Meanwhile on Digital Spy Forum's Strictly Thread.....

[JennieLee]

There is a discussion of there being two drag inspired routines in a rather short show. Not much sympathy is being shown for the idea that BBC is promoting 'adult' entertainment in a family/primetime show.

forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2396331/the-queering-of-strictly/p1

The Priscilla routine wasn't in drag as such - no fake boobs, rude names or vocal fry. More just males wearing feminine-coded clothing imo. Johannes, who was in heels along with some other dancers, is a beautiful man who always seems so at ease with his manhood and sexuality.

I saw Jamie's dance but he wasn't in drag either. I didn't know what Everyone's Talking About Jamie was about, but I'm sure a line in the song was "everybody's talking about the boy in a dress"? Boys in dresses are fine!

I didn't like the Priscilla routine. It seemed a grotesque performance of femininity. Plenty of exaggerated hip movements. It made me uncomfortable.

However I'm clearly out of step with the commenters on the Digital Spy thread, who seem to think objecting to drag is old-fashioned, homophobic and a killjoy. Hey ho.

I put in a complaint. Not that I'm holding my breath. (The post I put in on Digital Spy which is more of a request for discussion got deleted and I got warned that there is zero tolerance for transphobia.)

Anyway, this is what I've said to the BBC.

I felt that the Priscilla Queen of the Desert routine which opened the show was inspired by a) a film that was rated 15 when it came out and b) the New York drag club scene which was for adults. The excerpt when Giovanni, Gorka and Johannes performed as drag queens was heavily sexualised - featuring hip thrusting etc. I think this would have been more suitable for an 'after the watershed show' than for broadcast at 7.30pm in a show aimed at family audiences. A recent episode in which Max swore and this lapse triggered immediate apologies indicates that Strictly does still see itself as a show which wants to appeal to a wide audience - not just an adult one. While there is a school of thought that says drag promotes understanding of diversity and inclusion, I think issues around LGBT relationships in a show with a wide audience were much better explored via the partnership between Nicola and Katja. In particular this allowed girls to form a positive image of women not needing to be partnered by men. Girls may often feel a real discomfort when they see adult men parodying femininity, and this is not a new problem. I certainly felt this as a child when Dick Emery and Danny la Rue. were regarded as mainstream entertainment. My discomfort increased at end of the show when a clip with Jamie the subject of 'Jamie. Drag Queen at 16' and also of a more recent musical was featured. At this point the set was lit in pink and blue colours of the transactivist movement. This is the week in which there was a judgement in Bell vs Tavistock at the High Court. I appreciate that not all drag acts are trans - though Stonewall argues that cross-dressing does come under the trans umbrella. However the judges in that case ruled that 16 year olds lack capacity to make life-changing decisions about their identity. So it was disturbing that the BBC should use this time to use trans imagery and to promote someone who'd opted to use drag in their teens.

That's a great complaint, well done for writing and sending it.

I read a thread on DS about the Keira Bell case last night. There were about 3 people agreeing with the judgement, there was a transgender person calling a transsexual person transphobic and trying to get the transsexual persons informative post removed, posters confidently stating trans people are now definitely going to kill themselves, others who clearly haven't read the judgement or understood the case at all, and another banging on about how girls aren't going to be allowed abortions any more, but it's all good because the Good Law Project is on it. 😐

I used to love Digital Spy, but now if you condemn rape and death threats, you'll be pounced on by posters and called a transphobe. Glad I left.

I naively thought that there might be a possibility of an exchange of views on Digital Spy - about if it's possible to get balance between broad-based/pre watershed family entertainment and content that's more aimed at a purely adult audience. But it seems that asking that question is transphobic. Which would seem to me mean we can't have any kind of consideration of safeguarding issues in broadcasting, because that is transphobic. Digital Spy mods message to me read as follows:-

"This thread has been removed for containing offensive content. People in drag do not necessarily feel they are in the wrong body and conflating the two is quite problematic. This forum is for everyone and we have a zero tolerance policy on transphobia, so for this reason we are closing this thread. Please keep this in mind for being unconstructive."

Which doesn't quite make sense.

So it's good to come here and vent/be heard.

Digital Spy is heavily biased towards woke left wing positions. Which the moderation reinforces. It's the last place I'd go for a balanced discussion (haven't been there in years, in fact).

Great complaint @JennieLee. You've summed up exactly my thoughts about it. It just felt a bit too sexualised for a family show. To be fair I feel that way about quite a few of the pro routines. They're always brilliant in terms if dancing but they do sometimes veer into quite... Er... "adult" territory.

I watched it with my daughter and got 0 questions because she understands that it’s a performance, it’s costume. In my personal opinion there was nothing in the routine that shouldn’t be in a family show, there was no more hip movements in it than there usually is in a samba or salsa