Cheryl Hole on LGBTQ representation

[ArabeIIaKarenScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-66513419

'Cheryl has promised to "bring the glamour" to the kitchen but has also been "cooking my little Essex bum off" in preparation.
She added like every Essex girl she is a lover of a chippy at the end of a night out and always had a hankering for a battered sausage or saveloy.'

drag can include women and none of them have to be gay, so I don't see what it has to do with inclusion at all.

It's a performance style. One that grew out of, and is more common in, a particular community - but is only done by a very small section of that community, and can be done by anyone. It's a bit like having a flamenco dancer as a contestant and saying that's inclusion of the Roma community.

How do I complain please?

Possibly unpopular opinion sorry.

The name is crass, so what, they are allowed to be crass.
Right now there are people discussing a comedy show being cancelled because Graham Linehan is one of the comedians. People are, rightly I think, up in arms about the impact on freedom of speech.
Lets not hop on that bandwagon. Cancel culture is not good.
Drag queens have always had very risque names, it is a form of comedy.
The name is offensive, but you know what, so what?
I feel it's probably a bit awkward for Cheryl Cole because it's obvious that its not a generic joke, but a joke based off her specifically. But she's a famous celebrity, they probably have to put up with all sorts of weird shit, this is probably the smallest of beans in the pile of beans that she has to deal with.
Let's not fight for free speech, and try and cancel people at the same time.

I feel the gender critical movement stands for reason and common sense in a world increasingly tainted by surreal quasi religious ideology. Let's not lose perspective.

Sorry, but the name Cheryl Hole is offensive and always has been offensive. It is not an intellectual exercise - it is an instinctive response to a disrespectful portrayal of women - that uses the same old topes and insinuations that have been used to oppress women forever.

I've never liked drag - have always felt that way about it - but it is only in more recent years that i've been able to fully articulate why. The pushing of 'queer culture' at every opportunity has turned many of us right off.

I've got gay friends, was taken to the Vauxhall Tavern ( Duckie) in its early says, and had always turned out for Pride - but now when i see a drag queen I simply walk away or turn off the TV. Increasingly the queens are referred to as 'the girls' even when not on stage. I've had enough.

Yeah it is offensive, but when everything anyone anywhere finds offensive is removed there is literally nothing left. I feel a shake of the head, an eyeroll, and a sigh is about the right amount of effort to expend here.

If misogynistic 70's "jokes" are once more acceptable or even fashionable, why aren't we bringing back "jokes" about other groups, like black or Irish people? They were very popular

Or the Black and White Minstrel Show? That wasn't even actually making jokes, it was just musical entertainment.

He's got a range of children's clothing - https://www.teepublic.com/kids-t-shirt/11704079-cheryl-hole-from-drag-race-uk

I nearly posted this yesterday but it didn’t seem entirely fitting at the time. But now it is. (I’ve taken this from Wikipedia but I’m old enough to remember Courtney Love being quoted at the time).

In Euripides' Medea, when she kills the bride and her own child, she says "There's a hole that pierces my soul." [And] my mother's this kind of new age psychologist, and I said "You know, I had this terrible childhood," and she said "Well, you can't have a hole running through you all the time, Courtney." You know, and then [there's] the genital reference, go ahead and make it if you will.
—Courtney Love on the origins of the name Hole, 1995.

Hole are a rock band, they would not have been booked to perform as family entertainment, there is a place for adult themes- not everything has to be for kids.

I think this is quite interesting. You're right - people are allowed to be offensive. I happen to think that context is important when it comes to free speech. For example, I believe people should be allowed to express racist views, but I wouldn't want to employ someone who expressed racist views as a teacher, particularly if they expressed those views in the classroom.

In the years since television has existed, television companies have made decisions about what is and isn't offensive. So for a long time they wouldn't broadcast sexually explicit content, or people saying the word "fuck". In 1978, the BBC decided that the Black-and-White Minstrel Show was no longer acceptable, and stopped broadcasting it. Right up until the early 2000s, there were shows in which white comedians used blackface, but I am absolutely certain that that would not be acceptable now.

Similarly, ITV dropped The Benny Hill Show because they realised it was offensive to women.

I think the BBC, as a national, publicly-funded broadcaster, has a responsibility to think about what is and isn't suitable for prime time television. They wouldn't show a white person blacked up (on MasterChef or anything else). They wouldn't give a platform to a Holocaust Denier. Maybe they should now ask whether they should allow a misogynistic man to flagrantly engage in a parody of womanhood on one of its most popular programmes.

I think the context of the Fringe - which generally has an "anything goes" attitude, and where audiences explicitly choose the shows they see - is very different.

I don't think it's progressive to put a spotlight on somebody whose entire act is to make cheap and degrading jokes about women. I think that's quite regressive and problematic, and that complaints deserve to be made.

Equally I don't think it's progressive to cancel Glinner under the guise of being inclusive.

