Caitlin Moran: I’m over men in drag

[MidsomerMurmurs]

There’s the beginning of a logical thought process in Caitlin’s latest column in pointing out the dubious implications of a lot of the baggage around drag:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2c01bc70-2051-11ec-8cb7-e60ba8dbca61?shareToken=d3db792e5767b9e13c502393a7735b2e

in drag, there is an imbalance. And that, at its most commercially successful end, it tips into… a darkness?

But she’s still playing for cool points with things like trotting out the de Beauvoir quote and things like “The idea of drag is a useful one. It allows us to see how much of gender is an idea, or a game”.

The comments are great though!

I'm so over Caitlin Moran, used to love her till she sold women down the river by going TWAW. So what she's basically saying is some drag is ok as long as it's young men and they do it in a 'glamorous' way 🤔

@PaleGreenGhost you’ve described the problems with drag perfectly, thank you.

Do read the comments. Very, very salient points made, including this early one:

A new distinction to add to the list….

Non-straight, non-middle age men dressing as younger women = good.

Straight, middle age men dressing as older women = bad.

I thought it was strange that cultural appropriation is considered bad (eg. Man painting face black) but gender appropriation is considered good (eg man painting lips red). But here’s another wrinkle

It’s acceptable because men enjoy it and some men make money out of it, a double incentive like porn.

I like the article. It shows breadth of thought which understands both admiration of the male culture of adornment and artifice that has grown organically and challenges gender and especially restrictive norms of masculinity, and recognition of deep misogyny that can - but doesn't always - thrive in these cultures. People and culture are complicated and writing and thought have power when they recognise breadth and nuance.

Agree Hattie765 I can't work out what Caitlin Moran is trying to say here, seems to be young men doing drag is fine but older men aren't, she says Ru Paul is honouring femininity at one point in the article.

I think the difference with pantomime is that we're laughing at the dame for looking so ridiculous in women's clothes, whereas drag "artistes" want us to laugh with them at something which, for an ever increasing number of women/people, is not only not funny, but is actually a parody of 50% of the population.

That is interesting. I've stood up for drag on here and watched Drag Race from the start, but it is tiresome now in its ubiquity and I'm not so interested in keeping up.

I like a lot of the performers who have appeared on the US series over the years and it has done a lot to highlight important LGBTQ issues. Most seem like highly polished entertainers looking for success in their creative arts. (Just making a very generalised point here so I can move onto the next bit, I know many won't agree.)

You can see the differences in the culture with the UK and Australian series, there's an aggression and definitely more misogyny from the performers. I can't watch them. There seems to be a lot of very young performers on these versions just starting out who want to be 'slags', and there's no humour or nuance. It's very dated and crass, and a bit too lowbrow on the whole for the BBC to be putting so much emphasis on.

Drag is tedious - just lip synching, mysogyny and and carry on humour in bad wigs

Dennis Noel Kavanagh said this on Twitter. It sums it up for me I can't say it better.

That’s where I am on this.

Drag used to be fun and funny back when people had a sense of humour and men in dresses were a joke.

They aren’t now.

Cross dressing is no longer fun, it’s a political act thanks to TRAs who strip the humour from everything like an acid wash.

Accordingly.

Drag is now woman face.

A movement incapable of humour cannot expect people to treat things as a “bit of fun”.

It isn’t.

I really don't like drag; I don't see why men dressing up as a parody of women is either funny or acceptable. The big hair, overblown make up, big boobs, sequins, just yuk.

Drag artists are clowns. I see nothing comparable in drag with women, or femininity.

I've always found drag so unfunny and absolutely creepy.

Why are men allowed to appropriate women when someone eg wearing braids gets shouted down for "appropriating" an African's culture??

I find most drag really sinister, and the obsession with it including on the BBC to be very odd.

@1AngelicFruitCake

Am I the only one who enjoys drag race? I can see what you’re all saying with the points made above but I don’t look at it too deeply and enjoy the stories, the moments and I find it a great escape from everyday life.

I could find fault with football - racist fans, people paid obscene amounts of money, male sport dominating. Pop music - women writhing around, scantily clad, talking about men all the time. The list is endless.

I agree, I can't simply reduce it to a matter of woman face or parody or cruelty, it's too multi-faceted for that. But I understand why it's viewed as such on this board too.

To make this thread about Drag Race derails it from Moran's main point about (straight?) men in drag parodying older women, which is a very good observation. As pp said that Amanda Holden show sounds horrible.

@Imnobody4

Dennis Noel Kavanagh said this on Twitter. It sums it up for me I can't say it better.

That’s where I am on this.

Drag used to be fun and funny back when people had a sense of humour and men in dresses were a joke.

They aren’t now.

Cross dressing is no longer fun, it’s a political act thanks to TRAs who strip the humour from everything like an acid wash.

Accordingly.

Drag is now woman face.

A movement incapable of humour cannot expect people to treat things as a “bit of fun”.

It isn’t.

This says it for me. I cannot stand drag these days, it's got a seam of cruelty in it.

@DickKerrLadies

I do think drag has changed over the years. Names that get mentioned on here sometimes include Lily Savage, and Cissy and Ada - but the point with those performers is that they were comedians first and the character came second. It's not the drag that is the funny thing - it's the whole package. I don't really get Mrs Brown's Boys but the same thing applies - comedy first. Maybe that's a reason that the show is popular with an 'older' audience.

These days it seems like character first and then hope the comedy will follow. But most of the time it doesn't.

There's a difference between taking the piss out of gender roles and taking the piss out of women, and I think some drag performers fail to understand that.

I've never really thought of it like this before, but you've hit the nail on the head. "what's funny?" "er, gross old women?" "great! Dress up like that, people will laugh. Programme sorted"

I didn't really have a problem with it years ago and I do so much now. I wonder if drag has changed or I have?

I grew up in South Africa where we had a comedian a bit like Barry Humphries/Dame Edna (Pieter Dirk Uys/Evita Bezuidenhout). He was very much loved by many people and he was very funny (he was and is a political satirist, though, rather than just a comedian), I had no issue with him at all and loved him as much as everyone else. The drag issue did not disturb me at all. Now I find drag disturbing and sinister, and sometimes personally insulting to me as a woman. What has changed?

There's a difference between taking the piss out of gender roles and taking the piss out of women, and I think some drag performers fail to understand that.

Yes, good point.

Yes I find drag insulting.

I might be making a false distinction here, but I have absolutely no problem with people dressing how they want and expressing THEMSELVES however they want. I feel uncomfortable when men start talking and acting as though they are representing women as a whole. And I find it totally unacceptable when men dress as offensive, outdated female tropes (young slag or doddery/gross old woman) in order to humiliate, degrade and "poke fun" at women.

@ViceLikeBlip I agree. I don't have a problem with transvestitism per se (although I am GC and would abhor men dressing up as women to get into women's spaces, so I can see a potential complication there). I do have a problem with drag. It is complicated to unpick the distinction, but in essence I think wanting to wear whatever you like is not a problem, choosing to dress in a way which pokes fun at another group of people is a problem. But how to distinguish, I guess?

I don’t understand why the bbc have gone so all in on drag - it seems almost 20 years too late. I always felt drag used to have an under current of rebellion and subversion and pissing off the vicar. It was part of the gay rights movement. It was part of comedy and adult entertainment and anti establishment. It seems so far removed now.

Interestingly, my v trans-friendly teenage daughter can see that there is a huge problem with drag as 'womanface' and can recognise the misogyny which runs through quite a lot of it. So basically, a lot of it is bad, but it isn't necessarily

I was surprised to find such a nuanced point of view.