Drag Shows, Panto & Hard Line Stances

[SpicyMoth]

I've seen a lot of media reporting essentially insinuating that there was a lot of anti-trans rhetoric leading up to the shooting, specifically referencing legislation against "child friendly" drag shows that very much are not child friendly.

And I can't help but wonder what the hell happened to Pantomime?
I know it's a very British thing so might not translate to the States particularly well, but this seems like such an easy compromise to me and genuinely child friendly?

Do you think compromise on things like this are even possible?

Is there a way for us to be heard without being so blunt, calling all TW men or AGP's as a blanket statement for example? It just seems so harsh.
I love Posie to bits because she's actually managing to get opposing views heard, but I'd be lying if I said there haven't been times were I thought she could've said something with a bit more tact.
I respect why being blunt, and honest and truthful, is very much needed - but sometimes I just can't help but be reminded of the saying "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

No womanface is acceptable at all, drag queens & pantomime dames (who are played by drag queens now more often than not) need to stop.

They are degrading and an insult to women.

@SpicyMoth " I respect why being blunt, and honest and truthful, is very much needed - but sometimes I just can't help but be reminded of the saying "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

Well you can host your public events in whatever way suits you best, can't you?

As for panto, would you put a panto horse in the Grand National, or try to get a pound of butter and a sirloin steak out of a panto cow? No, you wouldn't, cos panto isn't the same at all, from any angle.

A compromise on truth to be kinder, more tactful, less abrasive? This was the default stance and look where that got us?

I've worked with children for a long time and I'll let you in on a little secret. Pantomime dames scare children (younger ones in particular) or they find them embarrassing and uncomfortable (older children)
The only time I've ever seen children respond to dames by laughing is when it's a school panto and their own teacher wearing comedy boobs. And that laughter is very clearly misogynistic at a male being brought low so I'm not a fan.

I don't know about the history of dames but I imagine they are a throwback to the lord of misrule and a sop to adults in the audience. I'd find it more.logical if adults argued for it from a 'it helps me get through the mind numbing boringness of panto' than the 'children love it' angle.

I can categorically tell you the majority of children do not love it and it is entirely included for adult benefit.

We got rid of the dwarves and the oriental Aladdin jokes. It would be nice if misogyny on stage was dropped for the same reasons.
Yet it's almost like misogyny is so accepted and prevalent in society that drag can casually be slipped in as sexism is accepted in a way the other isms aren't.

Anyway it's a no thank you from me.

Drag queen story hour is specifically done to teach "diversity". It can't be replaced by pantomime unless maybe you have a pantomime with LGBT massaging.

Quoting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_Queen_Story_Hour

Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), Drag Queen Storytime, Drag Story Time, and Drag Story Hour are children's events first started in 2015 by author and activist Michelle Tea in San Francisco with the goals of promoting reading and diversity....

The program strives to "capture the imagination and play of gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models".

I should point out that drag queen story hour is distinct from "child friendly" drag shows, but they likely have the same indoctrination agenda in play.

We've done kind and tactful for 10 years. It got us no where and branded as bigots.

It's war now.

I don't think it's possible. We started out that way, it's made it really easy for politicians to ignore us.

I'm grateful to the women who have been brave enough to say the unsayable often enough that those things are now sayable for all of us.

The clear, unambiguous language is offensive to TRA's because it lays things bare and they would rather people were confused and still believing it's "complex" when it really isn't.

Yes Women…be kind 🤨

There is no compromise with the gender borg. We tried, we offered our support for 3rd spaces, we offer acceptance as transwomen/transmen and we even tried to make sure that they have SAFE and APPROPRIATE health care all of this was refused. They don't want 3rd spaces they want women's spaces, they don't want acceptance as transwomen/transmen they demand that they are real biological women/men now and those people who were formally known as men and women are now cis men and women (whether we believe in gender or not) and they don't want safe or appropriate health care they demand that they are given any and all drugs or surgeries that they want when they want. It's all or nothing with this lot so nothing is what they will get from me, I will not sit back and watch the destruction of society and all we women have worked for due to the narcissistic demands of a spoiled brat of a movement.

For me, no womanface performance is acceptable. No drag, no pantomime dames, no Mrs Brown's boys. A couple of decades ago, Lily Savage had a useful political message. Not any more - the only function now is too dehumanise the class of people who are being stereotyped. Compare the cringe now felt when watching the Abraham sequence in Holiday Inn, which wasn't meant, at the time, to be a racist insult, but which clearly is one.

Blackface is no longer acceptable. It's time for womanface to go too.

Drag queens mock women. They are the Black And White Minstrels of misogyny.

Panto dames are another form of clown. When they are done properly, and not as drag, they are simply silly.

Are red noses on clowns banned because they mock men with rhinophyma? Hoops in clowns' trousers because they fat-shame? Clowns in red wigs because they mock people with red hair?

The connections between panto dames and women are as tenuous. The comedy is in dressing up very badly as something you very obviously are not.

