trousers feel the need to add padding to fill out the baggy crotch area of the trousers? Almost none.

@Signalbox

Hecates Yes posters have been very clear about why they are offended by drag and I am not saying that those opinions are not valid. I just don't happen to think that Drag (as adult entertainment) should be banned even though it is offensive.

I don't believe it should be banned. I object to mainstreaming offensive adult entertainment to the extent that it's foisted on kids. I think honesty about the motivations and slang would be useful from performers who are making a hell of a lot of money from positioning drag as prime time entertainment, like RuPaul, and an effort to clean up the language so it's less bloody offensive. I also think performers should apologise and be roundly criticised if they over step the mark as with the abortion simulation. I just think there should be way more open analysis of how offensive it can be in an age when drag is being used to flog burgers for McDonalds.

@Jarnsaxa

I think if you're having trouble understanding why drag is offensive to women, it helps to imagine a drag act performing as a trans woman in exactly the same way as drag acts represent women. So you start with a 'joke' name. Say 'Mrs Deballes' or something like that. You dress in a way that plays on the worst stereotype of trans women you can think of . Say Babs from league of gentlemen. Then you women talk about issues that affect only trans women such as surgery, dilation etc in as crude and graphic a way as possible and play it for laughs. Maybe have a bloodied dilator slip out of your too short, too tight skirt and down your thick, hairy man thighs. Would that be funny? I don't. I think it would be horrifically transphobic and anyone doing that would be an arse hole.. I supposeif the performer claimed they were doing it out of a deep admiration for trans women.As a tribute.Then it wouldbe fine.To be lauded even.Anyone complaining would just be a miserable prude right?

TThat's to Quaagars btw.

What a bloody fantastic analogy.

Top post Jarnsaxa.

es posters have been very clear about why they are offended by drag and I am not saying that those opinions are not valid. I just don't happen to think that Drag (as adult entertainment) should be banned even though it is offensive

I don't have a position on the banning of drag and will, in fact, admit to liking some of the 'old style' drag, but I am curious to know if you think B&W Minstrel shows should be banned and more generally what the criteria for 'banning' (or not) should be?

I don't have a position on the banning of drag and will, in fact, admit to liking some of the 'old style' drag, but I am curious to know if you think B&W Minstrel shows should be banned and more generally what the criteria for 'banning' (or not) should be?

I don't think that B&W minstrel shows should exist as entertainment. I think there is a societal consensus that these shows were racist.

I suppose I don't really see black face as analogous with drag (as adult entertainment). I don't think there is consensus among women that Drag is harmful to women. And I don't really get the "woman face" argument. I'm generally against banning things because who does get to decide? Increasingly we are seeing small numbers of activists having a massive influence on what language people use or what we think etc. If the criteria for cancellation/banning is that a group of people take offence then we are all in trouble.

I object to mainstreaming offensive adult entertainment to the extent that it's foisted on kids

I agree this is an issue that needs dealing with.

I think there is a societal consensus that these shows were racist
I suppose I don't really see black face as analogous with drag (as adult entertainment). I don't think there is consensus among women that Drag is harmful to women

This

I think there is a societal consensus that these shows were racist.

I think that's right, but you have made me ponder:

Can anyone think of an example of "societal consensus" that something is sexist?

(If not drag, then what?)

No, because there hasn't been a time in history when society wasn't anti-women.

Does anyone know if there were ever any female black and white minstrels?
Is blackface only a thing when it's black men being parodied.
The Matt Lucas characters from little Britain and the Luton Airport thing only got taken down recently didn't they?

I don't want to 'ban' drag BTW. I would hope that society has evolved enough by now that drag, it's performers and fans sort their own selves out and drag is seen in the same way as Jim Davidson. If anyone remembers who he is....

So because women's oppression is so deep and entrenched and it's methods of replication so efficient that it is both invisible and internalised by women, we have to accept it; the very act of which aids in its reproduction. Nice catch 22 or the serpent eating its own tail there.

@ImaSababa

No, because there hasn't been a time in history when society wasn't anti-women.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I asked the question. Even stuff like page 3 of the Sun is not universally condemned like the B&W Minstrel Show.

Excellent point above spartacus.

we have to accept it

And women who don't accept it are shouted down as humourless prudes and homophones or bigots nowadays. Don't join the fun police ladies, join in with the men laughing at you.

Obvs didn't mean homophones

There's a big difference between noting that something's misogynistic and wanting more people to recognise this, and calling for it to be banned.

There's societal condemnation of certain things but not others and it's to do with which oppression people have decided they care about today, and misogyny almost never makes the cut.