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.

Said the white person to the 1970s black person...

It is just a show where the performer create a new, outrageous persona for themselves.

And that character is female. They are men creating a ridiculous character that is always a women. Thats not a coincidence.

Ah I missed that thankfully. Probably a roundabout way of letting the viewers know there was going to be a drag queen in the upcoming series.

I reject the notion that drag is inherently misogynistic. I find the analogy to blackface too deeply superficial(!) and an attempt to cut down the debate by taking the moral high ground. I refer you to Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp. A quick Google yielded this [years since I read this- no time for a more considered reference]:

You thought it meant a swishy little boy with peroxided hair, dressed in a picture hat and a feather boa, pretending to be Marlene Dietrich? Yes, in queer circles they call that camping. … You can call [it] Low Camp…High Camp is the whole emotional basis for ballet, for example, and of course of baroque art … High Camp always has an underlying seriousness. You can't camp about something you don't take seriously. You're not making fun of it, you're making fun out of it. You're expressing what’s basically serious to you in terms of fun and artifice and elegance. Baroque art is basically camp about religion. The ballet is camp about love …[10]

"You're not making fun of it, you're making fun out of it"
So yes, my position is that, more often than not, I can appreciate the joy and artistry that goes into a good drag performance, low camp though it may be.

No they aren't. At least you admit to how terrible they are. It's like went someone does a really shit fake accent. They haven't impersonated, they done a really shit fake accent that didn't sound anything like the real deal.

Transwomen might try to convince themselves that are women and we just roll our eyes cos we can tell without even seeing them.

Theres always tells and it's always about the behaviour not the superficial level appearance (which often isn't very convincing anyway).

Sorry to disappoint.

I'm gonna presume you're white and that's why you don't realise how ignorant what you're saying is. Yes misogyny exists, yes there is oppression against women from men but the way you're making such blanket statements comparing it to systemic racism and brutality that blackface was serving as function for perpetuating in the times of Jim crow etc makes you sound really uneducated about history and misinformed as though you think blackface was about mockery, theatre and entertainment and not about reinforcing white supremacy something which white women had a very particular role in reinforcing also, so white women (most likely such as yourself) are not historically solely of the oppressed class, something that's obvious with the blase comparisons you make. Is there crass and misogynistic tropes in some drag? Sure. Does the drag scene contain men and women performers? Yes. Are drag performers performing in a system where their function is to dehumanise a whole group of people that they'd historically enslaved? No. Is drag performed by a diverse range of people that don't all fit in your neat box of oppressor/oppressed? Absolutely not. Maybe stop and think and form an actual critique of why drag makes you uncomfortable without having to reach for something as tasteless as comparing it to blackface 👍🏾

There's an idea that because it's been going on for a long time and its traditionally gay men performing drag, it cannot possibly be misogyny and any criticism of it is homophobic. And because it is theatre, its an art that any criticism of it is a reflection of the viewer not understanding the art form.

So they are dodging criticism by saying its a tradition, gay art and something women cannot understand. If we dont want to see it, look away.

No one is saying what they are parodying, why, to what end? If its that deep, why is the justification so shallow?

Im guessing that it developed in gay clubs as a piss take of the straights - why do women perform this 'femininity' and why do men find womens bodies and femininity so attractive?

Thats fine, but thats not saturday tea time entertainment, is it?

But you would not have had Dame Edna RIP dance as Barry Humphreys, would you? 100% they'd have come on as Edna.
What is interesting is they did allegedly once offer it to Brendan O'Carroll but there was some argument as to how he'd appear. Wynne did Mrs. Doubtfire last year but there's only so many times you can make it work. His wife, Jennifer Gibney, went on instead (early boot).
La Voix will easily convert diva to ballroom - think Diamonds are a girl's best friend or Big Spender. The American Smooth/Foxtrot can be big numbers. An understated, elegant waltz or Viennese might be trickier - but they can leave a dance out. He can either be suited and booted for one of those or miss it out entirely, in favour of couple's choice I don't make the rules

I'm not white, to save you making further "presumptions". Your suggestion that white women weren't solely of the oppressed class is crass, frankly.

There has never been a time in history where women, all women, were not disadvantaged to a greater or lesser extent solely because they were women. Not at any point in the past, and not today. Yes, there will have been privileged women who facilitated, to some degree, the oppression of other groups. Did that mean that they had equality with men? Did they have total autonomy over their finances, possessions, or even their own bodies? Did they have equal financial and legal status to their husbands, brothers and fathers? No, no and no.

Wherever you have an oppressor class you have an oppressed class - even if that oppressed class plays some role in oppressing a third group of people. Where that oppressor class chooses mockery of the oppressed as a form of entertainment, you have a problem. Your objection to the use of "womanface" as equivalent to "blackface" seems to be an attempt to ring-fence racial oppression as some kind of "worst" in a hierarchy of horror. It's not as simple as that, and all the creation of a hierarchy achieves is to prevent oppressed peoples uniting in the drive for social justice and equitable treatment. It only benefits the oppressor.

Maybe stop and think and foactual understanding of why you are so intent on playing Oppression Top Trumps that you are willing to negate centuries of misogyny and patriarchal mistreatment.

I hope he performs as him, not as La Voix. Not so much because he's a drag queen per se, but because Strictly for me is about getting to know and forming an opinion on the slebs (who I've almost always never heard of beforehand).
I also hope they don't pair him with a man just because he's gay. That seems regressive.

