I agree with all your posts and thanks you’ve explained to me why I feel uncomfortable with misogynistic drag being performed outside venues predominately used by and aimed at gay men. Because that’s what this is- misogynistic drag. And other forms of drag are definitely available these days but misogynistic drag is the original, essential, originating form of the art form. I think it helps to frame it in those terms to distinguish the other drag that exists.
Celeb Masterchef is so wildly out of the original context in which misogynistic drag was originally performed - back then, in stigmatised gay venues in order to say something about gay men’s masculinity which was back then routinely derided and attacked by mainstream culture. Putting all that into a celebrity cooking show is so stripping it of the original context that it’s completely wrong to have misogynistic drag on a family cooking show. Stripped of meaning it’s now just theBBC elevating and endorsing a man doing woman mockery and woman hating. Now why would that appeal to anyone in BBC casting?
It’s not even an example of the BBC genuinely elevating gay men, so it’s a homophobic casting pick too. They could have had any number of actual celebrity gay men on their show representing their own individual celebrity achievements and reflecting the gay male community. That would have been great without having anyone punching down, wearing the misogynistic costume and gross innuendo name and misogynistic ‘character’ shtick going on. So that awful choice of ‘celebrity’ pick is all on the BBC execs.
And thank you, you have helped me think through and clarify to myself for me that as a form of protest, misogynistic drag doesn’t translate into any other context than the gay club. As a bisexual woman, back when I used to go to apparently ‘mixed’ (but actually gay men’s) venues in the past, I was just as embarrassed and offended by the gay men on stage in drag laughing at women for being ‘fish’ ie apparently having smelly fannies and taking the piss out of breasts and make up and female ‘sluttiness’ and ‘stupidity’ and ‘small-mindedness’ then, as I am now.
I soon realised that the ‘mixed’ venues in the gay scene were still aimed at gay men, just content to have a few women in so the gay men customers could bring in a few female friends, have a few female staff and boost the venue’s clientele and takings. It wasn’t that women were equally welcome.
That’s a whole other discussion about how the ‘pink pound’ works, how and why women only venues struggle financially, etc etc. I hated misogynistic drag then but I had to put that in a different basket to think about later because I knew I wasn’t exactly the original intended audience for it and the specific history of homophobic oppression and violence behind it wasn’t my history as a woman.
At that moment I was just the part of the audience paying to be taken the piss out of. I felt it so unfair that there was no equally sized and resourced gay venue scene for women as there was for men. That issue has never been solved. But all of these important issues have nothing to do with BBC cooking programmes.
Me, and all of us, everyone everywhere, should be 100% the audience for a bloody cooking show on the BBC which my licence fee pays for. Women are not second class licence fee payers. We are not hangers on to a stigmatised male protest and male party, paying to be insulted because we aren’t welcome to go with our girlfriends anywhere else. Women licence fee payers should not be being treated like this by the BBC. It’s really offensive.
I want the BBC to survive because it has a public service remit unlike all the other broadcasters and it can and does do some great things. I’m happy to pay the licence fee for that. Equally the BBC sometimes does some stupid things- which this casting choice is one of.
And that is entirely down to employing some not very clever staff and specifically execs in leadership to sign off on this kind of casting decision. All of the women on this board could give them several useful lessons on critical thinking. As part of its public service remit, the BBC should also be listening and open to putting up its hands when it gets things wrong, and reflecting on why.
The BBC are not doing that here, also not paying enough to the letter answerers in their complaint department to allow them to challenge the utter crap that is clearly being fed to them from higher up, to include in their replies to us. For example about the ‘family friendly’ nature of the Cheryl Hole casting decision.
The BBC is completely lying to claim it’s ‘easily explained in a family context’ what even just Cheryl Hole’s name comes from. Obviously the name comes from anal or vaginal sex, which again each has a whole other story and context and stigma in the context of an oppressed male gay community, that is completely lost on a bloody cooking show- so that’s a totally inappropriate claim for starters. It’s also hard to explain how it’s justified to mock a working class celebrity woman’s name without consent and take the piss out of her career.
The BBC needs to tell us how to easily explain all of the above in a family context please, so we can give it a go with our kids. Should be easy for them, right?