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?

drag isn’t misogynistic

Holy wow.

It's funny how it's not drag acts like yours that are being used by big brands to sell their products though isn't it?

I don’t disagree with you - there’s an incredibly long history of men dressing as women, not always parody, not always related to drag culture, not even always meant to be comedic.

Theres an equally long history of your absolute right to disengage from content that offends you, I just think it’s important to highlight that drag performers on the whole are very very far from misogynists. Most identify with the drag scene because that’s where they ‘fit’ - they hate the gender roles assigned to them by society in the same way that feminists do.

I spend a lot of time with drag performers so my views are formed by that in the same way that some of the views here are formed by drag race and twitter.

I think if you feel offended, disengage from the content. It doesn’t appeal to you and that’s ok. If drag performers are getting work that’s a great thing, they’re woefully underpaid as performers on the whole and opportunities like this are great and very rare. Bagga will appeal to huge number of people who are less prone to offence, men and women alike. He’s a fabulous performer and does a great job of parodying shock comics of the 70’s and 80’s.

I do appreciate though that the mainstreaming of drag has caused it to lose a hell of a lot of nuance and it definitely doesn’t come across in a 30
second ad.

drag isn’t designed to offend women and at its heart is actually about challenging gender stereotypes

May I point out 'Anna Bortion', 'Miss Carriage', etc.

Drag right now is a tired, dull, faux-subversive corpse-twitch of sex stereotypes. Many men use their 'queen' persona to make vicious attacks on 'fishy' women, mocking women's bodies, women's oppression, women's perceived weaknesses. Corporations LOVE the chance to get some cheap thrills out of trashing women from the safety of a rainbow-washed progressive-painted clown act.

Drag is visually eye-catching, it's tame, safe, and seen as mildly edgy - why on earth do you think all the corporations are so gleefully jumping on the dragwagon? If it was genuinely challenging anything there is no way on God's green earth a company selling processed foods would be using it and its shitty 'innuendo' to try and flog face-shaped potato waffles.

We don’t disagree - I agree that the mainstreaming of drag has caused it to lose its way.

It hasn't 'lost its way' - it's been co opted by people who know exactly what they are doing.

They are - The Vivienne often does male characters (famously Trump), Victoria Scone is an AFAB drag queen and is everywhere right now.

Bagga got this gig because he’s literally called ‘Bagga chips’ and it’s a chip company. Honestly it’s not that deep.

I’d agree with this too unfortunately. There are many, many drag performers out there that don’t fit into this category though and Bagga is one of them.

Advertising agencies are often filled with sexist views

Drag is a great excuse to have a go at women in a it’s hilarious and look who’s ‘prone to offence’ as put by pp

@Braggiography Bloody brilliant posts 🔥

What are you basing ‘predictors love drag’ on exactly?

Because that sounded horribly like you were insinuating that drag performers are paedophiles but that can’t possibly have been what you meant because that’s completely batshit.

I also know quite a few burlesque and drag performers, for what it's worth. I worked in those circles extensively.

It is not how it used to be. Furries, fetish and nudity at 'family friendly' events is subversive, sure. It is queering norms, yes. Challenging stereotypes? Maybe. Is child protection something that needs to be challenged? Should we be queering safeguarding? Removing safeguards, perhaps?

I know there are plenty of people who do think that yes, we should be breaking down boundaries. Lots and lots of men are very keen to see the rules swept away.

I do not think this is a universally Good Idea.

that sounded horribly like you were insinuating that drag performers are paedophiles

No, that would be an utterly simplistic and false reading of what I said,.

As I said before; abusive and predatory men love being able to push all of the 'queering' and 'subverting' of norms, rules, boundaries and safeguarding.

Drag acts are being used by these people.

Also, for every Miss Carriage, Anna Bortion etc etc there’s 50 Bagga Chips, Victoria Scones, Danny La Rue etc etc etc. You’re taking extreme examples of edgy acts and applying that to the whole. It’s not representative.

If Mary Stopes came out with an ad campaign using Anna Bortion as the headliner you might have a point but there’s a very good reason why they haven’t. Instead, a chip company have used a performer called Bagga Chips.

To me the history of drag is irrelevant and not something I would read up on. So I am perceiving this advert as it is. Most people will not know the history of drag.
I'm okay with being offended but then there is something not being appropriate. Language like knockers which I thought had been left behind is not appropriate. We teach our children the correct words for body parts because it is respectful. Who in advertising standards thinks this is okay?
McCain's will be okay they got their as ertising even if it is cancelled what concerns me as there are adults in companies that think this is okay.

