Christian writer on drag: 'men portraying women as a sex clowns'

[Parisite]

'There should be no place in any Christian tradition for drag... men portraying women as a sex clowns is an act of cruelty, and the opposite of progressive.'

Christian writer on drag in the Olympics opening ceremony, and the rise of the drag queen as a kind of redemptive hero in progressive Christianity.

www.flaneurnotes.com/post/dragging-the-seine

That's a good article with some interesting points made, thank you for sharing it.

This is a great line….

“Why the stampede to distance themselves from the conservative critics of the parody – like teenagers courting the cool set at school, panicking that their social reputation will be tainted by association with the unhip types they once used to hang out with?“

I also rather grimly enjoyed the 'no it definitely wasn't the last supper, you're all mad, you're stupid, it obviously wasn't..... yeah ok, it absolutely was'.

All credit to the athletes, excepting the child rapist one and the one who battered a woman today, but what an absolute shower of shit the management of this Olympics has been.

I agree.
Drag is mockery and demeanment, in many ways even worse that blackface.
It used to be fringe but is so mainstream now entirely pushed by the media, its now taken over from the black and white minstrels as acceptable entertainment for the 'proles'.
Its the media, its always the nedia.
BBC Guardian Independent NYT WAPO etc
Until we deal with them, nothing changes.

On another note whenever a trend becomes mainstream, it always corrupts the original intent, always.
Because in the mainstream people adopt trends to keep up with their neighbours, not because of any deep thought, engagement or creativity.
Ditto Tra obviously

I agree with that quote even though I absolutely am not a Christian. I think you can make the second part of that quote entirely stand alone.

I agree.

What would Jesus do? He’d be turning tables and exposing toadying hypocrisy.

Churches trying to be cool is usually very embarrassing, failing to be anything approaching cool.

Look at some CofE contemporary service with puppets and rainbows and bad poetry and middle aged people doing liturgical dance, vs something like an Orthodox service, and I think it's pretty clear which might actually be considered "cool".

Very good article, thanks for posting.

I think this part is worth quoting in full rather than part:

There should be no place in any Christian tradition for drag.

To say that is not to be prudish, humourless, homophobic, or a dupe of the far right. It’s simply to say that men portraying women as sex clowns is an act of cruelty, and the opposite of progressive.

Thanks for quoting the fuller quote! Glad you found the article helpful.

Excellent article and looks like a fantastic blog, thanks for sharing I look forward to having the time to dig in!

Wholeheartedly agree. Anyone trying to get the church on trend is destined for failure imo. People want spirituality, depth not a dumbed-down show.

I am neither a Christian nor a drag critic but this is an excellent piece of writing, very thoughtful and incisive, so thank you for sharing

Excellent article and I completely agree with him.

Thanks for that OP - a really well written well informed well argued article. The references to Ru Paul’s drag show and show contestant quotes underlined the hatred of women and punching down very eloquently

It was indeed - I am only culturally Christian so have no contact with various lines of thought in the denominations about the subject.

Yes. When you see those kind of quotes isolated from the hyped-up atmosphere and hilarity of the drag show, you see quite how dehumanising they are.

Amongst all the other stuff I'm glad he torpedoes the lie that the resemblance to the last supper was a coincidence that the MSN has allowed to go completely unchallenged.

Great article, thanks. Ive always had quite a visceral dislike of drag but struggled to articulate quite why - this sets it out very clearly. I'm not religious but I found the Christian perspective really interesting too.

I agree. Hope some people aren't put off reading it by the fact that it starts with an in-house disagreement between Christians.

The issues it raises are massive, and affect all of us in this culture. Particularly the question of how far we speak out when we find something offensive and demeaning, but people think we're the ones at fault or being controversial.

The bit about drag being men as sex clowns really hit home. Drag revolts me. Its a revulsion that comes from deep inside, nauseating and deeply troubling. I can see clearly how much drag artists truly despise women. It's a total mystery to me why some women don't see it.

I dunno, I used to love old school drag with Edna everage and Lilly savage. It’s gotten weird but it wasn’t always nuts like everything is now

A good article. Apart from anything else it pointed out that a parody of the Last Supper (la Cene) was intended as 'cene' is a pun on 'Seine'. The entire thing was unacceptable in so many ways. And what was Smurf-Dionysius doing there? Everyone on display was a man pretending to be a woman - which maybe fits with the IOC saying it is entirely okay for a man (XY chromosomes) to batter women boxers?
No wonder the Allfather (Zeus, Wotan) peed on it all.

I loathe Edna Everage. Whatever Humphries might claim, he was always mocking women with that character, whether the original "Moonee Ponds housewife" version or the later iteration. It was always punching down, mocking women in particular, not Australian society in general. He didn't need to get into drag if that was what he wanted to do.

Excellent article, thank you. I've had similar discussions (not nearly so eloquent) with many of my fellow Christians, some of whom were very much of the opinion of the progressive Christians quoted here, so it's really good to read such a clearly put piece on the issue.

I really enjoyed that article - the part where it describes 70s sexism such as seaside postcards and Carry On films having lived on in drag was a very apt observation and gave me something to think about. I also very much understand the reference made to the trope of the ex-Catholic joining a cult - I grew up in theocratic, Catholic-church dominated Ireland and have seen a lot of disillusioned devout Irish Catholics joining cults, or becoming extremely involved in identiarianism, as a reaction to the exposure of scandals in the Irish Catholic Church.