I follow a thread on another message board site which is basically a feminist discussion forum. Their latest rage is directed towards drag, which they claim is "womanface" and a "gross caricature of women" that's apparently just as offensive as blackface.
Is it just me that thinks they're being a bit reactionary? I daren't post as they'll attack me for having a penis and daring to speak.
| by Anonymous | reply 107 | August 22, 2022 11:02 AM |
Blackface isn't a white person looking within themselves to explore their inner African.
Drag is usually just gay men exploring and playing with their feminine side.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 28, 2022 7:30 PM |
Not really the same thing at all.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 28, 2022 7:35 PM |
Drag in 2022 is a fucking bore, is what drag is.
Seriously: it is one of the least appealing, lowest common denominator aspects of gay male culture, and we seem determined to hold onto it.
(And oh, by the way, it's frequently misogynist and sexist and reinforces prehistoric gender norms, but mostly, it's fucking boring.)
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 28, 2022 7:47 PM |
I've decided to spend this weekend in meditation, with the goal of finding new things I can self-righteously take offense at.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 28, 2022 7:48 PM |
Blackface, redface, brownface and yellowface in America was part of a bigger issue and that was systemic racism and racial panic. The need to degrade other racial groups to assert white supremacy. Blackface in particular was tied to minstrelsy and the consequences of it were state sanctioned violence in the form of lynchings, segregation, mass incarceration and job discrimination. Blackface didn't stop on the stage and film, it became part of American pop culture in the form of cartoons, advertising, storybook characters, toys, home appliances, mascots and etc.
Drag at its worse can be misogynistic and mean-spirited but overall the intention is more to mock gender roles, mock patriarchy and celebrate aspects of womanhood. Some people are naturally flamboyant and androgynous and drag is a way to express that. Also drag shows can include parodying masculinity and butchness, the leather and biker scene. I don't think they're comparable though I can see why it's make some women uncomfortable.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 28, 2022 7:52 PM |
I agree that drag has gotten dull. I can’t stand it now it’s gone mainstream.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 28, 2022 7:57 PM |
Women should make fun of men more often. I wouldn't mind seeing more drag kings. You see it a lot in sketch comedies like SNL, MadTV and All That. Amanda Bynes and Raven Symone crossdressed as dudes frequently in their shows and movies.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 28, 2022 8:37 PM |
Are the feminist also upset about the ‘tuck’?
Is that LabiaMajoraToe?
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 28, 2022 9:45 PM |
[quote] Is it just me that thinks they're being a bit reactionary?
"Reactionary" means "opposing political or social liberalization or reform." It's usually used in reference to irredentist or fascist attitudes to the past. Please stop using it to mean "overreacting" or "unreasonable."
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 28, 2022 9:48 PM |
"A boy in a dress is someone to be laughed at. A drag queen is someone to be feared."
Drag is a celebration of the power and beauty of women.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 28, 2022 9:56 PM |
Not sure about that anymore.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 28, 2022 10:07 PM |
Drag has nothing to do with women. It’s gay history. The perpetually offended keep trying to make drag a (negative) thing. What about Drag Kings? Should we all get offended? Last drag (6 months ago) show I saw, it was 75% Drag Kings, and all performers were under 30. Drag ain’t going anywhere. There is one local elder lesbetarian who is obsessed with this topic, saying all drag is misogyny, and will weigh in soon, I’m sure. 🙄
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 28, 2022 10:26 PM |
Drag is a celebration of people who combine two qualities conventionally thought of as opposite -- femininity and assertiveness. It's something many gay men instinctively and unconsciously admire, including many who don't even pay attention to drag. That's why gay men watch reality TV or, as kids, pick female characters to play video games. They wish to embody this mix of swishiness and strength.
If femininity was something to mock for the drag performer, why are positive qualities, such as wit and pithiness, depicted in the act? And why do some drag performers go on to identify as trans women if they just look down on womanhood? These women you're observing aren't really thinking through what they say; they're merely reading drag from the most outrageous angle possible so they feel their hatred is morally justifiable. This is how right-wingers go about doing politics, and this is what these women are judging by the company they've been keeping lately -- right-wingers.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 28, 2022 10:34 PM |
What about everyday women dressing as men for decades now? Bulldaggers do it every day as well. Not a peep. Hypocrite much?
