Another go woke go broke - McCains

[Birdsweepsin]

twitter.com/McCainUKIE/status/1541406087324246019?s=20&t=pug-ahmQqiD5mqyyLzLdAw

Who the hell in adland thinks insulting or mocking the people who buy your products is a winning strategy?

But the entire point is that this was part of drag culture of the time. In fact it was far more so than clubs! The same comedians who were drag performers, were also onstage and on television as part of these shows. Many of them had moved from comedy and cabaret clubs precisely to TV, like Kenny Everett. Dame Edna and Lily Savage et al were part of this “comedy” / “light entertainment” culture - that was how they built an audience. In particular, mainstream audiences took to drag on television precisely because it articulated all the same sexism of the popular culture of the time, and was especially unthreatening to straight men.

The point is that having a really narrow idea of what drag is, based on a current very narrow idea of a drag “community”, stops you from seeing the sexist and misogynist aspects of it that have changed very very little since the 1970s. Those of us who have been used to seeing drag acts on television and stage for forty years don’t find it all so thrilling and liberating - there’s nothing in the content of that ad that makes “knockers” any more subversive or less sexist now than it would have been on the Morecambe & Wise show or on Kenny Everett in 1983.

Strictly social media, it’s a short run campaign as well, literally a couple of days worth of content.

It may very well be empowering for a gay man to get paid lots of money by a chip company, but I am more concerned with the 10 year old , early developing girls, who will go to school tomorrow to hear people ‘joking’ about her ‘knockers!’ Break down all the stereotypes that you want but keep kids out of it!

Yeah, men, gay or straight, can quite happily make jokes about big knockers because it's not them who are the butt of the joke. To see a man being paid by a big brand to make these sorts of jokes is shit to be honest.

@Leftonread Just want to say thanks for sticking around and engaging. So often people just plop with 'ur all bigoted prudes and pearl clutchers' and run off again. Thanks for listening.

Yes, I don't see how that ad and similar is any better than Benny Hill. The only difference is that the men involved are mostly gay, but I don't see why that is a free pass for misogyny.

Nothing wrong with saying big knockers when talking to kids after all

I don’t have a narrow idea of what drag is, and I understand you see it as ‘punch down’ humour because you feel like women are the butt of the joke. THAT view is narrow. Drag is so much more than that and always has been.

We are coming at this from different places, and on many points we actually agree. Where we differ is that I don’t see that drag is any threat at all to my rights as a woman and I think most women would agree a drag performer getting a gig because his stage name is about chips is probably not a problem even if he does mention tits (heaven forfend). I’ve said many times though that you are more than entitled to take that view, I just won’t be boycotting potato smiles alongside you and will be celebrating that Bagga got a cheque by buying up a load of potato smiles for the freezer. He’s a good egg, his influences are Cilla black and Barbara Windsor not hitler and benny hill.

Its ok thst we are both women and we disagree, neither of us speak for the majority as I suspect the majority don’t feel strongly one way or the other and that’s ok too.

Evadne Hinge and Hilda Bracket would never have stooped to frozen convenience foods.

Where that from?

A clever woman on Twitter @Riverlee who I won't name because women are being targeted for banning.

This is the point, though — Barbara Windsor made her career out of being a caricature of the fruity young lady with the “knockers” in the Carry On films (which also featured famous gay performers like Kenneth Williams doing drag in exactly the same way as the Benny Hill sketch I posted — Carry On Constable, anyone?) Windsor herself might have been a lovely lady; but her whole career was based on playing the sexist caricature.

Yes, Carry On Camping is funny, but it’s also undeniably a sexist relic of a time when tits and knockers was everyday language, and older women were constantly parodied as hideous old bags (you didn’t comment on Bagga’s name as a pun on the sexist term “bag”?)

I don’t mind watching the odd Carry On film, I don’t want to live in a society where women’s bodies are parodied as caricatures for fun, and I don’t want my daughter growing up thinking that “knockers” is okay in 2022.

It’s fine to enjoy drag if it’s your thing. Just don’t kid yourself that it’s in any way subversive or radical, or that it doesn’t have its roots in blackface and mainstream sexist comedy.

For anyone interested, or writing a letter, the company doing their ads is called We Are Social (appointed Nov 2021) and the apparent marketing genius behind the campaign is quoted as follows:

“Mark Hodge, marketing director, McCain Foods GB, said: “We Are Social’s cultural insights expertise and strategic thinking stood out for us, and their vision and creative execution are a perfect fit for us as a partner. The team came with a host of dynamic creative ideas that will help us strengthen relationships with new audiences on social, building on the brand love that McCain already has with families all over the country .”

