Ant and Dec and drag...well this is fucking infuriating...

[WomenFromVenusDoNotHaveAPenis]

Apologies if there is already a thread on this, I couldn't see one.

I'm particularly inarticulate with rage this morning and this has tipped me over the fucking edge.....

www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-60464528

@Anonymoose123 - ask the bead teacher exactly what the girls are meant to take out of that in terms of being themselves?

I have complained to ITV about Ant's and Dec's womanface performance and to BBC News about their gushing review. I suggest you all do the same.

@Movingonup22 that’s a really great question to ask!

I didn't get the point at all that some were trying to make, about Ant & Dec showing people that it's fine 'to be who you are' - when A&D are not drag queens in any way, other than just dressing up one time for a song/sketch. Just acting a part - no more a proclamation of 'who they really are' than David Tenant was 'showing us his true serial killer self' by playing Denis Nilsen for a TV drama/biopic.

We are told that men in drag fall under the trans umbrella and are not just 'regular' men dressing up and playing a role - to suggest this is offensive and diminishing of them.... yet, when two 'regular' straight men 'bravely' dress up for one evening to mimic the drag 'role', they receive unending praise for advancing the cause of men for whom drag is their 'culture/identity'.

I also didn't quite get the whole thing about Lawrence (the Scottish one) - keeping a male name, not remotely trying to change the voice, but identifying as 'Scotland's Lady' (apparently, there aren't already millions of people in Scotland with possibly slightly more claim to this description ).

I fell down a rabbit hole, ending up on the Wikipedia page for Lawrence, which used 'they/them' throughout - making a point of affirming that Lawrence used 'they/them' pronouns - and followed a direct link from it to Lawrence's own website, where Lawrence was referred to throughout as 'she/her'.

I can only assume that we must be free to express and assert ourselves as we truly are, even if we haven't the foggiest idea what that actually is.

To add, I'm one of those rare people who actually do like Ant & Dec a lot - but I think this was a terrible error of judgement.

@Lowhum

You know what I think would be more effective for 8 year olds? Bringing in loads of funky materials and letting the kids go wild with them. Designing their own clothes and choosing which colours and textures they like the best. Get the teachers in on it too! No judgement, just complete creativity.

Exactly. Promoting drag is only showing people that they "can be who they want to be" if they want to be a drag queen!! And, anyway, it's just about looking a certain a way, not being at all.

This is him.

@Lowhum

“You know what I think would be more effective for 8 year olds? Bringing in loads of funky materials and letting the kids go wild with them. Designing their own clothes and choosing which colours and textures they like the best. Get the teachers in on it too! No judgement, just complete creativity.“

That would be lovely. But complete creativity is not the aim imo.

That would be lovely. But complete creativity is not the aim imo

A good lesson to teach kids would be ro not be permanently seeking validation from others.

@Anonymoose123 that is appalling. I would be incandescent with rage. I don't know how school complaints work these days eg when do you go to the governors. I think it would be worth starting a separate thread about this - in the relevant area (Education?) as this is the reality parents need to see as well as being the best topic for related advice from knowledgeable posters. It shouldn't be shunted over to FWR as MNHQ try and do sometimes. You can link it here if you like so The Wise Women can join though?

“WomenFromVenusDoNotHaveAPenis

@Anonymoose123 that is appalling. I would be incandescent with rage. I don't know how school complaints work these days eg when do you go to the governors. I think it would be worth starting a separate thread about this - in the relevant area (Education?) as this is the reality parents need to see as well as being the best topic for related advice from knowledgeable posters. It shouldn't be shunted over to FWR as MNHQ try and do sometimes. You can link it here if you like so The Wise Women can join though?“

That is a good idea. I put a thread about drag Queen story hour under ‘Primary School’ a few days ago ( not linked to this board on purpose, though here’s where I’d first seen a very good thread) and lots of posters replied. Some were in favour, lots weren’t. It didn’t get cancelled or moved here luckily. More things should be allowed on boards where everyone can see them.

@Anonymoose123

Contact the Safe Schools Alliance, they would be extremely interested to know about that visitor to school - be sure to include photos and what the person got the children doing. I am sure they will be able to give you some good advice about how to tackle the school. Completely inappropriate. I'm stunned.

@LilithOfEden

I do wonder if the current generation has any real awareness of what heterosexual, manly men were wearing in the 70s and 80s. They behave as if it's avant guard for a boy/man to wear stereotypical feminine attire and declare themselves to be either female or NB. Whereas it's anything but avant guard to wear that stuff when you also say that to do so must also place you somewhere on the "female" spectrum. As opposed to the aforementioned Robert Smith et al, who were comfortable in their masculinity and sexuality whist wearing frills, eyeliner and all manner of long hair dos. What do the NB wokesters think was going on 40 + years ago? It's as if time didn't begin for them until 1990 and the toxic, hyper gendered culture that came with that decade.

