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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Drag Shows, Panto & Hard Line Stances

200 replies

SpicyMoth · 31/03/2023 03:31

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."

OP posts:
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Ginmonkeyagain · 31/03/2023 08:38

I think Lilly Savage generally came from a place of love and respect for the strong, no nonsense Scouse and Irish women in Paul O'Grady's life. Yes she was larger than life and a bit of a grotesque but that was in the tradition of British comedy and music hall.

RoyalCorgi · 31/03/2023 09:07

I was quite surprised to see feminists like Janice Turner and Julie Bindel express affection for the Lily Savage character, because I always disliked it intensely. Drag has always made me massively uncomfortable, and in that I include Edna Everage, Danny La Rue and even Les Dawson's Ada character, whom other people seem to like. I know some people make a distinction between the kind of drag that mocks women and the kind of drag that is sympathetic to women, but to me it all falls into the category of a dominant class (men) making fun of a subservient class (women). It's not so very different from white people blacking up (which, incidentally, is also nearly always men).

I appreciate that other women feel differently, and I have no desire to police their enjoyment, but that's how it feels to me.

NotHavingIt · 31/03/2023 09:15

RoyalCorgi · 31/03/2023 09:07

I was quite surprised to see feminists like Janice Turner and Julie Bindel express affection for the Lily Savage character, because I always disliked it intensely. Drag has always made me massively uncomfortable, and in that I include Edna Everage, Danny La Rue and even Les Dawson's Ada character, whom other people seem to like. I know some people make a distinction between the kind of drag that mocks women and the kind of drag that is sympathetic to women, but to me it all falls into the category of a dominant class (men) making fun of a subservient class (women). It's not so very different from white people blacking up (which, incidentally, is also nearly always men).

I appreciate that other women feel differently, and I have no desire to police their enjoyment, but that's how it feels to me.

I suspect most of the affection for Paul O' Grady stems not from his drag act - which really wasn't that different to most drag, but from his subsequnet career as a chat show/game show hosat and latterly his series 'For the love of dogs'. they have re-interpreted his drag act in the light of these factors - all of which humanise him and make him so much more than just a female impersonator. He also didn't make of himself a symbol or a vector for political activism in his 'second' career.

NotHavingIt · 31/03/2023 09:18

CeratopsofthePharoahs · 31/03/2023 08:11

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

Yes, I don't think children like them.

Even Justin ( in drag) on CBeebies is there to enterain the parents and not the children.

RufustheSpeculatingreindeer · 31/03/2023 09:23

I saw a clip of a filming of a pride event i think at a school in America with a drag queen giving a child a ‘lap dance’ cheered on by parents

i think people have lost their minds and I think drag has no place around children.

drag is for adults

Myalternate · 31/03/2023 09:23

In 2012 Paul O’Grady said: "There’s not enough cash on earth to get me dragged up. God no. It’s always been, ‘Why don’t you be Lily Savage again?’ Well, because one, I’m too old. And two, I couldn’t be bothered. I’ve moved on. At the time I thoroughly enjoyed it but I’ve moved on. Even in panto, I wouldn’t fancy it."

Helleofabore · 31/03/2023 09:39

OP, there ARE many conversations that are happening using language that is suited for the audience though. Women have been doing this already for years and will continue to do so.

Don’t forget women are speaking in parliament, they are speaking at committee hearings, they are speaking in debates (where those can be had) and are speaking on panels.

It is patronising to explicitly or implicitly tell women that we are not doing this. It really is.

We are now just speaking other ways too. Because after years of speaking in the way you advocate "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.", we have been ignored, spoken over by either males or by women telling us we are doing it wrong, by politicians and by policy makers.

The work to prioritise sex based rights for females over gender where it matters is happening using a multitude of different ways, with different approaches and different methods. It needs to reach a wide diverse audience and is now doing that.

Don’t forget, for every person who sees the bluntness as problematic, there are multiple people who go and find out more information. Or who mention their discomfort of the bluntness to someone who then explains what has been allowed to happen and does it in a ‘reasonable’ way.

I suspect it is people who think in polarised, absolutist ways who will remain polarised on this issue. And to clarify, I don’t mean the women saying ‘no’ to male people accessing female single sex spaces are polarised. I mean the people who see women saying no to those male people who then believe those women are the ‘enemy’ or ‘Nazis’ or ‘far right aligned’!

And those polarised thinkers are not going to change. I consider them a small group though.

The ‘hard line’ has moved because we now realise that those cannot be compromised on while still protecting the women and children it needs to protect. There are no compromises on that.

As to ‘compromising’ on language used, there is no need. Those ‘compromises’ really are still happening everywhere. As they have been for years. Telling us to do so is like telling granny to suck eggs and that never fucking goes down well.

Mixkle · 31/03/2023 09:41

Panto in my town is creepy as hell. It’s full of sexual innuendo and performed by men who dress as highly sexualised (but ugly) women. The ‘actors’ when not in a panto do kids party entertainment that erm is the sort of party where you stand in between the entertainer and your child so the entertainer can’t casually touch the child’s knee. Been to one of those parties and won’t go to another!

