BBC drops Drag Race UK

[NotInMyyName]

Sadtimes#

“Started in 2019, Drag Race UK brought British drag into mainstream entertainment in the UK”. I think the Black & White Minstrel Show played a similar role in platforming Black performers in the 1950/ 1970s. And made them mainstream entertainment. Giving a voice to marginalised, and underrepresented cultures. BBC

Marginalised and underrepresented cultures? What ones that ridicule women?Utter utter shite. Has anyone ever seen a woman dressed like that monstrosity in the picture?

Good, fuckity bye.

Yes! At last! Enough of this nonsense, keep it niche and out of mainstream life.

Excellent news. Bloody horrible

I loved Paul O'Grady but he was acting a part.
Drag began to have a very different agenda in latter years.
Glad DR is going though.

Sad times (for them)

At Christmas a couple of years ago, as usual we spent the day at my wife's aunt and uncle's house. Her uncle has broadly similar politics to me, Remain voter, left leaning centrist dad type, unfortunately this usually means the usual bundle of opinions as well so I was a bit worried he'd have bought into it all. His daughter, my wife's cousin, mid 20s, is heavily into musical theatre, has she/her on her Instagram. She's never seemed particularly political so I've always thought it was probably just to look good in her field. The Issue isn't something I would ever bring up at a family gathering but I've always loved these people and was bracing myself for disappointment if it came up.

This was gloriously shattered after a few drinks when the Drag Race Christmas special started up on BBC One.

Cousin: here's your favourite show Dad.
Uncle: God I can't stand this. I've never understood why this isn't obviously just taking the piss out of women.

I could have punched the air. Then my mother in law chimed in about a hilarious transvestite she'd seen in town trying on make up, and the three of them roared with laughter as I basked in the warm glow.

Good.

Thank god for that - it was when every single 'celebrity' quiz show, cooking, dancing show or news story had to have a drag element that it really started to get ridiculous.

The one that really got me was the time when Sam Fox was on one of the celeb themed shows but hey, still had to have a drag queen billed as representing LGBT++ because god forbid a middle aged lesbian should be able to prove interesting, entertaining and more than capable of holding her own.

I'd be pretty miffed as a lesbian or a gay man to see everything boiled down to a box ticking exercise of 'oh but have we booked a drag queen? - great, job done'

I tend to agree with this. "La Voix" who was on Strictly last year (because obviously they had to have a drag queen on) appeared in drag while dancing but as a man in training. I find that less offensive than pretending he's actually a woman or always presents that way (though some people online got thoroughly tangled up with it all!).

True, but I thought it was utterly offensive that the presenters continually referred to him as ‘she’.

Very pleased to hear it but what ever possessed the BBC to jump on this particular bandwagon (rhetorical).

I wonder how history will view the few years either side of 2020.

Good for the BBC, but it's moving to WOW or something.
Reddit is furious.

Excellent news (although I see it is being picked up by some unheard of channel?)
Hopefully this means there are some thinking adults finally in control at the BBC who are reading the room country...

I agree.
Drag artistes [you have to say 'artistes', don't you?] like Danny LaRue/Daniel Patrick Carroll and Paul O'Grady were playing a role. They put on glitzy costumes and make-up and performed on stage. Then they took off the wig and the frock and went back to being Paul and Danny again.

It has become a staple of LGBTQ+ culture [from the BBC]
No it bloody well has not!
There is no such thing as 'LGBTQ+ culture', because there is no such entity as LGBTQ+. The component parts of that acronym have so little in common that it's a nonsense to talk about a LGBTQ+ 'culture'.

It's true that there has always been a place for drag in gay men's culture - a very small place, way down the far end of Mile End Road as I recall😏, and not a 'staple' in gay male culture.
As for men dressing up as women being a 'staple' in lesbian culture - I needn't even go there

The only context I can think of where a drag performance could be called 'a staple' is in old-school panto, where the Ugly Sisters were always men comically failing to look anything like women.

So the Drag Race may well have been watched by some members of the so-called LGBTQ+ 'community', but far from being 'a staple', it was more likely ignored or despised by many more.

Good riddance.

Nobody in the B&W Minstrel Show was black.

Not to derail but Lenny Henry was the first black performer to appear on the B&W Minstrel Show in 1975. He has subsequently said he regretted appearing.

Thank God for that - it was vile and utterly misogynistic.

Fan Alex Re agrees, saying: "For that young queer kid sat at home wanting a community, wanting something to relate to, that's now behind something they have to pay for.
"It feels like we're losing that kind of access, it's a worry that kids aren't going to have that."

I'm not in the slightest bit worried that kids aren't going to have access to drag. It was always 'adult entertainment', and the BBC were irresponsible to mainstream it.

I am guessing it is being dropped as it is basically the same old stuff week, week out - lip synching in bad wigs and catty 'humour'

They do not need any more as they have hundreds stacked up on iPlayer.

I am surprised it lasted as long as it did.

This has brightened up my day 😍

It is not the 1950s

Don't most schools have LGBTQ clubs these days. ?

Some do - and they shouldn't. They're a potential safeguarding disaster - just as it would be if tech teacher Mr Simmons ran a heterosexual club for Year 9 & 10 girls. His feet wouldn't touch the ground as he was marched out of school if he did that.

Yet teachers have been encouraged to run mixed age clubs focused on sexuality and gender confusion for children - most below the age of consent.

Hopefully they'll be going the same way that drag queens on the BBC are.

Eastenders, not just reality shows, also obsessed with drag: La Voix - Christopher Dennis, was on this summer. They have also had character, “Felix Baker”, as a drag character, Charity Kase, and “Drew Peacock”.

Finally. It was a horrible concept.

I think the Black & White Minstrel Show played a similar role in platforming Black performers in the 1950/ 1970s

What? No! White men blacking their faces did nothing of the sort.

Thank god. I've been wondering when the drag queen obsession would fizzle out.