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 28, 2022 10:35 PM |
DRAG isn't only FACE, it's the whole body transformation!
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 28, 2022 10:37 PM |
I personally don't find it offensive, but I'm not woman. But it is always fascinating in this country how we pick and choose what we're going to be offended by.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 28, 2022 10:37 PM |
It’s under attack from the far right and left for different reasons.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 28, 2022 10:40 PM |
I don’t think we can say “womanface” anymore, I think the proper term is “uterus born people’s face.”
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 28, 2022 10:40 PM |
Yes, drag is misogynistic; should go the way of blackface.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | July 28, 2022 10:43 PM |
I don't think it's a big deal, but I'm not a woman. I also think Catherine Tate's character Derek was not a big deal either, yet some people were outraged and wanted her cancelled for it.
You shouldn't have double standards for this stuff (even though it seems we do).
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 28, 2022 10:49 PM |
Praying for the end of drag! The most unoriginal schtick ever. Dude with the body of a linebacker in a vintage dress, OTT makeup, mimes Judy/Doris and does imitations of Bette Davis. JFH. End it now and commit these drag freaks to an asylum. Yassss kweens!
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | July 28, 2022 10:50 PM |
Yes, it is. It's a boring cliche, disrespectful, demeaning, and cheap. Just like blackface is.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 28, 2022 10:51 PM |
R10 you lie. Drag is not a celebration of women’s anything.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 28, 2022 11:50 PM |
R23 has stated her boundaries. No one may disagree with her without lying.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | July 29, 2022 12:48 AM |
I'm the OP. Thanks for all the replies. Seems the majority agree with me that it's not womanface.
I get the feeling that a lot of the women who object to it are white, straight and middle aged, and probably feeling a bit bored. They form these groups online and rile each other up, so you're left with a scenario where hardly any of them have even thought about drag before, but when one of them says it's offensive and misogynistic, the rest say: "actually, yeah, good point!" then add it to their list of topics they'll repeat ad nauseam.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | July 29, 2022 1:09 PM |
Why don't you ask those women objecting to it what they are instead of making up a stereotype/caricature of them in your mind, based on your own "feelings" R25?
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | July 29, 2022 2:42 PM |
The WaPo today has a drag queen defending why children should go to drag shows and why drag at children's libraries is a wonderful thing.
Claims there is nothing sexual about drag shows or drag at all.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | July 29, 2022 3:11 PM |
OP is certainly a gay guy who watches all the Drag Races and doesn't actually care about whether real women are offended by drag or not.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | July 29, 2022 3:13 PM |
By that reasoning, trans anything falls in the same category.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | July 29, 2022 3:37 PM |
[quote] It's a boring cliche, disrespectful, demeaning, and cheap.
Exactly like "transwomen".
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | July 29, 2022 3:42 PM |
Women should and can mock men and masculinity. I never got why there aren't more drag kings. Isn't comedy meant to be at those in power?
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | July 29, 2022 3:44 PM |
You'd describe drag as 'comedy' R31? It might be laughable if it wasn't so sad and pathetic.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | July 29, 2022 4:09 PM |
R26 Being brutally honest, I don't ask becuase I don't really care. Drag in its traditional sense is/was done by gay men at venues almost exclusively for gay men. Therefore, when women object, it feels petty as it's not for them. So they're choosing to expose themselves to something that offends them.
R28 Only half right. I don't watch Drag Races, but you're right that I don't care whether real women are offended by drag or not. See above line for why.
I mean, how sad would it be if they got drag banned from venues that they'd probably never even go to. Would that really be classed as a 'victory'?
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | July 29, 2022 4:59 PM |
I'd like drag banned from the venues I go to R33.
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | July 29, 2022 5:01 PM |
r25 tis the nature of "queer" politics according to the academics, journalists and other pundits that call themselves "political" lesbians.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 35 | July 29, 2022 5:02 PM |
straight from the rad fem's mouth:
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 36 | July 29, 2022 5:03 PM |
Transwomen would like to erase drag because it is an inconvenient reminder that they are also just men playing dress-up.
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | July 29, 2022 5:05 PM |
r38 trans feminism owes a lot to rad fems... they stole their schtick and rebranded it as their own.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 39 | July 29, 2022 5:07 PM |
Alaska Thunderfuck: Based on a strain of weed or the hatred of women?