Everyone's right. We've got to ignore those internal feelings of embarrassment, alarm, discomfort (and other aspects of female socialisation).
There's no place for drag queens in schools or reading to children. They can crack on and head for senior citizens homes, adult entertainment venues etc.

We all need to speak out now. Too late for kindness.

I don't like drag or panto but I don't much care about them. When I have a real problem is drag "for kids". Because whether it's DQSH or baby cabaret it isn't actually for the kids, it's for the parents who want to signal the virtue and performers who have no boundaries. I could stomach DQSH if they didn't read boundary-pushing books that teach kids they can be born in the wrong body.

As for being nice and not calling men men... nah. As other posters have said, we did that for decades and look where it got us. There's no compromise on truth and reality.

I think the 'hard line' stances have come about as a result of the oppression and villification that has been dealt to anyone with concerns or views which do not align with Queer Theory and its off-shoots over the last six or seven years.
When you've been so demonised for so long; called a Nazi or 'aligned with the far right' or a 'hateful bigot' it tends to radicalise you.

I understand what you are saying about attracting 'more flies with honey' - and that tend to be my predominant approach too, but the push-back against queer theory and genderism is multi-levelled; bringing in people from all sorts of backgrounds and life situations. Things have become very intense and very polarised - and people dig themselves in to their respective positions.

I think we have just seen an outpouring of love and appreciation for Paul O' Grady in the event of his untimely and unexpected death. This reveals that people's hearts are not closed and that they remain open to a variety of human expression - including pants acts and even some drag acts.

I think the problem is now that much drag has become quite grotesque and many of us are now starting to question whethere we really did like it at all - even though we thought or felt we were supposed to. Drag is now being pushed onto children too - in the form of DQST and many of us, rightly , have concerns about this.

I'm not sure what the way forward is at present - things are too hot and intense . I suspect that until the issue of Gender Self Id and single sex spaces are dealt with, and in a way which honours the integrity of women and girls - the stand off will continue.

The haters are noticeably quiet about Paul O'Grady - not all drag is this hateful stuff by horrible people. It's not one size fits all.

panto acts.

Personally I think there should focus on the behaviour that is or isn’t appropriate rather than the specific person doing the show. Because the expectations what have of what is and isn’t appropriate to put in a child’s show is/should be the same for all people.

E.G- The drag show with people dressed up and dancing in bondage gear. Rather than focusing on the drag aspect I feel it’s more useful to focus on the fact that it is inappropriate for ANYONE to dance about in front of children in clothing that is skimpy and clearly of a sexual nature. It’s not something that is specific to drag acts…but that rule would apply to everyone.

Similarly of someone is using sexist language in front of children. That is inappropriate regardless of who does it.

I used to find him unsettling as a young child. I used to say I was scared because I lack the vocabulary and concept to say I was uncomfortable.
Kind of backs up my point really.

Also just because someone is lovely in themselves doesn't mean their actions can't be rooted in misogyny. I believe he must have come to a similar conclusion about Lily we he retired her.

This is the second thread appealing to female socialisation and suggesting we all say things more gently in as many days. I doubt that’s an accident. The plain language is obviously cutting through to the public in a way that obfuscating ‘kind’ version wasn’t. Good. Everyone needs to understand the consequences of making allowances for special male people’s inclusion in women’s spaces and categories so we can have an informed conversation.

We need to be kind about panto or someone might shoot some kids because they are upset

Doesn't sound a reasonable position to me

There was a time when Lily Savage needed a voice. Since then, society has moved on. No-one is excluded from marriage, employment, full citizen's rights because of their sexual orientation. Good.

The bizarre thing about genderists is the way they want to move us back to a world of 19th century rigid sex-role oppression, coupled with a removal of all right to withhold consent in sex or sex adjacent situations. Extraordinary.

Can't say I've ever been a fan of panto dames. Always found them creepy.

Exactly this.

Why aren't drag octs touting for business in care homes and supported living homes for elderly people? Why are they targeting children?

There’s a place for cross-sex casting, especially in classic roles. Pantomime used to be a ‘Lord of misrule’ festival of cross-sex casting, with the ‘male lead’ being played by a woman, the ‘older woman’ by a man. Then that tradition got dropped more recently. The Dame is still played by a man, but it’s getting quite rare for the protagonist to be the traditional ‘woman in breeches’.

More and better roles for the men. Funny, that…

I’d say Paul O’Grady was in the older tradition - using cross-sex to comment on gender roles for comic effect. He was a man playing a woman, and a lot of the comedy came from knowing that a real woman wouldn’t say, in public, what Lily Savage said. A drag queen could say things that a woman couldn’t.

For a brief, shining moment, that ‘a woman couldn’t’ changed and we could.

And then the drag queens started to get more mocking, more a parody of women. ‘Womanface.’ I think O’Grady spotted that, didn’t like it and so retired Lily.