Drag Queens, are they outright offensive?

[Sophds]

Now I’ve never been the biggest feminist, I know that’s probably not the best way to characterise myself on a feminism board but I don’t want to quickly be dismissed as wrapped up in groupthink.

Read about todays protest at the tate modern against drag queen story hour and I’ve not read enough in to the story hour thing to have a strong informed opinion about that specifically it got me thinking aren’t drag queens just a misogynist version of black face?

I’ve never really thought too much about it and have never really had an issue with drag queens but now I just feel like something doesn’t sit right with me about men dressing up with hugely caricatured female features and caricatured stereotypical female behaviours that often cross over in to overt sexualisation.

I just feel like the entire idea of drag is to caricature and degrade women? Does anybody else feel like this?

I think pantomime dames are a different issue, with a long tradition that is not related to drag queens, although it is a send up of older and unattractive women,for the most part, but not over sexualised in the way that some drag queens are. Interestingly, I saw an old film with Danny la Rue, who played a spy who masqueraded as a French countess - his costume was not a stereotype, though he was dressed in what were undoubtedly chic clothes from the late forties. It was not offensive in the way drag queens are, nor esp sexualised. The really offensive bit was at the end when one of the women (middle aged middle class) said he was more of a woman than she was. That was deeply offensive, just as India Willoughby's assertion on QT that he was a better woman than natal women is deeply offensive. It is the denigration of actual women by stereotyping and hamming up supposed (desired?) female attributes that stick in the craw.

Yes they did have some freedoms, but not in the context of being able to enter the public sphere of life. It was more that early Christian women did not have to veil while in public like Roman women did. Early Christian women could leave the house without a chaperone and for reasons other than religious festivals at temples or to visit the local water fountain compared to Greek women. You forget too that the early Christian women that owned land and such were exclusively of the aristocratic classes where inheritance was protected by the fathers of these women to go to their grand children, for the majority of women their property still became their husbands property. Roman and Greek women were also literate and educated, I’d say to a greater degree than early Christian women.

Other rights or powers became more restricted though…Roman women lost the right to divorce with early Christianity. Both Roman and Greek women lost power of sexual access to male slaves as well (not that raping slaves is a human right, but it’s a power Christian men reserved for themselves). Education became limited to approved religious texts.

My sample size of me being a woman and finding it offensive is all I need to know. Maybe I should start watching a variety of blackface acts just to see if there are some I don’t find offensive?

The things seen as socially acceptable change over time. Black face and woman face are two cheeks of the same arse. Oppression.

I don't have a problem with drag, but with many issues it is about nuance, and I am completely opposed to DQST.

We have seen with the wider trans issue that trans people are unlikely to be sex offenders, but sex offenders will pretend to be trans to commit crime and get away with it. The same with drag queens, predators are seeing easy access to children as long as they put on a dress and wig.

With the Green Party's stupidity in demanding that no background criminal checks are made for DQST you will see many more abusers take up drag in order for easy access to children.

I can't believe we're now getting to a position where we're saying that paedophiles can get access to children as long they as they wear a dress.

Completely agree with you OP.

When I was in early 20s, I regularly went to gay clubs and bars where there would be drag acts. Always enjoyed it and didn't think too much into it. A few months ago I was watching celebrity masterchef and they had a drag queen from drag race (which I've not watched) call Kitty Scott-Claus. I couldn't put my finger on why at first, but I realised that this contestant made me feel really uncomfortable. After a few episodes it dawned on me that drag is effectively black face but with women as the subjects. When I spoke to my friends, they said they'd never thought about it much before but I was right. I feel quite strongly about this now and refuse to watch anything drag related so will turn over. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Horrible. Only one I didnt mind was Dame Edna. Most are highly offensive.

Drag is for adults NOT children.

Drag is sexualised adult entertainment.

I agree with you on this. Really offensive.

not always, but often.

Some blackface was well intentioned- some Othello performances, that toe-curlingly awful Abraham in Holiday Inn. We still sometimes watch them as historical anomalies. Dame Edna and Charlie's Aunt will still be there, but new performances should STOP now, for at least a generation.

specifically, new womanface performances, whatever the intention behind it.

Offensive, disgusting, in bad taste, grotesque. I cannot see any merit nor positive contribution to culture, art, entertainment in drag queens.

I can’t say I’m too fussed about drag for adults or in clubs but for kids it’s fucking sinister, and it isn’t that I’m ‘just not enlightened enough to understand why it’s fine’.

Drag queens seem to me to be men who think they are better at being women than real women are.

Yes, Womanface is offensive and misogynist.

Yes.

@Onnabugeisha The Greek origin was cultural in that acting was a public performance and women were restricted to the private sphere of the home. presumably to keep them from being molested much like in huge swathes of the world now? They travelled but within the confines of their families not solo and not freely. The idea that cover their bodies, stay out of the public eye, stay home, don’t do “traditional” male jobs, is cultural totally ignores the reason that those cultural practices grew so prevalent. The tradition of men playing women’s parts isn’t because they are better/funnier/sexier/honouring women, it’s because women doing the same job were vulnerable and to cover their exploitation/abuse declared prostitutes/fallen/scarlet/whores/loose.

When someone says “it’s our culture” to defend a practice that degrades or disadvantages one group of society it isn’t a reason it’s a reason to look and think more carefully.

Charlie's Aunt and Mrs Doubtfire are different. Problematic in their own right but different.

When a man attempts to disguise themself as a woman for genuine plot reasons, then that's a performance tool.

Men disguised as nuns to escape prison etc... fine. It's ok for that to be funny, too.

There's an issue about why the character does it- Mrs Doubtfire is just creepy stalker behaviour, he hugely invades her privacy.

I ve no objection to women disguising themselves as men and vice versa- as long as it's plot driven.

It is part of Queer theory and eroding boundaries.

Helen Joyce is interesting about it here in regard to children. I think she gets on to this subject at another 40 mins in.

at about (not another)

No, the Ancient Greek culture of public vs private had nothing to do with keeping women from being molested. It was more that public life was the gender role of men.

women doing the same job were vulnerable and to cover their exploitation/abuse declared prostitutes/fallen/scarlet/whores/loose.

The religious morality wrapping came later, with Christianity.

Some of us have referred to a photo of a drag queen with an erection around children. Is that the photo that Oldcrone posted on page 4 of this thread? Because that doesn't look like an erection to me.

Trousers inappropriately tight to be around children yes. 'Normalising the bulge' as Dylan would say, yes (yuck). But visibly aroused with erect penis, no.

When someone says “it’s our culture” to defend a practice that degrades or disadvantages one group of society it isn’t a reason it’s a reason to look and think more carefully.

No one is defending anything. But culture is a cause of things like gender roles in its own right in historical societies. You need to be careful when viewing Ancient societies because they thought very differently from us.

Who cares what the Greeks did?

Seriously, there is no excuse to get into underwear and grind in front of kids.