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."

*Telling people what they can/cannot wear, how they are allowed to express themselves, perform or exist is … extremist. It’s anti feminist and frankly bonkers.

I’m amazed those attitudes appear to be so normalised on these threads.*

But they are not, are they? They are not just men wearing dresses and masses of makeup and long curly hair with high heels on. They are. taking all that and making it entertainment. To make it entertaining, to some, they add songs with insinuating dance moves and then they add jokes, and then nasty jokes and then they slide into full blown misogyny with refernces to female biology and sexist tropes aimed st women.

They should stop at the dresses and makeup. But then no one would find it funny anymore because then it would just be men in dresses...

Telling people what they can/cannot wear, how they are allowed to express themselves, perform or exist is … extremist. It’s anti feminist and frankly bonkers.

You think it’s anti feminist for women to say they don’t like it when men dress up
as female characters and make jokes about sex acts and women’s bodies being sexually repulsive using tropes like ‘fishy’?

What exactly do you think feminism IS then?

There's not really been an answer from those defending drag about the use of the word 'fish' or 'fishy'. It's why I don't like drag - because it is inherently misogynistic.

I first became aware of it when it was featured on mainstream tv - 'The Big Fat Quiz of the Year' a few years ago. Two drag queens were brought on to explain various terminologies used in drag, including 'fishy', referring to the supposed smell of a woman's vagina, along with disgusted faces and wafting of hands around the genital area. The guests and audience sat there laughing their heads off. The dislike and disgust for women was clearly evident.

And note that a subsequent apology was directed towards those who found the use of the word 'transphobic' and not towards women -

metro.co.uk/2019/12/28/vivienne-hits-back-criticised-using-word-fishy-big-fat-quiz-year-2019-11970023/

CryptoFascistMadameCholet

- - Again for anyone who doesn't seem to have seen why I dont think it's offensive. - -.

There is no ‘why’ in your post!

They did say because they think it's a harmless performance, but nothing more in depth as to really why.

@CremeEggQueen
You have said several times that you don't think womanface is comparable to blackface but you haven't ever said why.

You have said several times that you don't think womanface is comparable to blackface but you haven't ever said why.

This is about being well-indoctrinated by ‘rightthink’ isn’t it?

Almost like someone stood there at the whiteboard and wrote with their marker:

• It is always wrong to compare other oppressions with racism
• Feminism has won all its battles so women, particularly white women, have no oppression to fight.
• White women who do not agree are known as ‘entitled white Karen’s’ who are the sole oppressor of all racial minorities

And people like creameggqueen dutifully scribbled it all down, never once putting up their hand and asking “why?”. Probably because they knew they’d get a death stare and be called racist, or perhaps because questioning things isn’t their style.

No you did not explain.

Just saying ‘you don’t see someone in a black and white minstrel show as the same and they are offensive’ is not ‘explaining’. It is doubling down on a statement that lacks any logic at all when you are here defending males dressing as ‘women’.

Regarding the fact ‘you’ are not offended by it and ‘you’ don’t seen the mocking aspects could be that you dismiss misogynistic acts but have been told black and white minstrels are racist so you have just repeated it here.

“it's not like they usually go around saying they are literally a woman”

and

“Kind of like it's the fact that they step outside the boundaries of what a man "should" look like, wear and behave that people have a problem with.”

And why do these male people insist they are called ‘she’ when in character if they are not aware they are mocking women? What are they telling children to call them in DQST? I believe it is ‘she’.

And let’s not forget the acts like ‘Anna Bortion’ and ‘Miss Carriage’ , ‘Malestia Child’ and others. Simulating child birth throwing an infant doll into the crowd as has been discussed here on this board before.

Or this one where a drag Queen simulated giving a lap dance and oral sex to a politician at a fundraiser for homeless people. How offensive do drag acts have to be for them to be denounced as mocking women and in that instance homeless women who often have to turn to such activities to get money to live? Or the women who have been sexually assaulted- why do male performers think this is appropriate for ANY victim of sexual abuse to see used as a comedic device?

https://thecritic.co.uk/how-drag-degrades-women/

From the article here are a few more misogynistic names and one has a horrific description:

”Or maybe you wish to hire “Felicity Suxwell”who we are informed “is a 23 year old Drag queen, she looks 12 and has the energy of a 3 year old … ready to steal your man, grandad, dad and all the D’s in your life”. For £250 you can enjoy the company of “miss Annie Rexic”.”

