Drag Queen on Strictly

[HelenaWaiting]

I didn't see a thread on this, and it seems to have been slipped out quietly. I'm assuming this man in woman-face will be taking the place of a female?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/strictly-come-dancing-la-voix#:~:text=A%20powerhouse%20of%20charisma%2C%20comedy,no%20stranger%20to%20national%20television.

There's no time to think on this thread. People are flinging out bitter insults apropos of absolutely nothing.

"hello enabler"
"you are on your knees to the patriarchy"
"have a look in the mirror and reset your white privilege"
"You are the one that is closed minded, and bigoted and brainwashed by the oppressor sex class"

Others have made valid points in posts -
"Try creating an argument and debating."

"I am really staggered that in these days of wanting to 'cancel' everything so many people seem to have lost all perspective and sense of humour"

Why must we tear each other apart because we disagree? This thread reminds me of feminist infighting in the 1970s. Polarised positions, all of them humourless, arguing about political theories, whether it is okay to be a mother, whether it is okay not to be a lesbian, how people are betraying the sisterhood with their thoughts.

It's a power struggle and I really don't like it. I don't want to be shouted down or shouted at. Also I don't want to be afraid to say what I think and then be deprived of the opportunity to change my mind, or to modify my position, if I want to.

AuntieAgnesPoodle, your first sentence on this thread was "Hello, outraged denizens of Mumsnet."

Then claimed that misogyny is everyehere, so why worry about this.

I am conflicted on this. Like many I believe that drag is adult entertainment and should be nowhere near children’s story hours etc. I am also fed up of seeing it so often on the BBC given that it is niche adult entertainment (not family friendly IMO). But then I wonder if it was Lily Savage or Dame Edna in the competition would I view it the same way. They were mainstream and family friendly. What do others think?

Will he be dancing as himself or as a man wearing woman face? Sorry, rhetorical question.

Remains to be seen which male professional is asked to fall on their sword and accept being voted out before the Halloween special.

I thought the expression "outraged denizens" was mildly amusing. It was in response to all the shouting at people by people on this thread.

As for misogyny being everywhere, what point are you trying to make by asking me not to worry about it? I'm saying we have experienced it all our lives.

I think you are taking it all a bit too seriously for a light entertainment show.

Steady on. I certainly haven't had "many" posts deleted and you can't possibly know the reasons for moderators deleting any posts. I won't delve into the irony of you accusing other posters of being aggressive.

Whilst you have made your contempt for me (a person you have never met) abundantly clear, when criticism goes beyond what individuals have actually posted, it's time to stop. I'll bow out of this thread now. I can get berated for being female, brown and having opinions in real life.

I never told you to not worry about it. I was responding to you saying that drag is a parody of women, but misogyny is everywhere. And talking about it on a feminists board makes us outraged.

"Are drag performers performing in a system where their function is to dehumanise a whole group of people that they'd historically enslaved?"

I'd argue that yes they are. Maybe not "enslaved" as such, but women as a group being oppressed by men? I'd say yes.

I think you have nailed it with “light entertainment show”. That is what Strictly should be, a family entertainment show , much loved by little kids and grannies alike. What it shouldn’t be is

a platform to normalise the mockery of women by over sexualisation of the perception of a female body

a celebration of an entertainment genre that builds its following on dubious names, very sexual innuendo and the sort of “jokes” that should have been buried with Bernard Manning and his ilk.

For the last few years Strictly has done a huge amount to highlight dancers with “differences”, so dancers with hearing or vision loss, physical disability, sexual orientation etc. And that has been hugely positive , raised awareness, discussion and respect. Kudos to Strictly for using their position so positively.

I can’t see that drag artistes have anything to bring to the table, especially since they already seem to have their own successful platforms to expound their ideas. Putting a drag Queen on Strictly is a bit like saying well, the EDF have a strong following and say they are often misunderstood and overlooked , maybe they could put a candidate forward to open up discussion.