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 40 | July 29, 2022 5:10 PM |
[quote]They form these groups online and rile each other up,
Just like DL.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | July 29, 2022 5:16 PM |
R34 You could just not go. There's an idea!
But yeah, I'm not really bothered about drag. However, as there seems to be such a concerted effort to get rid of it by radfems, I'm more inclined to see it stay. The hypocrisy makes me laugh, too, imagine if men (gay or otherwise) even spoke about banning things they liked. We'd be eviscerated and called every name under the sun.
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | July 29, 2022 5:41 PM |
To the simpleton at R33. Replace everything you said with black/white. See how it reads re. blackface. Maybe you'll get a clue as to why many women are offended at being caricatures for gay men's amusement.
Here, I'll help you using your own words:
[quote]Being brutally honest, I don't ask because I don't really care. Blackface in its traditional sense is/was done by white people at venues almost exclusively for white people. Therefore, when black people object, it feels petty as it's not for them. So they're choosing to expose themselves to something that offends them.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | July 29, 2022 5:41 PM |
I don't see drag as misogyny and I'm female. Don't these people have anything else to do?
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | July 29, 2022 5:46 PM |
I have always thought drag was bizarre and off-putting. I felt that way 50 yrs ago when I came out and still think it today. Drag is a drag. It's a disguise.
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | July 29, 2022 5:50 PM |
Why are women so obsessed with gay men? Is it because we're not sexually attracted to them and they can't manipulate us? They go on this forum for mainly gay men (though lesbians also come here) and attack gay male culture and accuse us of being patriarchal when we're not even thinking about women. It's straight men and other women who try to control women. I give no fuck what women try to do and I agree they should be free to make their own choices. So why can't they respect gay men's wishes to do what is a form of entertainment that also was historically a way for effeminate gay men to express themselves. Drag didn't result in women being lynched or oppressed by society like blackface did. It was a mistake for drag to go mainstream and become tacky and lowbrow (thanks Ru). I'm not a fan of it but I don't think the goal is to degrade women more mock gender roles and subvert ideas of socialized femininity and masculinity. I've been noticing some women are femmephobic (prejudiced towards effeminate men who they think are making fun of women) and are now conflating effeminate men with trans women.
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | July 29, 2022 6:04 PM |
R40, why do you keep posting that right-wing MRA shit here? Are you a troon or did you wander over from Conservative Treehouse? Or both? Paul Elam is a deadbeat dad who lives off his girlfriend and keeps all the money raised by his fake men's charity. Fiamengo is a retired Canadian academic and Jordan Peterson wannabe who should fix her own country. She conveniently waited until her tenured career was over before coming out as an anti-feminist. Maybe form an argument of your own instead of posting the same grifter bullshit incessantly.
That said, drag was always boring and is mainstream and passe enough now that its claims to be edgy are a joke. I don't know any women who care about it, unless you want to force their children to look at these attention whores.
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | July 29, 2022 6:11 PM |
R43 What rot. You can't even stick to the topic so you build a big strawman. Besides I don't even think many women are offended by drag.
How about stop trying to control what an actual minority do/enjoy?
| by Anonymous | reply 48 | July 29, 2022 6:12 PM |
Drag has nothing to do with women. It’s not about them at all. Butt out! Enjoy your own drag (Kings). Resurrect MichFest and all your other separatism…it is not my business. Our drag has nothing to do with you, so stop trying to make it about you, it is gay male history.
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | July 29, 2022 10:46 PM |
Drag Kings are even more boring than Drag Queens.
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | July 29, 2022 11:54 PM |
I don't take offence at drag queens at all. On the other hand, I cannot take men seriously who believe that wearing lipstick makes them a woman. Those used to be clearly separate things though. The idea of a woman that TRAs mostly cosplay is reductionist and offensive, and I see how people can connect this to blackface. The show TRAs put on is more of a caricature than drag queens can ever be, because drag queens are deliberately over the top while TRAs take themselves seriously. Drag queens aren't delusional - TRAs are.
| by Anonymous | reply 51 | July 30, 2022 12:22 AM |
Oh I'm torn really.
On the one hand, drag is cringe and unfunny and drag queens look like freaks and I've never enjoyed it and never go to drag shows.
On the other hand, unhinged far-right and TERF people are right now all over my timeline claiming that 'Drag Queen Story Hour' is a front for perverts and a means to crowbar 'paedophiles' into the LGBT+ rainbow. Fascist groups are now organising violent protests at these story hours on grounds of their 'perversion'.
