Tate Britain, Drag Queen Story Hour and yet more nonsense

[Birdsweepsin]

1. The Tate decides to host DQSH

1. Art not Propaganda, together with Safe Schools Alliance, start a petition on change.org

1. Petition disappears!

1. New petition gathers momentum. Usual suspects start spitting feathers

1. Probably because of all this, the Telegraph have uncovered some well dodgy educational materials being produced by Tate Galleries.

And I am now looking up Linda Stuparts projects and trying to make sense of this word smorgasbord:

The project conflates different discourses around objects; those of the art object, an object oriented ontology (via Speculative Realism), sexual objectification (via second wave feminist conceptions of the male gaze, queer theory and post-feminism) and the psychoanalytical object. The project proposes that a new ethical and aesthetic position may be gleaned from making and writing contemporary art from specific positions of objecthood.

A non-division, or absence of relation; voiding of distance, which I propose as the post-critical empathetic exchange of objects, is played out through my practice, which enacts a non-division between writing and making; experimenting with intimacy, embodied critique and realisms without representation

Thematically, the work situates my ‘self’ as material – working with strategies of confessional, critique and fictional writing and image/object production in relation to other kinds of materials and in particular relation to productions of images, art and art worlds.

Just as an aside, this is exactly the sort of thing that has people who don't see the point of funding the arts thinking, 'There really is NO fucking point funding the arts!'

Bump

There's been protests today. Piers Corbyn (Jeremy's more left-wing brother) has been described as a "right-wing protester".

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11739361/Right-wing-protesters-clash-outside-Tate-Britain-drag-queen-story-telling-children.html

The comments don't seem to agree that these are all right wing protesters? I suppose this is what happens when a man who's currently fundraising for the funeral of his convicted paedophile mate wants to read stories to little children?

The DM report is confusing, so hard to make sense of. We're seeing yet again the presence of a 'right wing' faction being used to tarnish everyone opposing DQST. Was there an inference that Piers Corbyn is right wing? I didn't catch that. Preposterous if it was there. Also, they seem to think Baroness Nicholson is an MP.

I'd have expected it to be reported that Samuel is crowd funding for the funeral of his mate, found dead in unsalubrious circumstances, who was a convicted child sex offender.

But it's great that Samuel isn't being permitted to carry on his activities unimpeded any longer.

What a bloody dog's breakfast that Mail Online 'report' is.

Signed.

Signed! Art history grad who spent many any hour in the Tate Britain and Tate Modern, what utter bollocks this is.

Piers Corbyn has the event as his pinned tweet, so, by the inference of the Daily Mail article, is a ‘right wing protester’.
twitter.com/RealPiersCorbyn/status/1623455823132524544?cxt=HHwWgIDU5Yee1octAAAA

Piers Corbyn has the event as his pinned tweet, so, by the inference of the Daily Mail article, is a ‘right wing protester’.
twitter.com/RealPiersCorbyn/status/1623455823132524544?cxt=HHwWgIDU5Yee1octAAAA

I’ve got an MA in Fine Art and even I look at this shit and think there is no fucking point in funding the arts!

Yes. It is sick to use children as modelling clay for your own ideological agenda.

They must think they are very clever with their Queer theory, but really they aren’t. It is all very pretentious too.

You know, black children in the US South HAD to walk through screaming protesting crowds to get an education when schools were desegregated. I can’t imagine taking my child through crowds of protestors for no reason.

I’m not as bothered myself by drag queens as others on here are (not saying I can’t see the concern) but I don’t get why this is such a hill to die on. Why are so many places doubling down on constantly having these events - what about other readings and children appropriate programming? It’s just so strange to me that a few years ago we all lived fine without these events and now it’s like it’s the most important political issue of our times that a drag Queen reads a story.

I can’t imagine making my child into a political football like that, forcing them to go to these events to virtue signal.

It's because drag has gone mainstream, it's already deemed as family friendly thanks to Drag Race.

The idea of DQs reading to kids is quite a few years old in America where it originates.

I think it's because it's seen as an LGBT kid friendly event for venues and it's another opportunity for DQs to get paid for performing.

Personally I wonder if DQs are as representative of homosexuality as strip clubs are of heterosexuality.

You can't justify taking children to see adult entertainers. Also, I definitely think it's an opportunity to 'indoctrinate' (they would say introduce) children with Queer Theory ideas. The most obvious one here being that a man can be a woman.

Totally safe. Nothing to see here.

Anyone want to deconstruct those flags for me? I'm not very modern.

The one with the Pi symbol is the "polyamory pride" flag.

And the black, grey, white, purple is the asexual pride flag.

The two feathers is "two spirit" (trans, basically) and has been appropriated from native americans .

Years ago I took my kids to stuff like this. I rationalised that it was just imaginative dressing up, sparkly costumes, silly entertainment etc. I thought my child with LD/ SN would enjoy it on a sensory level. There were also elements of celebrating non conformity/ difference / diversity. Which I could see parallels with my child and their sibling's experience of disability. Another simplistic way of saying we all belong to the world and don't have to fit in to some rigid definition of "normal"

Plus I felt some affinity with this tribe as a lesbeen/ bisexual. There probably was some desperate, performative virtue signalling that HJ refers to. Hey I'm a cool, progressive mum! I'm clearly too old/ unable to go out on the scene anymore but I'm not just a basic breeder. Gimme some queer cred! A performance to my own sense of self as much as anything.

Anyway, I found I was actually bothered/ conflicted by some of the books they were reading. Born in the wrong body. This child is a mermaid thing. That was v different to the toys/ clothes/ dressing up should not be rigorously gendered and you can wear/ do / play with whatever you like message I massively encouraged in my kids and expected from an event of this kind.

I'm a lot more wary/ skeptical of all this now. I went to the S2 RPDR tour show last year and I was shocked that it was advertised as suitable for age 7+. It certainly wasn't. One act had a backdrop featuring some animation of double penetration/ exaggerated porn breasts. There were kids in the audience and I felt horrified.

I am now much more on the side of safeguarding and boundaries.

Thank you for this post.

If DQSH had made to the UK a couple of years earlier I probably would’ve had a similar story to share.

As it happens I’d already had my Mumsnet Radicalisation Safeguarding Induction Session before it landed!

My kids love Hairspray (prefer the original John Waters/Divine one to John Travolta’s more recent musical) which are a good example imo, as to where a line can be drawn. It’s a fun, colourful, has a strong social justice message re: ending racial segregation in 1960s America AND has a non-sexualised character played by a man in drag (Edna). The period songs in the original are fantastic (lots of female singers) and has multiple interesting roles for women old and young, goodies and baddies.
Plus it’s a film so has been vetted for it’s age rating!

Weird to get to 2023 and find yourself thinking ‘Maybe Mary Whitehouse was just misunderstood?’

PI is a signifier of PIE. The Paedophile Information Exchange.

Anything with the PI signifier on it doesn't mean 'we like maths' nor does it mean 'We sleep with as many people in open relationships as we want to'.

The yellow part of the banner is ‘Intersex’
‘Intersex’ meaning the very rare medical conditions DSD ( differences in sexual development) have nothing what ever to do with gender identity, and do not mean sex is on a spectrum. DSD families have asked that their condition not be purloined in this way.