They even do a special adults only late night performance of the ‘panto’ which is advertised as involving even more sex jokes and also a lot of on stage drinking of alcohol.

No, I don’t take my children to panto anymore and I don’t see it as innocent kids entertainment, I see it as a certain type of man wanting to perform sex jokes to children for his own sexual thrill.

Perhaps panto is innocent in your town but I’d be surprised if you can find one without sex jokes and huge tits.

StaunchMomma · 31/03/2023 09:56

Kleinenichy · 31/03/2023 03:49

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.

You are actually offended?!

Really?!!!

PuttingDownRoots · 31/03/2023 10:06

Cross dressing in theatre is an age old tradition. Its still used today (indeed, wasn't Paul O Grade playing a female character just a week ago in Annie?)

Cross Dressing, as in choosing to wear clothes associated with the other sex, isn't in itself misogynistic or sexist.

However my rule of thumb... would it be appropriate for a women to wear that outfit in that circumstance? If the answer is no, a man shouldn't be applauded for wearing it.

FourTeaFallOut · 31/03/2023 10:08

Well drag is a grotesque parody of womanhood. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, is it? Even if you dress it up as family entertainment.

DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry · 31/03/2023 10:09

StaunchMomma

You are actually offended?!

Really?!!!

Why all the punctuation marks?

A woman daring to say that offensive displays of misogyny are offensive ?!?!!!!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????!

ArabellaScott · 31/03/2023 10:12

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.

That is a good point.

ArabellaScott · 31/03/2023 10:13

NotHavingIt · 31/03/2023 09:18

Yes, I don't think children like them.

Even Justin ( in drag) on CBeebies is there to enterain the parents and not the children.

Who the fuck finds him entertaining?!

HBGKC · 31/03/2023 10:15

SquirreNutkinsTail · 31/03/2023 04:48

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.

I think this is spot on. The children don't like it (though some infantile adults might).

HBGKC · 31/03/2023 10:18

RufustheSpeculatingreindeer · 31/03/2023 09:23

I saw a clip of a filming of a pride event i think at a school in America with a drag queen giving a child a ‘lap dance’ cheered on by parents

i think people have lost their minds and I think drag has no place around children.

drag is for adults

Really..??

I despair.

NotHavingIt · 31/03/2023 10:19

ArabellaScott · 31/03/2023 10:13

Who the fuck finds him entertaining?!

I liked Gigglebiz; often very funny.

DemiColon · 31/03/2023 10:26

Americans have never had the same kind of cross-dressing humour that British (or Canadian) comedy has.

But I don't see Pantomime as a "substitute" because it's nothing like drag, it just isn't related. Any more than a historically accurate version of Hamlet with males in female roles would be the same, or an all-girls school production where girls play the male roles.

The whole point of DQSH is that it is related to LGBTQ+ stuff. It's about libraries and schools trying to fulfill some kind of social justice role that they believe they have some kind of obligation to do.

A bunch of actors acting has nothing to do with any of that.

Snowjokes · 31/03/2023 10:28

NotHavingIt · 31/03/2023 10:19

I liked Gigglebiz; often very funny.

I don’t know how Gigglebiz has survived cancel culture. Surely Justin badly cross dressing is transphobic.

Pantomime is not child friendly. Not really. Men wearing oversized bouncing boobs, masses of innuendo - in what other circumstance would that be considered child friendly? Not to mention the fact that most of the stories being told are boringly sexist.

No one actually catches more flies with honey. What social movement in the last hundred years has done so?

Zodfa · 31/03/2023 10:53

I think some drag has at least the potential, not to mock women, but to mock socially-enforced femininity. There's a lot of stuff women are expected to do that we are so acclimatised to we don't realise how ridiculous it is until a man does it. That sort of performance is potentially quite feminist.

In any case there is drag which relies on men and women being different to be effective (traditional UK drag and panto) and drag which aims to blur the lines between men and women (all this modern American drag, apparently) and even if both of them are problematic I think they need thinking about separately, because they're potentially problematic for very different reasons.

DeanVolecapeAKAelderberry · 31/03/2023 11:03

Socially-enforced femininity (or masculinity) is THE core principle of genderism. Without it, nobody needs to be transgender. Indeed nobody could be transgender.

That may be why womanface performance was less offensive two decades ago - genderism hadn't been invented, and sex roles were not being socially enforced. Nowadays it is just one more tool in the movement to silence and confine women.

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 31/03/2023 11:05

SquirreNutkinsTail · 31/03/2023 04:48

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.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Brefugee · 31/03/2023 11:07

all the "what about Mrs Doubtfire / Dame Edna / Hinge & Bracket" and even Lily Savage vs what some drag shows are now, are disingenuous claptrap.

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?

Again, panto is a completely different thing aimed at a family audience. So there are risqué jokes but they traditionally go right over children's heads and give the parents something to laugh at.

It is infuriating to have the two types of female "impersonators" conflated like this: the family friendly vs outright sex-act ones.

RufustheSpeculatingreindeer · 31/03/2023 11:08

And yiu know I watch Ru Paul a fair bit because my adult children like it and I appreciate its very marmite

but this isn’t on….

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