Better hook out Halifaxes details too.

Ugh. It is simultaneously offensive, dreary and dull.

I expect a creative director to be behind the scenes, having a vision and orchestrating to make their vision happen. Not on camera shamelessly self promoting something that is ultimately just a bit shit.

Thanks for that, I’ve listened and it’s been interesting to read the other side and I largely understand and mostly disagree, which isn’t a bad thing.

It’s one of those really nice situations where debate can be heated but stay respectful. I will say that absolutely doesn’t exist in the drag community

I’ll pop off now because my DS needs a bed time book but I’ll finish by saying that as a 14 year old woman with no tits and a better beard than my dad, drag was empowering for me because it gave me an outlet that fucked with gender norms. Ironically dressing like a bloke made me feel like a woman at a time in my life when society was telling me that to be a woman I needed to look and act like one. It was characters like Bagga (not him specifically he’s far too young) that gave me a new perspective before the days you could find that kind of acceptance with a hashtag. I’m older now, my PCOS is mostly controlled and I’m so excited that girls like me have hundreds of communities to choose from now that will accept them exactly as they are. It pains me that had I been born 15 years later, I would have ended up as a trans man because the internet would have told me my body was telling me I should be male before the drag community had a chance to scream at me to fuck the expectations of my gender and wear a flannel shirt and just take the total piss out of everyone who thought I was a bloke already. I’ll always love them for that even if some of them do make shit tit jokes and don’t know what a vagina smells like. most of them have never seen one anyway

It’s no more subversive about gender roles than this is, and just rehashes the same tired old tropes about women’s breasts that have been going on for literally centuries of male comedians using drag as a source of cheap gags:

Fair enough - I think the situation for women doing drag is slightly different. Drag kings do have a claim to subverting performance norms - but I would suggest largely because it’s an inversion of drag itself, rather than part of it. I’m afraid I see male drag though as entirely and tediously sexist, and as pp have said, also getting a free pass for misogyny because it’s considered LGBT (though it didn’t originate as such).

Oh and if you want to learn more about how music hall drag acts developed out of blackface minstrelsy, there are some resources like:

black-face.com/minstrel-female-impersonators.htm

www.researchgate.net/publication/330026007_Transgressing_the_Gender_Divide_The_Female_Impersonator_in_Nineteenth-Century_Blackface_Minstrelsy_from_INSIDE_THE_MINSTREL_MASK

Notable drag minstrels:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Leon

So if this was a man not in drag making these jokes would it still be edgy and clever, or would it be misogynistic, sexist crap? It is because the bloke is in woman face that we’re all supposed to think this is funny? Why does him putting a dress and makeup on make this acceptable?

Now that is sharp.

Agree that it's good to discuss this stuff and have civil disagreement - nice talking to you Leftonread.

Benny Hill isn’t really a drag act is he? He’s a comedian that sometimes dresses up in womens clothing to do sketches that ridicule women

I just wanted to ask how a drag queen is not 'a comedian that sometimes dresses up in womens clothing to do sketches that ridicule women'? There's a gnat's arsehair between Benny Hill dragging up and FloJob dragging up - the difference being no politicians ever took Benny Hill into school to preach diversity and inclusion to children.

As far as I know, admittedly I've not checked.

@Leftonread Just want to say thanks for sticking around and engaging. So often people just plop with 'ur all bigoted prudes and pearl clutchers' and run off again. Thanks for listening.

I agree. Also, Leftonread is female, afaict. Just saying.

My voice is female. I am a woman. We don’t speak with a single voice. We can disagree
Exactly, and same

Leftonread glad you you found drag empowering. I don’t. As someone with large breasts I’ve thought about just cutting therm off because living with them is so humiliating. Jokes by shit comedians like bagga chips empower males of all ages to joke about them, they make my breasts public property where males think the accompanying joke or banter lets them sexually assault me by feeling my breasts at the same time. I hate hate hate these jokes they make my life miserable. Bagga chips can just fuck off as can McCain

l don’t have a narrow idea of what drag is, and I understand you see it as ‘punch down’ humour because you feel like women are the butt of the joke. THAT view is narrow. Drag is so much more than that and always has been.

So it's still the 'if you don't like it or feel it's taking the piss out of women, you're narrow minded'?