Sorry, also whilst I’m derailing about feminist rock bands- it also plays into the female genitalia as terms for women and exploring that from a feminist perspective eg The Slits.

But none of that is the same as what is happening here- this isn’t a drag queen spotlighting how misogynists love to refer to women by crude references to our vulvas. He’s not saying “hey let’s explore how women are degraded by being reduced to a hole for a penis to go in” he’s part of it.

And I have no problem with innuendo, I love a bit of retro humour.

Can any historian give me some examples of drag queen names from Tudor times? 😂

It is not about the "right" or wrong "amount of effort to expend" it just is what it is. It is what it has now become. Furthermore, the most anti woman and pro trans gay men I know are hugely into drag. Gay men no longer get a free pass as far as i'm concerned. And the pushing of DQST is another manifestation of what happens when you think they do.

Yes, and everyone really hated Courtney Love because she was a gobby woman in rock band called Hole.

This is well expressed, but apart from being clear and well put I don't see how this is any different from people justifying the cancellation of Graham Linehan.

Not suitable, inappropriate, the venue should choose better etc....

I gave up on the BBC a while ago, I expect very little from them now, and I don't watch the BBC at all.
I can understand how the Cheryl Hole may be highly offensive, especially in the recent context of "bonus hole", but for me letting the general public see all the bullshit works to let them know the absurdity of what's going on.
The guy playing the piano with his cock. I found that offensive, but I want as many people as possible to see it. I want them to know this is the true face of what's coming. That the guy playing the piano with his cock thinks he's a far superior woman to you who gave birth to the next generation. I think that will peak a lot of people.

If someone wants to express stupid views I'd let them, let the whole world see how deranged they are.

Well yes, The Slits were reclaiming the insult in the way that LGB is now reclaiming Queer. Difference is, men are still accorded and permitted more cultural power and gay men have been given a free pass when it comes to sexism and misogyny.

😂

This is well expressed, but apart from being clear and well put I don't see how this is any different from people justifying the cancellation of Graham Linehan.

I understand what you're saying, and you're right that people try to justify it in all sorts of reasonable-sounding ways. "He isn't being cancelled, he's just not being given a platform." "The venue has the right to decide who it allows to perform". And so on.

One of the problems we have when talking about the cancellation of people like Linehan, Kathleen Stock etc, is that we tend to frame it as a free speech issue, which immediately then throws up difficult questions about where we draw the line. Would we object if Leith Arches had refused to host someone with explicitly anti-Semitic views, for example? I'm not sure we all would.

So why shouldn't they have the right to refuse to host Glinner, in that case? I think we should frame it less as a free speech issue ("anyone has the right to express offensive views") and more as what it really is: we defend Glinner because he is highlighting the abuse of children and the assault on women's rights. And the people who want to shut him down are the people defending the abuse of children and the assault on women's rights. This is what this comes down to, ultimately: people who are intent on doing harm are trying to silence those who draw attention to that harm. We should be absolutely explicit about this.

The Slits didn’t have any men in the band (to my knowledge).

I’m old enough to remember when the Q word was an insult - nothing less - usually hurled along with violence.

It turns my stomach to see silly wee kiddies dressed like kids tv presenters/anime dollies proudly announce that they are ‘oooooh soooo Q’ when they are more than likely straight, ‘camping it up’, acting like attention starved toddlers, and haven’t a flipping clue about Q theory, whilst merrily pretending* that they are happy to share female only spaces with everyone who demands access.

rant over.

*refers to the females - the males aren’t pretending…

100%.

He can't 'reclaim' an insult that's been levelled at women. He's using a nasty, vicious term that has been levelled at women as a dehumanising insult to try and gain a weak frisson of 'cheeky' hilarity.

He may not grasp how it feels for women to hear the word 'Hole' used as a pun on an actual woman's name. I don't know if he can. But when women tell him it's degrading, upsetting, offensive, 'punching down', nasty, grotty humour, and not some cheap titter as he's using it, he should fucking well listen, as should the BBC.

Also, I'm not saying he should be 'cancelled'. I'm saying he is not 'family friendly' entertainment. If he wants to appear on family TV shows, he should choose a less offensive stagename.

I couldn't give a damn if he's appearing at a nightclub or whatever, for an audience of adults. That's the nature of drag, nobody would blink an eye.

But for the BBC to suggest he is 'family friendly' and that I am to explain to my kids the meaning of his 'cheeky' name is gaslighting pish.

Also, I think it might be a cumulative rage multiplying over time. Call us 'bonus holes' and 'uterus havers' and repeatedly vanish the word 'women', and now we're supposed to laugh along with the sex clowns mocking us and repurposing sexist insults? Fuck off. I pay my fucking TV license for this shit?

Why can’t he come on in his civvies as ‘Joe Bloggs character act’. ? Or is he just a(n?) one trick pony?

This is the most brilliantly satisfying response. Absolutely nailed it. @LoobiJee if you don't send this to the BBC, I will. (All credit to you!).

👏👏👏👏