So I guess I have to stand with drag, but I kind of wish it would die out of its own accord. Actually as gay life goes more mainstream, I do think the tendency of gay men to identify with ;strong and powerful women' (in caricature) is lessening a lot.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | July 30, 2022 12:35 AM |
I find it weird that TRAs find drag queens offensive when essentially they are the same thing.
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | July 30, 2022 12:51 AM |
R53 It's the radfems and anti-trans people that find drag offensive.
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | July 30, 2022 12:57 AM |
Actually, the TRAs tried to ban drag queens from Pride a few years ago. I'm surprised you don't remember - everyone here was talking about it.
| by Anonymous | reply 55 | July 30, 2022 1:07 AM |
Although, I don't recall you being here then, so ...
| by Anonymous | reply 56 | July 30, 2022 1:08 AM |
Yes drag is as offensive as blackface. I’m a gwm not especially woke but the concept of drag has always bothered me.
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | July 30, 2022 1:10 AM |
Did you mean Glasgow pride a few years back? Yes I do remember that, so I will qualify what I said a little: the vast majority of the worst anti-drag rhetoric comes from TERFS/the far right. They are the ones turning up at Drag Queen Story Hour protests, not trans activists. They are also the ones calling Drag Queens 'groomers', not Trans activists.
| by Anonymous | reply 58 | July 30, 2022 1:16 AM |
(Even) if you don’t believe drag is an art form, it is a form of self-expression that is culturally specific. It also seems almost every culture in the world has some form of it. Berdache anyone? TERFs, radfems, and the fascist right all share one thing in common: they’re trying to shut drag (other than drag kings apparently) down. This unholy alliance is very similar to the coalition that tries to outlaw porn, or severely censor it. Ask yourself if you’re in this coalition, are you comfortable with all the members of your coalition?
| by Anonymous | reply 59 | July 30, 2022 1:25 AM |
“We are all born naked. The rest is all drag.”
| by Anonymous | reply 61 | July 30, 2022 1:27 AM |
R59 = false equivalency, as usual.
| by Anonymous | reply 62 | July 30, 2022 1:33 AM |
Lol @ “usual.” Whatevs, congrats on improving your vocabulary. You cannot deny it is the exact same coalition partners. Ask yourself why. Sorry it makes you so uncomfortable. Reality is sometimes difficult to accept.
| by Anonymous | reply 63 | July 30, 2022 1:40 AM |
Late to the party, single issue troll @ R62. Block it, half the thread disappears.
| by Anonymous | reply 64 | July 30, 2022 1:42 AM |
My grandfather used to say that a broad gussied up in cosmetics had put on the war paint. So perhaps regularly applied makeup is kind of an affront to indigenous custom.
| by Anonymous | reply 65 | July 30, 2022 1:56 AM |
Drag is about ridiculing women. Female impersonation is about exploring your feminine side. If drag helps you make it through the night, that's your business.
| by Anonymous | reply 66 | July 30, 2022 2:23 AM |
Bitter Betty blinded by misery.
| by Anonymous | reply 67 | July 30, 2022 4:49 AM |
A protestor at a DQSH event.
Which one of the groups did she fall into do you think? Trans rights activist? TERF? Fascist?
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 68 | July 30, 2022 8:50 AM |
r47 it's a honey trap, dear, it convinces the guillable to response and confirm their biases but address only one of the videos to show their allegiance to the other.
| by Anonymous | reply 69 | July 30, 2022 3:43 PM |
[quote]Late to the party, single issue troll @ [R62]. Block it, half the thread disappears.
I'm not sure where you went to school, but half of 69 posts is not 2 posts.
| by Anonymous | reply 70 | July 31, 2022 10:16 PM |
A good way to feel like a woman is to check your breasts for lumps and be terrified you are pregnant.
| by Anonymous | reply 71 | August 1, 2022 11:02 PM |
I don't think drag is about women at all, though men are certainly aping women while doing so, albeit in exaggerated ways....what I find interesting about drag is that while men are dressing up as and pretending to be women, their over the top attention seeking behavior makes it very unfeminine. Women are subtler generally.
