Peak drag queen reached?
The Sun reviews Smoggie Queens, hijinks ensue.
CALL me a wide-eyed optimist, if you like, but when a second female impersonator joined EastEnders this month, I thought: “Surely to God, we’ve reached peak drag queen and the BBC can find another obsession now.”
These men are across absolutely everything, after all, starting with four different versions of Ru Paul’s global abomination, which the Beeb has got on a loop.
Yes but the Beeb is every bit as obsessed with minstrel shows oh wait no it’s not. Mocking and insulting people of color is unacceptable but mocking and insulting women is wholesome every day entertainment. Right?
Smoggie Queens is up there with the worst sitcoms I’ve ever watched, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
For if TV’s drag era has taught us anything it’s the fact that behind nearly every grotesque facade there is a seriously dull man with some very odd ideas about women.
Which must be why the Beeb likes it so much.
Without doubt, Smoggie Queens will indulge all who follow as well, as it seems to be cut from the same holier-than-thou cloth as its host broadcaster, and in the absence of a decent punchline ends most of the episodes with the same sort of morality lectures that used to punctuate The Cosby Show.
Toxic masculinity, the blurring of gender lines, the importance of LGBTQI+ reps at work — you know the sort of cobblers. None of it stops Smoggie Queens assuming all straight men and old people are thugs and bigots until they’ve draped themselves in the rainbow flag, naturally.
However, the lack of self-awareness certainly fuelled the pay-off to episode one: “We are who we are, strong, fierce and unreservedly queer. If you can’t find us, keep searching, know your worth, because we’re out there somewhere on this big old queer earth.”
Can’t find you?
Switch your telly on, man. You can barely find anything else.
Ok but they identify as marginalized so shut up.
When I read the synopsis, I assumed that it was a spoof, created using the suddenly ubiquitous plagiarism software running on jumped-up search engines. I’m still having trouble believing that it could possibly be real.
Just like the right the left will accept any old sentimental slop as long as it’s draped in the right flag. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to realise this simple fact.