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Drag Shows!!

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Emily's Cat said:
This would be a reasonable position. Unfortunately, drag has been subsumed under transgender identity, and the intent of drag-for/at-kids events has explicitly been framed as endeavoring to advance tolerance of transgender people.

https://www.dragstoryhour.org/about


The intent of DQSH to advocate for gender fluidity and transgender acceptance is well documented.

Additionally, you can see the conflation in this thread, and others with related themes. No matter what the objection to Drag for Kids, the objector is cast as being "anti trans".

My objections to drag for children has nothing at all to do with transgender anything. I have two objections:
Many DQSH events and similar Drag events aimed at children include clothing, dancing, and comportment that I consider to be inappropriately risqué for young children; included in that are the few cases where the drag performer has had a prior record for child sex offenses and basic safeguarding was not done.
To me, a large amount of drag comes across as a parody and a mockery of females, very much akin to the parody and mockery of black people contained in minstrel shows - which were also wildly popular in their day; to me drag is effectively "womanface" in the same way that minstrel shows are "blackface".

And despite me being pretty clear that not all cross-dressing is drag, and that drag is an entirely separate topic from gender identity... the arguments I've been met with have repeatedly devolved to accusations of bigotry and transphobia.

In short... perhaps you should suggest that the pro-drag side of this discussion stop connecting drag shows to transgender identity.
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This is, quite simply, regurgitated right-wing lies. Try thinking for yourself.
 
Emily's Cat said:
When people oppose minstrel shows on the basis of it being offensive caricatures in blackface... they are good people doing noble work for good reasons.

When people oppose drag shows on the basis of it being offensive caricatures in womanface... they are blood-thirsty bigots and reactionaries.
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:rolleyes:
You have yet to show, despite repeated requests and much evasion on your part, that a majority of women object to drag performances.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Actual female here. I think drag is an offensive caricature of females.

Lots of females share my view. Have you considered listening to those of us who hold this view? Or do you only accept the views of females that agree with you on this issue?
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:rolleyes:
Will you be supporting your claim with actual evidence? Unlike your previous unsupported assertions.....

I was at a drag bingo event last week, most of the audience were female and no-one voiced any discomfort.
 
catsmate said:
:rolleyes:
You have yet to show, despite repeated requests and much evasion on your part, that a majority of women object to drag performances.
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Good luck with that. I believe I still have a request out for EC for evidence of her claim that a "not insignificant" number of women object to drag.

As I recall, all I ever got were, "I'm an actual female".
 
Upchurch said:
Good luck with that. I believe I still have a request out for EC for evidence of her claim that a "not insignificant" number of women object to drag.

As I recall, all I ever got were, "I'm an actual female".
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It's always weird to see people act like the right-wing straw man of how feminists are supposed to act be the basis for a non-right wing argument.

But more than that the comparison to blackface is just facile. Blackface has a deep history where the source of the entertainment was basically, 'haha, black people are so ugly and stupid and will trick you!', as in it was actually mocking. With drag they literally dress up and call it fabulous. Do people think they're being sarcastic? As far as I can tell drag and drag fans are almost to a person genuine in celebration of this over-the-top design and performance. When was the source of entertainment in drag ever mocking women?
 
Hopefully without going too far off topic and trying to make this make sense.

I think the issue that women have historically been an underclass without ever having been a minority in the literal mathematical sense of the term. Women have always been about 50% of the population despite their social status in any given civilization/society.

This means that women do not have AS singular an opinion of their own struggles as say, blacks or gays do.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Hopefully without going too far off topic and trying to make this make sense.

I think the issue that women have historically been an underclass without ever having been a minority in the literal mathematical sense of the term. Women have always been about 50% of the population despite their social status in any given civilization/society.

This means that women do not have AS singular an opinion of their own struggles as say, blacks or gays do.
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That's true and I've been vocal in addressing those struggles, often by butting heads with the same people who now use the same bad arguments against drag performers or transgender people. That some who have had those bad arguments used against them doesn't make it ok to turn around and use those arguments against others.

And it has never been as simply as the 'oppression Olympics' or some strange hierarchy of transgression that the right wing pretends it is. They say that the more oppressed someone is, the more power/deference the left gives them. As in a power hierarchy like the right uses to value people. 'Do what we say because we have the power' and they claim the 'power' the left privileges comes from deference to black people or women or gay people.