I do think think drag is demeaning for the men engaging it, I'll say that much.
| by Anonymous | reply 72 | August 2, 2022 1:10 AM |
[quote]r5 Drag at its worse can be misogynistic and mean-spirited but overall the intention is more to mock gender roles, mock patriarchy and celebrate aspects of womanhood.
Really? For me it was just a way to get fucked. Hard.
| by Anonymous | reply 73 | August 2, 2022 1:38 AM |
[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 74 | August 21, 2022 7:59 AM |
It's not reactionary. It's always offended me.
| by Anonymous | reply 75 | August 21, 2022 8:00 AM |
“ Transwomen would like to erase drag because it is an inconvenient reminder that they are also just men playing dress-up.”
TIMs cancelling drag is the only decent, feminist thing they have ever done.
| by Anonymous | reply 76 | August 21, 2022 8:03 AM |
As a gay man, I have always found drag misogynistic and homophobic. We need to stand with our Lesbian sisters eliminate it from existence.
| by Anonymous | reply 77 | August 21, 2022 8:09 AM |
I would love to get rid of drag. It is as offensive as Justin Trudeau and his blackface.
| by Anonymous | reply 78 | August 21, 2022 8:14 AM |
Have done it for 60 years. It's fun!
| by Anonymous | reply 79 | August 21, 2022 8:15 AM |
Once the curtains and blinds are closed. Darkness takes ahold outside. A gentleman or two are scheduled to visit. I start partaking of the drinky poos; yes, I become a true lady.
| by Anonymous | reply 80 | August 21, 2022 8:28 AM |
[quote]Drag at its worse can be misogynistic and mean-spirited but overall the intention is more to mock gender roles, mock patriarchy and celebrate aspects of womanhood.
Give examples of how these are true. How does it mock gender roles when all it does is emphasize the most sexualized aspects of women? I can't even figure out how it would be considered mocking toward the patriarchy. And, explain why it would be any different if I wanted to dress up as Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks to celebrate them or wanted to wear cornrows and a dashiki to celebrate African culture. (And, honestly, if I wanted to actually equate it more closely to drag, I would have to wear a hugely caricatured version of cornrows and the biggest, most voluminous dashiki ever to exist.)
| by Anonymous | reply 81 | August 21, 2022 8:32 AM |
[quote] As a gay man, I have always found drag misogynistic and homophobic. We need to stand with our Lesbian sisters eliminate it from existence.
You’re a lesbian pretending to be a gay man.
| by Anonymous | reply 82 | August 21, 2022 8:34 AM |
I feel like it kind of is, honestly.
| by Anonymous | reply 83 | August 21, 2022 8:38 AM |
[quote]R77 We need to stand with our Lesbian sisters eliminate it from existence.
My lesbian friends were never offended by my doing drag. They liked the creativity. They liked me.
Maybe it depends on your persona. No one likes a bitchy queen in real life - only on TV.
| by Anonymous | reply 84 | August 21, 2022 8:39 AM |
I could never stomach drag, and always have felt they were a class of mental illness, same as trans.
They are wrong on every level - humiliating to gays and insulting to women.
| by Anonymous | reply 85 | August 21, 2022 8:42 AM |
It is just satirising woman. That's all. Just a little fun and lots of women enjoy a good drag show too.
| by Anonymous | reply 86 | August 21, 2022 8:42 AM |
Blackface isn't offensive.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 87 | August 21, 2022 8:43 AM |
Controlling lesbetarians trying to control something that has nothing to do with them. This is a priority? Are the dykes willing to stop dressing like men every day? I am offended. It’s mocking my precious manhood. 🙄
| by Anonymous | reply 89 | August 21, 2022 9:29 AM |
Gay male history and culture. Butt out, lezzies.
| by Anonymous | reply 90 | August 21, 2022 9:35 AM |
Why is something that gay men do amongst themselves of concern to their dear lesbian sisters?
| by Anonymous | reply 92 | August 21, 2022 9:38 AM |
they really don't have room to talk about appropriation and mockery, do they?