I think that Dr Em sums it up nicely:

”In what other circumstance is it acceptable to woop and clap when a member of the privileged group uses ridicule against an oppressed group? To rub salt in the wounds, these men build their careers off of the tools of female oppression — gender stereotypes and sexual objectification — and re-entrench them in performances where they are portrayed as just a laugh and a lark.”

Sure, some acts are men dressing up and singing, and that may simply be on prime time TV.

I watched that end of year Jimmy Carr show about ‘Fishy’ and wrote in and complained and was ignored. How fucked up is it that male’s use that kind of language as part of their ‘culture’ and that people are protecting that ‘culture’?

Just because some people cannot see the misogyny and opression in drag acts, doesn’t make them right when they deny that the acts are inherently misogynistic and oppressive.

Just because someone repeats an empty statement of ‘drag acts are not like black and white minstrel acts’, doesn’t mean they understand and have explained.

It just shows that maybe they cannot see misogyny when it is right there.

Would you like to try then, to explain how black and white minstrel performers and in any way different to drag queens?

And would you like to explain in detail rather than just as ‘I don’t find it offensive’, why you don’t see the misogyny in way these actors portray women?

Why shouldn’t women call out the behaviour of any group who treat women in this way?

It is not about ‘how they dress’, it is about the act as a whole. And when that act is about mocking women and women’s oppression, then yes, we certainly will fucking discuss it on the feminist board.

Imagine coming onto a feminist board to tell women on it what they can and cannot discuss when it most certainly is a well recognised feminist issue?

Imagine failing to see misogyny?

I expect there were loads of minstrel show performers and minstrel show fans who hand-waved away complaints with ‘but it’s just harmless performance’

I suspect that's because you've not thought about it properly.

So anyone who disagrees with your bigoted worldview just hasn’t thought about it properly.🙄

I would suggest that if your worldview leads to harmful or reductive tropes and intolerance toward marginalised groups - like drag queens, trans people (and gays who don’t buy into your into your bs) - then perhaps you’ve not thought about it properly.

How are drag queens marginalised? Seriously? They’re blokes doing a job. No one is forcing them to mock and degrade women using sexist Misogynistic tropes are they? And are you conflating drag queens to trans people? Why? That sounds quite transphobic to me.

I notice you didn't inside lesbians in that list.
Could there be a reason?

If you don’t like drag performances, then by all means, don’t watch them.

Don’t take your kids to drag story time.

Instead of, you know, denying their right to exist.

I won’t engage with (predominantly non-black) intolerant individuals attempting to co-opt issue of race like minstrel shows to justify their oppression of other marginalised groups like trans people (and somehow drag performers wtf). Perhaps you can engage with the congregation of Westboro Baptist Church, with whom you have more in common. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/westboro-baptist-church

So you don’t have a reasonable argument then @PlanetLuna also why didn’t you include lesbians in your list of marginalised groups? Are you saying lesbians are not marginalised?

Have you actually spoken to any black women about drag?

Black women are often MORE socially conservative and LESS tolerant of misogynistic performance than white women.

Feel free to go tell the women of Lipstick Alley that drag isn’t misogynistic, I’d happily put money on you getting your white saviour arse handed to you on a plate but no one with half a brain would take the wager against me.

https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/would-you-stay-with-a-man-you-discovered-was-a-drag-queen.5156317/

I know. Right?

To be honest, whilst I think there are similarities between racism and misogyny, I don't think we should need to have to justify that drag is like blackface to suggest it is harmful and has no place in modern society. Why are women the only group that have to justify basic respect on the premise that another group achieved it?

@PlanetLuna

So anyone who disagrees with your bigoted worldview just hasn’t thought about it properly.🙄

Not at all. I would never suggest someone making a well thought out case which I disagree with hasn't thought about it properly.

I would engage with their arguments to show why I don't think they stand up, both in the hope of convincing them and to make sure the counterarguments were made for other readers.

Through doing that it's also possible I'd realise their arguments do stand up and change my own position, although it doesn't happen that often on this topic simply because I do think about this a lot, and read lots of different perspectives and challenge and refine my own understanding all the time anyway. I don't tend to engage directly unless I think there's a really interesting perspective being raised or an egregious assertion or accusation being made that shouldn't stand unchallenged.

I would suggest that if your worldview leads to harmful or reductive tropes and intolerance toward marginalised groups - like drag queens, trans people (and gays who don’t buy into your into your bs) - then perhaps you’ve not thought about it properly.

For example, it's exactly this type of statement that leads me to think you haven’t thought properly about it.

