Drag queen to play Judy Garland on stage :-(

[FuriousAndFrustrated]

https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/jinx-monsoon-to-play-judy-garland-in-over-the-rainbow-london-revival_1704383/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinkx_Monsoon

So we can't have a woman playing a transwoman, but it's ok to have a drag queen playing Judy Garland?

Ridiculous casting.

Ffs

I read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinkx_Monsoon
I lost count of the number of identities 'they' have laid claim to...

I totally agree with you in principle OP, but a while back I did see a clip on YouTube of them singing ‘somewhere that’s green’ from little shop of horrors (they were cast as Audrey on broadway if I remember correctly) and I was pleasantly surprised.

Really struggling with the director speaking of the play about Judy and saying

‘ Her tale is one that we can’t forget as women in entertainment are still fighting for autonomy and agency in their own careers’

Whilst at the same time casting a man as Judy

Is everyone in authority f……. Stupid these days !!!

He's a man. That's the issue, not whether he is a good singer or impersonator.

There are so few parts for women as it is. Women have to work much harder than men to get work because there are so many more of them chasing fewer (and less good) parts.
This could be a career-making show and there are dozens of actresses who are missing out. It's vile.

It really is a massive fuck you to women, isn't it. Can you imagine the reaction if a white man blacked up to play Othello? But womanface? That's fine 😡

So its a drag show? Hard pass

Did that poster really miss the entire point ???

Oh for goodness sake. 🙄 Words fail me!

Yep
Its still perfectly acceptable to take everything from women

The Director etc are all men.

All in it together to truly push women out.

W*nkers. Poor Judy . So disrespectful.

I don't care if he has the voice of an angel. He's still a bloke!

I went to see this years ago and thought it was wonderful. Suffice to say, I’m not going to see this version – as others have said, it’s the equivalent of watching the black and white minstrels. They have only cast drag for the publicity – any actual female with the talent to take on the role (and what actress wouldn’t love to play this?) can go hang.

I don't care if the sex of an actor matches the sex of the role.

I care if the actor can convince me they are the person they are playing.

So far, I am not sure that I have ever really been happy with a cross sex casting, outside of historical types of settings where I didn't expect to be entirely convinced and that wasn't the point.

Oh come on. It’s an artistic interpretation by a talented performer in a fringe venue. Not sure why this is an issue given the context?

It's an absolute insult. I'm sick of all this being shoved in our faces now. It's like a middle finger up, fuck you, look where I've got, even though I'm not a woman. Doesn't work with me on any level.

Would you also be ok if Ryan Reynolds put on blackface to play Morgan Freeman? If not, why not?

What a daft name

I really don’t understand why the world is enthralled with drag queens. Misogyny I guess, that men are better women than we are.

This. If it's on stage it's not realistic anyway. I was very happy with Rachida Brakni (of markedly Algerian ethnicity) playing the 18th century German Queen of Spain in Ruy Blas. I was pretty happy with Lucrezia Borgia being played by a man in a dress and her son by a young woman.

A man may play Judy Garland and I wish him the best, as long as I don't have to subsidize it. He's still a man, though. And if he tries to compensate it by Mulvaneying it (distasteful make up, booty shaking and silly cries) now THAT bothers me because it's insulting

I would be happy with Ryan Reynolds playing Morgan Freeman (though I'm not sure he can pull it off), but not in playing MF means painting his face black and talkin' "n*gga"

But it would involve blackface. How would it not. Unless you were suggesting RR should play a white MF? I mean JM is not playing a male Judy is he? So what is the difference between a man dressing as a woman and playing a women’s role and a white actor putting on makeup and playing a black role?

I think there’s a few things at play here - it’s a fringe, LGBT-leaning venue that will have been hosting shows like this forever - Judy Garland has always been iconic to gay men.

Jinkx is a Drag Race winner from much earlier times and has established a career on Broadway (was also the one in Dr Who), without that profile this wouldn’t have even made the news. Presumably it’s Jinkx’s show and production, creating an opportunity that wouldn’t have been there rather than ‘taking a woman’s role’.

Jinx’s act is old-school, in keeping with this sort of performance. It won’t be an end-of-the-pier type misogynistic display. Just someone who wants to sing Judy’s songs.

For what it’s worth Jinkx did Drag Race as himself, then went non-binary and I think now considers himself trans. I don’t buy any of that but still find his career interesting.

I have seen several White actors play Othello without wearing Black make-up. Some pulled it off, because at the end of the day it's a play about jealousy and feeling a misfit, some didn't. The middle-aged man who played Lucrezia Borgia kinda did it as well (he had women's clothes but no outrageous makeup and no shrill voice), but it was clear he was a man and he did not try to hide it. The same way a 50 yo can play a young Juliet discovering love. It just takes very good acting skills, and the audience must play along. It's not a documentary.

Yes. I think there’s a big difference when the character is fictional, and that can include ‘historical’ characters as any interpretation of what they were really like is often mostly a work of imagination.
Even with totally fictional characters, changing the sex (and sometimes the ethnicity) can be a distraction rather than an enhancement. I’m curious if anyone has seen Stephen Fry’s Lady Bracknell? I avoided the show when we were in London recently, as the last time I’d seen The Importance of being Earnest quite a few years ago, David Suchet was in the role and he was so disappointing IMO. Great actor embarrassingly miscast in a great role for an older woman.

Judy Garland though is still within living memory as a real woman. Maybe her friends and family don’t mind but it still seems off.

Errol, yes, I have seen Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell.
It was good - I'd say he was born to the role of pseudo- pantomime dame and because he's so big and booming and patrician, there was something sweetly old-fashioned about it (though quite obviously it was all meant to be a touch 'progressive' and rainbowy, it harked back to a different time, but for once, in a good way).
The other reason it worked so well is that 2, albeit minor, male characters - butlers- were played by the same woman, and she stole the show whenever she was on stage.