But drag had always been like that. One of the reasons for it in the first place was that gay male performers in the 40s-70s could get a mainstream audience not only through playing up caricatures of the gay man, but also through aping misogynist drag performances by men who emphatically weren’t gay.

Drag was originally a phenomenon where largely straight male performers mocked older women as ugly and masculine: it was very crudely misogynist. Gay drag acts levered that into a mainstream audience who already watched sexist and racist variety performances and comedy.

You need to watch more television from the late 20thc! Who TF do you think made Dame Edna and Lily Savage popular? The same audiences who were watching Benny Hill, New Faces and the Two Ronnies. McCains is a mass market food brand that targets itself at people who think Mrs Brown’s Boys is the height of wit and Allan Carr is a comedy genius. Sorry, but it’s cringe central.

Today’s version of drag does not take its roots from some kind of imaginary 1920s Berlin cabaret. It has its roots in crappy sexist variety ”comedy” from the 1970s and 1980s which has a long and problematic sexist and racist history. It’s very far from subverting gender roles.

I recall being young and naive about predatory and abusive men.

It's so fucking commonplace. It's so banal. It's all over the place. It's not even exceptional or remarkable or shocking.

They will use every opportunity to exploit, to access vulnerable women/children.

We get accused of being 'hysterical' or imagining predators are everywhere, when the sad truth is that this is a truism that we are so inured to it barely even registers as shock anymore. What on earth do you think 'rape culture' means?

Okay. Why have they decided on 'knockers'? Why is it funny? Why is the main joke about a male dressed as a hyper-feminine parody making an edible woman? Who finds this liberating? Shocking? Subversive? It's about as subversive as Les Dennis in a nun's habit. Or is it that no adults find this shocking anymore so we have to try it on the kids? What is the actual aim, here?

Also, for every Miss Carriage, Anna Bortion etc etc there’s 50 Bagga Chips, Victoria Scones, Danny La Rue etc etc etc. You’re taking extreme examples of edgy acts and applying that to the whole. It’s not representative.

'Fishy' was on Drag Race and you can't really get much more mainstream than that. Although I'm sure you will tell me that that's not representative of drag either.....

It's become a total turn off. Like many many glittery things we're repeatedly told are lovely and modern and edgy and - whatever, done now.

'Fish'. Revolting and nasty sexism. Whatever the person saying it is dressed up as.

Theres a lot to unpack here, none of it relevant to a chip company using Bagga Chips to sell fried potato smiles to adults.

I agree though that the community has massively changed and in the same way feminism is being pushed to be trans inclusive, the drag community is feeling pressured to be kink inclusive. If you spend time with performers though you’ll know what a hot topic this is and how much pushback there’s been.

I do think it’s wrongheaded to treat the drag community like a risk to your kids because it’s being used by predators to normalise predatory behaviour (if you can evidence this I’d appreciate it).

Broadly I think we agree - drag being mainstreamed is detrimental to the community in a number of ways, and through a mainstream Lena’s it loses the context that makes it inoffensive.

As I said before; abusive and predatory men love being able to push all of the 'queering' and 'subverting' of norms, rules, boundaries and safeguarding.

Drag acts are being used by these people.

A bit like predatory and dangerous men using Self-ID and women's natural tendancy not to make a scene to infiltrate female-only spaces.

I agree though that the community has massively changed and in the same way feminism is being pushed to be trans inclusive, the drag community is feeling pressured to be kink inclusive. If you spend time with performers though you’ll know what a hot topic this is and how much pushback there’s been.

Yes, and drag queens doing ads for kids food with mainstream brands talking about 'big knockers' and creating caricatures of women out of meat, is definitely evidence of this 'pushback'

@Leftonread interesting points being made by you, and actually for this board it’s nice to have a good old discussion about these issues!

I guess what I find really interesting is that you say that drag is not misogynistic, and is actually a challenge to sexual stereotypes. Now I’m assuming (sorry if I’m wrong) that drag is mostly populated by men - you are clearly an exception. So it is mostly men saying ‘we’re not taking the piss out of women, we’re on your side’.

Yet this is a group of women who are saying actually we’re not in agreement with that. And yet the women on here get called ‘pear clutches’, ‘prune faces’, etc.

So can you explain how when many women are saying we don’t like this, men respond with ‘well you’ve got it all wrong’?