In laying out my position (that drag exists within a sexist framework and therefore, while the explicit intention of the performer may be to either express something about themselves or critique/disrupt men's genderised social role, they are still using unchallenged sexist constructions of womanhood to do so, and so drag is fundamentally an expression based in patriarchal privilege) I haven't made any harmful or reductive statements about any of the groups. Indeed, I've carefully noted that the sexism is due to the social context not deliberate intent.

But you haven't responded to my point at all. You've simply called my "worldview" "bs" and "bigoted".

You could have explained why you think a practice that specifically rests on men portraying women can exist outside sexist/gendered ideas about "women" and "men", or why you don't think women are a marginalised group, or even that you think reproducing sexism isn't necessarily sexist. You could have explained why for you, "feminism" seems to be "don't tell other people of any sex what do to" rather than what it is for me, which is "identify society's in built sexism that unfairly marginalises and constrains women, work politically and socially to eradicate it, and provide practical support for women in the meantime to counterbalance it". You could have been expict about what you think my "worldview" is (you are probably wrong about that BTW) to show what's "bigoted" about it instead of just asserting it is, like that is some sort of trump card that means no further explanation is needed.

So it's not the disagreement that makes me think you've not thought about it properly, it's the superficiality of what you said.

I might not agree with you, but I'd certainly be interested in your perspective and I'd welcome hearing it.

Because I dont see it as woman face.
I think that's a ridiculous term personally.
I see panto dames and drag as performance, panto dames are acting, drag acts dont see anything wrong with people expressing their selves via clothes and make up
Again as to why I dont see it as offensive.
How is that not explaining why?!

But @CremeEggQueen by that standard, blackface is also performance and therefore acceptable to you? If you don’t see anything wrong with people expressing themselves with clothes and makeup, then you can’t object to blackface can you? Are you ok with white performers dressing as black individuals and reducing them to offensive tropes? If not, why not, and why is it ok when males do it to women?

Why are you asking the same question over again when I've already answered you several times?!
Yes black face is offensive.
No "woman face" isn't as I dont see it as a thing.
That any better and simpler for you?!
If you want a more in depth answer see my previous posts on the last few pages.

I agree Nutkin it shouldn’t be necessary.

The reason minstrel shows are used as a comparison is purely because the people who love drag (those who identify as being on The Right Side of History) are able to see the wrongness in one type of performance but are seemingly completely blind to the wrongness in the other.

Yet absolutely no one does this in the opposite direction.

IMO there are 3 broad groups.

Group One think female impersonator shows (drag) and black man impersonator shows (minstrels) are both offensive.
Some of this group think both should be banned, and others prioritise free speech over banning (and hope humans progress to the point where neither is considered socially acceptable).

Group Two don’t really give a shit about either type of performance, either because they don’t really think about anything very deeply, because they are Edge Lords who want to offend everyone for funsies or because they are actual racists and actual misogynists.

Group Three are happy to agree with Group One in saying that minstrel shows are bad but disagree when it comes to drag. They insist that drag is somehow completely different - we’ve been trying to get a coherent why they are different from the drag supporting posters on this thread but haven’t got one yet.
I’m going to suggest that these people are IDPOL enthusiasts who place black men and gay men higher up the progressive stack than women, so it’s fair game to take the piss out of women via drag because that’s gay men ‘punching up’ but it’s not ok to take the piss out of black men via minstrel shows because that’s white men ‘punching down’.

This seems to me to be an incoherent explanation. Drag is not a protected characteristic, no one is ‘born this way’ as a drag queen, not all gay men are drag queens and drag queens can be straight and bi men and women of any sexual orientation (aka ‘Bio Queens’) and transmen of any sexual orientation (biological females who identify as men).

Interestingly there is no
equivalent 4th group to group 3 - absolutely no one takes the position that minstrel shows are fine and dandy and mere harmless performance whilst also decrying drag for it’s misogyny.

This is because the people who dislike drag due to it’s misogyny are not the racist nazi fascists that Woke Social Justice Blue Hairs pretend them to be.
The lack of a group 4 exposes the internalised misogyny present in the arguments made by women who support a cross dressing man’s right to take the piss out of women over the woman’s right not to have the piss taken.

I absolutely fucking hate hypocrisy and thus have more respect for the consistent Edge Lords than I do for the Intersectionalist Blue Hairs, despite half-agreeing with the Blue Hairs.

Argh

Well, the thing is, you’re not actually answering the question, and my years of working with children have taught me sometimes asking a question in the right way will enable the answer to be given. Do you believe women are oppressed? If not, why not? If they are, why are you supporting males punching down to an oppressed group to mock and denigrate them. If you believe women are not oppressed, please could you explain why?