Guardian: drag protests are a hard-right American import

[PotteringPondering]

Guardian determined to portray all drag protests and objections as hard-right and imported from the States.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/22/british-extremists-us-right-family-drag-shows-children

No reference at all to the feminist/progressive case that drag is misogynistic, or to the rising tide of UK concerns about drag.

Almost as if they were trying to smear the anti-drag case. Surely not?

Women are not free to say they find drag offensive and that they dislike men mocking stereotypes of women, that are sexualised and reduce women to objects without intelligence.

Women are not free to object to the names associated with some drag artists that are misogynist.

Women are not free to state their opinion that exposing children to sexualised images is harmful to them, that sexual innuendo should remain in adult spaces and positive role models for children should not be based in fetishism.

If women state their opinion, it is ludicrous to make the connection between their stated opinion and book banning, anti abortion, homophobia, anti vaccine, covid denial, anti trans and the right wing politics.

I have always disliked males parodying females in outdated sexist modes whether Justin Fletcher as Dina Lady, Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie, Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire. It doesn't make me right wing and this stereotype is very far from progressive.

I do believe that the push to expose children to sexualised images and discussions is harmful and sexual abuse is three times ore prevalent for females compared to males, yet males are at the forefront of defending this trend.

Women are the ones at risk, the ones being mocked, the ones who are affected by these harmful beliefs and images but womens' voices are not being reported.

True. They apparently didn't notice that DQST is itself an American import, either.

Quite the ratio!

Yes! Just taken a look.

Very good point. American extremist import, in fact.

We should have stopped importing American culture after rock music and 70s Hollywood films

What I find particularly strange is that the reason for the drag story-time events is totally based on it being a gay thing. It's supposed to support the school or library's social justice/inclusivity programming.

Rather than female impersonators, or Shakespeare, which are not a gay thing, except by chance. (Of course Shakespeare would support the library's reading and literature programming, but that is not emphasized so much these days. You have to be on-trend to get funding, and kids don't read anymore anyway.)

But I am more convinced every day that a lot of people are quite dim, and can't connect things that are in fact connected, or connect up things that are unrelated.

Strange isn't it that in attempting to say it is part of a theatrical tradition I have not heard of any Principal Boy drag acts going to libraries.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm - I wonder why that is?!

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

I have always disliked males parodying females in outdated sexist modes whether Justin Fletcher as Dina Lady, Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie, Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire. It doesn't make me right wing and this stereotype is very far from progressive.

Some Like it Hot is one of my favourite movies, and it probably always will be…..

…. but, it’s quite obvious, whenever men dress up and present as women, that they see us as silly, fluffy, flighty, shallow, frivolous, vain, looks/clothes-obsessed, daft, not too bright, etc, etc.

That’s always the default portrayal. That’s how men see us. All of us. It’s quite revealing.

And then you see Dylan fucking Mulvaney, and this idea of how men see us, as per above ^^ is only reinforced 100%.

If only they had stuck with "Well nobody's perfect" ...

The latest in the recent series of "Wow! Did the Guardian actually publish that?"

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2024/feb/18/private-school-pupils-must-pay-vat-observer-letters

A time and a place for drag

Drag is a fabulous, funny and fascinating art form that’s been around for over 100 years (“Drag stars are racing to the rescue”, Magazine). It’s also highly sexualised adult entertainment, which many people feel is pretty misogynistic. Nobody was protesting against drag when it was restricted to late-night pubs and nightclubs. In the last few years, it has moved into schools and libraries and many people find that concerning. Eva Wiseman writes that protests against this “often include anti-vaxxers, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists”. They also include men and women of all ages, sexualities and backgrounds who are concerned about the erosion of sexual boundaries and the impact that could have on issues of consent.

Katharine Rogers
**
Bristol

I'm actually starting to hope that it may become readable again, before too much longer.

Any time that women have an opinion the Guardian don't like, they accuse us of being right wing 🙄

Why have rightwingers made even parkrun a battleground for trans people? | Sport | The Guardian

what gives you any hope whatsoever? The gruan has been a TRA bin fire for years now and if anything appears to doubling down on the Kool Aid. It will need (along with a bunch of other institutions) a total clear out of the batshit mentalists pushing this garbage.

what gives you any hope whatsoever?

Well, it may be a forlorn hope, but in recent weeks, they've published a number of letters critical of their fawning coverage on trans and associated subjects.

@ChateauMargaux Nailed it. Spot on.

Whew! The guardian is going hard this week!

Well, it's the Observer, but it's a definite chink in their armour. Now, if they could persuade Kath Viner to look for another job, it could go back to being sensible.

Not sure if this is accepted fact, but multiple academics over the last 20 years at least point to the fact that contemporary [American] ‘drag’ is actually racist in its origins. It is argued that it evolved from Minstrel shows where the black, fat mama was portrayed by a blacked up male performer as a comedic figure demonstrating an intersectionality between misogyny and racism.

Have seen a few academics speak on this and found this article in the National Geographic.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/drag-queen-drag-balls-early-history-pop-culture

ie. Drags origins are far right …

Lazy, lazy guilt by association. 'far-right groups' etc etc. Same old dishonest shite. Whatever you think about Tootsie and Mrs Doubtfire, they have nothing in common with modern-day, highly sexualised drag. And Shakespeare and Principal Boys, even less relevant.

This is such ahistorical bulshit. Feminists have been having conversations about drag for at least forty years.

Yes, but they're like, OLD and everything so they're probably nearly dead and who knows what, like, women were saying in the olden days?

It's as if they just can't read or hear anything women say to them. Or believe that women have any thoughts or perceptions of their own; so if they're malfunctioning they've been programmed by shadowy forces.

I go back to the re written poster I saw somewhere: paraphrased it was something like: 'give male (frequently with dodgy online history) wearing pornographic women's clothes access to your children hour'. That about nailed it.

And of course there's the more general point that story-telling, especially for children, is about the story, not the story-teller. Well out of kilter with the current "Me, me, me" solipsism.
The Guardian piece seeks to suggest that objections to DQST come only from the far Right, and all decent, progressive folk don't have a problem with it. But the writer knows perfectly well that that isn't the case, he only has to pick up his phone and ask, say, Helen Joyce, or countless other people who I'm sure would be only to happy to give a quotable view on DQST.