He'll probably perform one routine out of drag or shed the drag part-way through a routine (based on DWTS Aus - Shane - and DWTS Ireland - Joshua).
As to the same-sex partnership being regressive - any can choose who they want to dance with.
Jayde is not gay but wanted to dance with Karen.
Susan is gay but wanted to dance with Kevin.
Their choice entirely - you often get female pairings in competition. Has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
I think Chris will be with JoJo or Carlos because of height and chemistry but I always get the pairings wrong anyway. Kai was with Tayce at Xmas because he's the tallest pro at 6ft 2.
Unlikely to be paired with Chris, as they usually switch things up each time.

Edit: sorry bread, you watch the show so know the above already. See you on the other thread? They've just announced Paul off Neighbours. I am rooting for Alex this year x

I know it's their choice, I just think it'd be refreshing to see a gay man dancing with a woman like their sexual orientation is unremarkable, as it should be. Like Susan and Kevin, as you say.
I just keep thinking of Johannes and John Whaite(?), in the final when they went all out on rainbow lights and Pride colours and glitter and it was all a bit much.

Yes, I'm on the main Strictly thread too, so see you there!

I only got a C for GCSE Drama, so might need a luvvie to explain to me why drag is defnitely not womanface, and nothing like blackface.

There is a version of Othello in which national treasure Laurence Olivier blacked up for the lead and played it with a cod Jamaican accent, some sort of weird walk and eye-rolling. Are we quite sure future viewers aren't going to look back on the drag obsession with the same disbelief?

Firstly, your ignorant assumption that I'm white shows your bigotry and naivette. No, I'm not white. Secondly, your ignorance as to the oppression and slavery of the female sex is both parts horrific and sad. Males have since time memorial enslaved females. Used rape as a tool. I know that too. As I'm a rape victim. Rape is also a weapon of war crime. But from the sounds of you I don't think you would even know this.

Women have been subjugated and enslaved. Mocking us via dressing up like us is a tool, a weapon and a signal of that subjugation and oppression. Drag is as deeply offensive and insulting to woman as blackface is to my race and fellow non-white people. Big tits. Talking about 'fishy' vaginas. Drag names like 'Anne Abortion'. 'Miss carriage'. 'Molestia child'. These are from the last 30 years. Even if those terms mean nothing to someone as ensconced in your echo chamber as you? Drag even before then is still deeply offensive.

I suggest before you lecture a non-white woman like me? You look in mirror and ask yourself why you are so desperate to seek accolades from a sex that rapes, assaults, murders and subjugates women by dressing up as obscene caricatures of the female sex. Have a look in the mirror. And ask yourself some hard questions before you ever dare lecture me with your white privilege and your ingrained internalised misogyny. You know something? Men laugh at you for defending their mockery of us. You won't win their favour. They laugh at you. I'm proud to defend not only my race but my sex. And what about you? Think hard.

I remember reading Of Mice and Men at school and it being explained that white women were higher than black men in society and if a white woman took objection to a black man, she could accuse him of many awful things, all untrue, and have him lynched with no evidence required at all.

So I agree with @Unrulyscrumptious that women making parallels between drag and black face is crass and deeply offensive to black people. Whether you like drag or not it does not cause harm the way black face did. And whilst women have always been oppressed, black women will tell you that systemic racism is a whole different beast which is evident in the difference in health treatment of white women and black women in all areas of medicine. That's why black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth. You simply cannot make a parallel between the two without dismissing the severity of racism and it's impacts.

As a woman of colour, your post is deeply offensive to me. To say that the oppressor and predator sex class is not being offensive when they dress up as obscene caricatures of women and talk about 'fishy' vaginas. Drag names like 'Anne Abortion'. 'Miss carriage'. 'Molestia child'. That that isn't offensive to women, shows your in built misogyny. And as a black woman? Those are as deeply offensive to me as a woman as blackface is. The internalised misogyny of women who deny the hatred and bigotry and offensiveness of womanface is sad. And I wonder just what it is that you get out of denying the reality.

The SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION of women is the same as the systemic oppression of race. In fact, even far more pervasive and ingrained than racism is. Try and have a think about it.

Speaking as a black woman, in many ways womanface is far more insidious, pervasive and far more harmful than blackface ever was. Blackface never had the full respect and support of society. Womanface does. Blackface was mild and benign - compared to womanface.

Oh dear you don't seem to have thought this through very far. To take just one of your points, yes women of colour are more likely than white women to die in childbirth.. but no man at all ever dies from childbirth.

Quite. The racist ignorance of some of the men-defenders on here is deeply upsetting. I know Mumsnet has a reputation of racism, but even I'm shocked at the racist ignorance and worse smug ignorance, on here.

I’m surprised that haven’t had a drag queen on before.
I absolutely disagree with men in female spaces (donated to many court cases and paid up member of sex matters). However I don’t see the problem with this. La vois is a (minor) celebrity and drag race is a popular tv show so it seems appropriate for them to be on strictly.

There are more important issues than a tv reality show. I will reserve judgement on the individual when I watch the show. Do they even identify as female ? I thought most on drag race still identify as male.
I don’t think anybody would have complained if Lily savage had been on the show.

The bizarre turn this has taken is that the women of colour who object to drag are being accused of anti-black racism by white drag fans. We live in interesting times.

I think you all need to actually look at the history of drag and listen to drag artists talking about it. You all pretend to be clever but you really aren’t you are so close minded and doing so much damage to our world.

No thanks Emonade, I'd really rather not be parodied even if the 'artists' do think it's art

No, we don't need to listen to these predators and the oppressor sex class or sympathise with them. You are the one that is closed minded, and bigoted and brainwashed by the oppressor sex class. We KNOW the history of 'drag' and it's an insidiously UGLY one. The hatred of women is there. Just as we know the history of blackface. I feel sorry for you that you are so closed-minded and so in thrall to men that you ignore the history of that hateful and predatorial and exploitative act. I genuinely feel sorry for you that you're so brainwashed by the patriarchy that you support this disgusting legacy.