I think this really needs to be addressed. The racism on Mumsnet it disgusting and the fact the moderators allow it is disgusting too. Same for ableism, it's so blatant here and allowed to stand.

However.

You and Black Cat have been rude and hostile from the start, the poster calling Black Cat toxic actually thought she was white and my opinion on both of your behaviour was formed before you announced you were women of colour.

"This type of feminism being toxic" as in the behaviour being complained of here has nothing to do with posters being women of colour, it's about the prevailing behaviour style on the FWR board which is to insult and belittle the dissenting voices until they shut up and leave and mock them mercilessly between themes to achieve this goal. Many women who identify as feminists want nothing to do with this board because of the behaviour of the feminists here, not because of behaviour the women of colour and I doubt many posters know who is white and who is not anyway because it's an anonymous forum.

I actually don't think women who treat women the way the posters here do are truly feminist at all, but that's irrelevant to the point I'm making.

If you personally are accused of being toxic here on a regular basis, you may want to reflect on why that is. It's certainly not because of your ethnicity, which none of us knew until you announced it long after you showed contempt for many of the posters here.

hardly anyone of worth wants to be in this tedious, dated and predictable show

the dancers are more famous than the “celebs”

Good heavens.

Is the point of this post

"I was racist to you before I knew you were black"?

How can you be racist to someone by calling out their behaviour in non racist terms when you don't know their race?

All whilst pointing out how offensive black face is!?

Good grief

Sorry you think gay men enslaved women for hundreds of years, beat them, raped them, mutilated them, tortured them, lynched them and then after abolition enacted racist laws to continue to discriminate against them? No, of course you don't. Which is why it's crass and lazy to compare the enslavement and brutality of white men and women against the black population, to talk about the oppression of women in a way that completely erases and undermines the oppression faced by black women in particular. For god sake, read a history book and actually articulate an argument against drag based on its own merits without coopting racism and blackface and slavery. Enslavement isn't a synonym for oppressed.

For another thing, do you actually think that drag queens are emulating and mocking natural looks of women in the way that blackface was to ridicule the features of black people??

Well. You and Black cat combined have 8 posts deleted, I would call that many on one thread.

My contempt only started when you decided to be incredibly condescending and take joy in trying to make me look stupid.

These are things I am criticising you for and they are very much things that were posted. I know what was in the deleted posts because I read them before they were deleted, and they were deleted for being personal attacks as have been pointed out by the posters who reported them and were being attacked.

No one is berating you for being female (I'm fairly sure we're all female here), or being brown. We are berating your rudeness.

"For another thing, do you actually think that drag queens are emulating and mocking natural looks of women in the way that blackface was to ridicule the features of black people??"

Yes, I think that's exactly what they're doing.

Both of these names have been mentioned here already, so at the risk of repeating myself/speaking for others:
Paul O’Grady and Barry Humphries were always crystal clear that their drag personas were just that. A performance and a character, not them themselves.
So I think both of those men would have appeared on Strictly as themselves, not in drag.

It's interesting that those arguing the 'it's nothing like blackface' side seem to have a a very US-based view of racism.

And no apparent awareness of couveture (not the chocolate), the Married Women's Property Act (and reasons it was fought for), the history of divorce and child custody laws, the Victorian sanitary laws to prevent VD, the practice well into the 20th century of committing 'uncooperative' women to asylums and laundries, the police returning women to abusive husbands (again, well into the 20th century), the extension of suffrage to different groups ...

What do those things have to do with a man in a wig lip syncing to Shania Twayne?

Goodness me. I think there needs to be a huge amount more empathy understanding and grey areas in the world.

If drag queens aren't mocking women, whats going on?

If its nothing but men wearing wigs and miming, why is it everywhere and treated as some fantastical entertainment that we need to see over and over again?

And why is it beyond criticism?

So you can’t answer the question about parodying women - you just say we should be kinder ?

did you say that to PoC when they objected to the black and white minstrels? When people
object to morris dancers blacking up ?

Panto season is going to be a time to avoid here...

Of course there is a drag queen on strictly and the judges will fawn all over him
🙄