But, it doesn't. When someone says, 'I'm black so I'm right about black people' that's not a good argument because Candice Owens' arguments aren't actually given validity from her skin color. She's not giving good insight into black people. Caitlyn Jenner isn't a good source for transgender issues. I'd argue that many women aren't good sources for women's issues.

The 'listen to women' doesn't and shouldn't mean 'listen to me specifically' especially when it's not in line with so many others who have the same, and better, qualifications.
 
acbytesla said:
I hear your point. I'm sorry you feel that way. I think it's more often gay men making fun of themselves and their community than it has to do with women at all. But then again I've attended Drag Shows. Along with lots of women.
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Maybe it's gay males making fun of themselves and their community... but I fail to see the logic involved in a gay male dressing up as a caricature of a female ties in to that in any way at all.
 
arthwollipot said:
Only inasmuch as what you describe as "transgender identity" is actually the Big Tent of LGBTQIA+ that takes care of a variety of historically persecuted minorities.
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I'm not the one that described it that way. The Trans Advocacy Organizations are the ones that have decided that drag is part of Trans. I think it's an entirely different and completely unrelated thing.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I actually disagree, and quite strongly. I don't think ANY view of religion should be part of public school in any way at all.
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It's not about a view of religion. It's about insisting that kids in their care treat each other right. When something arises that makes a popular target, it's absolutely a reasonable thing for a school teacher or staff to say "no, don't mistreat people for this reason either". If they do not intercede they become enablers of bullying. No exceptions for religion.
 
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tyr_13 said:
Drag doesn't appear to ridicule and mock women, cis or trans, so no, it is totally not a problem at all. Drag usually celebrates things, but when it is used to mock it's either mocking specific absurd gender expectations by wildly exaggerating them (gay men are like women! so they dail that up to 11) or it is mocking the difficulty in men conforming to gender expectations of women (as in comedy invocations of it). The only example of it used to mock women I can think of is the movie White Chicks, which ironically also involves whiteface.
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The problem I have is that in all of those scenarios, the underlying premise relies on an exaggerated and offensive caricature of females in the first place. Mocking the idea that gay males are like females relies on females being mock-worthy in the first place. Mocking the idea of males conforming to the social expectations of females relies on females being worthy of mockery.

tyr_13 said:
I'm well aware that you wish your in group could control all performances of femininity, and that you'll deny this, but you can't and shouldn't. Listening to drag queens it's very obvious they're not trying to mock women.
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I don't want to control performances of femininity any more than your average black person wants to control performances of blackness. I do, however, want society as a whole to turn as critical an eye toward the caricatured performance of femininity as presented by males as it does toward the caricatured performance of blackness as presented by white people.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Maybe it's gay males making fun of themselves and their community... but I fail to see the logic involved in a gay male dressing up as a caricature of a female ties in to that in any way at all.
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Since when does logic have anything to with performances that usually have a comedic intent?

By the way drag isn't always gay performances and women also do drag.

Here's a short list of straight men who have done drag:.

Robin Williams
Billy Crystal
Tony Curtis
Jack Lemon
Patrick Swayze
Kurt Russell
William Dafoe
Wesley Snipes
Eddie Murphy
Johnny Depp
Cillian Murphy
Jared Lehto
John Travolta
Adam Sandler
Tyler Perry
Martin Lawrence
Dana Carvey
Liev Schreiber
Hugo Weaving
Guy Pearce
Ving Rhames
Dustin Hoffmann
Gene Hackman

Here are women who have appeared in drag:
Cate Blanchett
Drew Barrymore
Angelina Jolie
Hillary Swank
Barbara Streisand
Julie Andrews
Amanda Bynes
Gwyneth Paltrow
Lucy Liu
Glenn Close

Drag has been part of the theater since theater began.
 
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As Wanda Sykes said, "Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird', I think you're focusing on the wrong bleep.
 
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Stacyhs said:
As Wanda Sykes said, "Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird', I think your focusing on the wrong bleep.
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Millions of Americans homeless, unaffordable housing, crumbling infrastructure, attacks on our freedom and democracy, inflation, climate change, transportation needs, education, racism, labor issues and all they can talk about is that there are gay people out there and just maybe one of them will turn them gay.

This so called issue that sometimes men dress up on stage as a woman should be embarrassing to anyone who brings it up. But this is zenith of Republican imagination. They don't have any ideas so they double down on hate.
 
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