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!

@Darkchocolateandcoffee

I've always hated drag and its obvious misogyny.

Me, too. And I am over the BBC's obsession with drag.

@OperationDessertStorm

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.

All about the money, I guess. They've been able to buy in something that people will be watching around the world, that is absolutely huge on social media and makes international stars of the most successful contestants and judges. It's a juggernaut. It had a lot more charm as a scrappy underdog of a show.

@Skinnytailedsquirrel

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??

Agree with this completely and I say this as an African who lived in Africa. I really don't care if people want to braid their hair and think the who cultural appropriation is a bit US centric but I cannot fathom why women aren't allowed to say drag is appropriation or an insult to our sex when it's so much more aggressive and demeaning compared to braids.

In a world where old, overweight, not conventionally attractive, loudmouth actresses were given their own TV comedy series then the odd one where the main character was a man in drag might be neither here nor there, but that never and has never happened has it?

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm trying to think of a similar programme to Mrs Brown or that hideous Amanda Holden thing where the old woman was played by an actual old woman but I'm coming up blank.

I guess Catherine Tate and Julie Walters have done it, but they weren't actual old women themselves. Actual old women are pretty much invisible outside of supporting roles. No Victor Meldrew equivalents.

Agree with you @DickKerrLadies
Liking Dennis Noel Cavanagh's comments too
And now we've got everyone's talking about Jamie
If you want to go to prom in a dress just go. Don't see the need to make a show of it

Good article, good comments. Well done, Times.

I'm also baffled by why the BBC seems to have become The Drag Channel.

• also noted last night when I went to try and find The Thick of It that there are zero programmes labelled 'satire' on iplayer now. Zero. Why is that?

I think drag has changed. I used to like Lily Savage, there was something quite affectionate about the representation of some working class women. Also that character took the p* out of men a lot in a way that a female comic would've got a lot of abuse for. "We had an open relationship, I was always 'opin he'd bugger off and in the end he did' etc etc.
I

I like the article. I think she makes the points that drag and the RuPaul quote could be seen as consistent with GC - drag is performing gender stereotypes for a laugh, not saying they're in any way real - and that having drag in comedy shows (rather than something like drag race which is a kind of reality show cabaret) means fewer comedy roles for women, especially older women, and more for men.

@ditalini

In a world where old, overweight, not conventionally attractive, loudmouth actresses were given their own TV comedy series then the odd one where the main character was a man in drag might be neither here nor there, but that never and has never happened has it?

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm trying to think of a similar programme to Mrs Brown or that hideous Amanda Holden thing where the old woman was played by an actual old woman but I'm coming up blank.

I guess Catherine Tate and Julie Walters have done it, but they weren't actual old women themselves. Actual old women are pretty much invisible outside of supporting roles. No Victor Meldrew equivalents.

Waiting for God. But that was waaay back.

Brilliant though, do check it out.

@Hattie765

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 🤔

I've never liked her. I've rarely read anything which wasn't just telling us how wonderful and wacky Moran is. The How to Be a Woman (or whatever it was called) book is patronising dross. I don't really understand why some of you get so incensed by "mansplaining" but are happy to tolerate Moran "womansplaining"

You summed up that witless article in 1 sentence of 24 words.

@Hattie765

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 🤔

Has she? I didn't know that. I don't have twitter but I've read all her books

I'm quite the hypocrite as I can't stand modern drag and have been very vocal about it since long before Conchita won the Eurovision Song Contest.

But then I think of Dame Edna Everage who is one of my all time favourite ever TV characters. And I have a soft spot for Lily Savage too.

So I don't know what that's all about.

Drag is everywhere, particularly on the BBC, at the moment, and, although I love camp and like some of the more old-fashioned drag acts, I wonder how gay men who are otherwise ordinary and boring and not remotely interested in sequins feel about this being the predominant way they are represented in our culture? I wonder if it's having a negative impact on their lives as well as being often derogatory towards women? I remember Paul O'Grady saying he wasn't a fan of Drag Race because it was too focused on dressing up and not really about having an act.

Pondering a little more on this (and subsequent brain dump), I think drag has gone from being a comedic performance to a chance for gay men to explore gender roles and then further to trying to link back around to being comedy again but by this point, it's more about the gender roles than the comedy.

IME, 'drag' can encompass more than just the traditional drag act. I knew some gay men in my youth that would go out for a night 'in drag' but were not performers. The difference between in drag and drag queen, IYSWIM.

@Fubitch

I'm so over the BBC and its obsession with drag. The radio stations as well as tv. Nothing else gets this much of an outing.

I think they are featuring it as a way to "be woke" and "trans-friendly" without confronting the proper underlying issues. The supposed humour of it is a get out clause which allows them to escape the normalisation of insulting women.

The same argument was used to excuse the black & white minstrel show; "oh well it's only a bit of humour and entertainment".

For what it's worth there is a biological female contestant on the latest UK Drag Race. Apart from referring to herself as AFAB (yuk) she seems to have been warmly welcomed as a woman. So Drag Race could just turn into 'any old cabaret act race' before long anyway.

It's just as offensive as Blackface, but somehow it's celebrated as being brave.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

I'm quite the hypocrite as I can't stand modern drag and have been very vocal about it since long before Conchita won the Eurovision Song Contest.

But then I think of Dame Edna Everage who is one of my all time favourite ever TV characters. And I have a soft spot for Lily Savage too.

So I don't know what that's all about.

Barry Humphries and Paul O' Grady created and developed monstrous characters with back stories. The amount of effort and creativity in performing an audience with Dame Edna or Lily was far more than putting on make-up and squeezing in to a dress. Edna and Lily are comparable to Alan Partridge , not Drag Race.

Even older than thought- Waiting For God was 1990!

@Binglebong Oh yes Waiting for God does tick a lot of the boxes - I'd watch Stephanie Cole in anything. I've loved her ever since Tenko.

And I do like the Lily Savage and Dame Edna characters too. I wonder if Paul O'Grady and Barry Humphreys ever acknowledged that they wouldn't have had the chance to play those characters to such acclaim if they'd been female.

Bloody Lorraine Kelly is also obsessed, she seems to have drag acts on whenever she can

@ArabellaScott

- also noted last night when I went to try and find The Thick of It that there are zero programmes labelled 'satire' on iplayer now. Zero. Why is that?

They've hives all the good stuff over tobritbox.

Hived to britbox