Clothes are literally just pieces of cloth. I'm really struggling to understand the issue?

The quote in the BBC's headline is incorrect.

The make-up artist didn't say 'This will change LGBTQ+ children's lives' - he said 'it's going to change so many young queer children's lives'. Big difference. I can well imagine that seeing drag may give some queer kids more confidence, but it's not relevant to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans etc kids who aren't queer.

Another example of inflating the plight of one element of the LGBTQ+ category by misleadingly applying it to the whole category.

At the end of the BBC story they quote the (gay male) make-up artist as saying "everybody should try drag sometime, it's so freeing". I doubt this body ie me would feel freed by it in any way, I am recoiling at the idea, but his remark does beg the question of what is imprisoning 'everybody' (men?) to the extent that they need to do all that absurd stuff to get out? And if drag is necessary as a kind of file smuggled in in a (pan)cake, maybe 'everybody' (men) should be doing something about the prison, and discussing that on prime time tv, to help all the prisoners who don't have the chance of two hours with an award winning makeip artist.

And Anymoose123 that's horrifying!

Clothes are literally just pieces of cloth. I'm really struggling to understand the issue?

Don't ask me. Ask TRAs who think liking wearing frocks and nail varnish makes you a woman. Had the 70s and 80s gender breaking culture continued throughout the 90s and beyond, then perhaps there wouldn't now be "male" or "female" gendered attire (in the West at least) on which TRAs could hang their identities.

And clothes aren't just pieces of cloth. Certain clothes and certain colours have been used throughout human history to mark out groups for certain treatment or status. If a person stops you in the street and asks you where you are going, you will respond differently to them if they are wearing a police uniform than if they are dressed in a clown outfit. There's a certain time and place to be wearing certain items of clothing. If your child's maths teacher was teaching wearing a leather mini, a wonder-bra and stiletto heels and nothing else, you wouldn't think, oh, he/she is just wearing pieces of cloth, nothing to get riled up about.

@WomenFromVenusDoNotHaveAPenis

Oh thank you *@Whatwouldscullydo* I dismissed that, probably distracted by trifle DD.

It's so wrong. WTF can't men just wear a skirt or eyeliner or whatever the fuck they feel they want to wear, without having to do a full parody of sexualised fetishisation of female stereotypes. The irony is that GC feminists are the women against stereotypes who would back a man wearing eyeliner not thinking of Robert Smith here at all Drag however is reinforcing sexual stereotyping, taking that ball and fucking running with it into the distance.

Exactly.

Sheila Jeffreys has some good points to make about this topic in this talk for WDI

I remembered something, when I was a kid I'm sure drag artists used to be called Female Tribute Acts.

And the likes of Danny la Rue dressing up as a woman and looking really quite beautiful, like he genuinely liked and was paying tribute to women.

Some artists now though just seem to be a horrible, grotesque parody, like a really fucking scary 6'2" clown. There is certainly no tribute involved.

It's light entertainment from Ant and Dec. I have no problem with them doing it.

But what does annoy me is that this is supposed to be shown to all gay children that they're represented because two men dressed up in drag. Stereotyping much? And stop over analysing.

How did we get to this point where we're now saying that a gay child must like dressing up as the opposite sex? I thought we're past the 1970s?

Also this isn't new Dame Edna has been doing in front of royalty (at the Royal Variety) for decades! Lily Savage has a prime-time Saturday night show in the earlier 2000s. Stop saying we're progressive now!

@yetanotherusernameAgain

The quote in the BBC's headline is incorrect.

The make-up artist didn't say 'This will change LGBTQ+ children's lives' - he said 'it's going to change so many young queer children's lives'. Big difference. I can well imagine that seeing drag may give some queer kids more confidence, but it's not relevant to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans etc kids who aren't queer.

Another example of inflating the plight of one element of the LGBTQ+ category by misleadingly applying it to the whole category.

Queer is now something different from lesbian, gay and bisexual?

Reading thread like this makes me feel very innocent. When I watched it, I just thought Ant and Dec were dressing up in drag, having a bit of fun, a bit like pantomime dames (or Lily Savage, dame Edna Everidge etc). All this ‘helping queer’ children didn’t even cross my mind.

FFS Stop the world I want to get off.

WOMANFACE.