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 94 | August 21, 2022 9:54 AM |
Drag was always basic as fuck. Anyone now blowing shite that it's part of gay culture and a mean for gay men to express themselves is a disgrace to all men- gay or straight. Let the women keep their dresses, wigs and make up. Drag is an embarrassment to gay men. Lip syncing to Liza or reciting quotes from Now Voyager is not art, it's a form of repetitive obsession disorder. Anyone partaking is in Norman Bates territory.
| by Anonymous | reply 95 | August 21, 2022 9:54 AM |
Drag is cuntface since all bitches are cunts. All faggots would agree.
| by Anonymous | reply 96 | August 21, 2022 9:56 AM |
BUZZING BPD @ R95. By definition, you have no boundaries, dear. No do fuck right off.
| by Anonymous | reply 97 | August 21, 2022 9:59 AM |
R97 adjusting his late grandmother's pantyhose, and sourcing ebay for a pair of heels that can be sequinned à la Judy's ruby slippers.
| by Anonymous | reply 98 | August 21, 2022 10:04 AM |
Since I’m not a misogynist, being labeled a woman, or being concerned with female minutiae is not an insult to me. Sounds like it is to you, dear. Perhaps take it up in therapy with a good DBT workbook.
| by Anonymous | reply 99 | August 21, 2022 10:08 AM |
R99, therapy, the tranny's answer to everything. That, or having a good old cry to Mildred Pierce while dressed in a gingham pinafore and a lopsided wig.
| by Anonymous | reply 100 | August 21, 2022 10:19 AM |
I’m a gay male, but keep projecting, it’s very enlightening. Lol.
| by Anonymous | reply 101 | August 21, 2022 10:21 AM |
r95 when political lesbians femme up then maybe they'll have room to bitch about lads being too effeminate for their liking. Though they're not too fond of butch or lipstick lesbians either. No one seems able to discern where their boundaries actually are or what they expect people to do... they just shout abolish gender but when people attempt it, they start screaming their heads off again.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 102 | August 21, 2022 11:07 AM |
I am a woman. "Womanface" is what I have when I DON'T wear makeup.
It seems to me that the difference between blackface and drag is that drag is parodying or playing with women's external affectations, whereas blackface is appropriating something absoluetely inherent in black people (the color of their skin). Many guys in drag don't even bother to approximate breasts (which is the one thing that IS inherent). They are interested in the hair, the makeup, the glitter, the fabrics, the jewels, the high heels. For the most part, women love all these things too, and regard them as playthings too, so there's no particular reason not to share them unless you're super-conservative about gender roles. For the same reason, most of us don't care about Brad Pitt and Harry Styles popularising skirts for men. No skin off our nose: it's the same as us wearing jeans and pants so why not? They're not trying to be women and we're not trying to be men. The Ancient Greeks fought battles in skirts.
What happens once a guy is in drag is what makes the difference. If, like Courtney Act, he just uses it to be glamorous and explore the "spectrum" of his own gender identity, or a femme gay who spends half his life "toning it down" uses it to be the most theatrical version of himself, and if what he says and does is inclusive, then I can't see why women would care because they use dress and makeup the same way. But if, once in character, what he does and says is an overt or covert attack on women, if he uses it to get out all his resentments towards his mother, etc, then that's offensive in exactly the same way as a guy in blackface is when he employs an accent off the plantations and tells jokes against or patronises black people.
If you really wanted to parody patriarchal gender roles you'd dress up as a middle-aged white man and be searing about whatever annoys you about them. Satirists have a long history of doing this (eg Colbert's impersonation of a Republican on The Colbert Report), but you don't see it much from the queer community. There is the famous exception of Carlotta, in court in Sydney in the 1960s for wearing a dress and wig in public, who when the judge began to sentence her pointed out that he was doing both at the moment. (She was acquitted.) I've seen a couple of female comedians dress as men, mostly to satirise toxic masculinity rather than the institutional aspects and consequences of patriarchy, but this isn't very common. Hannah Gadsby attacks some of the sources of power, but she does it without attempting to impersonate a man.
| by Anonymous | reply 103 | August 21, 2022 12:52 PM |
I'm making a suit of women's skin.
| by Anonymous | reply 105 | August 21, 2022 2:55 PM |
R103 Everyone and everything is a "woman", turd. There's nothing more like a "woman" than a piece of shit.
| by Anonymous | reply 106 | August 21, 2022 11:42 PM |
"Drag is a celebration of the power and beauty of women."
Where's the beauty in some bloke squeezed into a dress, hand on hip, other hand flicking a cigarette and quoting Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Fucking idiot. Agree with posters above that drag is an indicator of mental illness.
| by Anonymous | reply 107 | August 22, 2022 11:02 AM |
