Misogyny parade
All very well, but…I can’t help wondering about a parallel BBC news item on a two day blackface convention. Would that happen?
DragCon UK: Drag queens gather for two-day convention
What do we think? Would there be a headline reading
“BlackfaceCon UK: Blackface minstrels gather for two-day convention”?
No, of course there wouldn’t.
Would there be a headline reading
“TowelheadCon UK: Turban-wearers gather for two-day convention”?
Nope.
Why is it ok to mock women but not other despised groups?
The BBC provides photo after photo of men clownishly dressed and shod and made up and hair-puffed.
Around 180 queens “sashayed” down the pink carpet for the official opening of the event before being welcomed by one of the judges on Drag Race UK Michelle Visage.
Hur hur ha ha. Women don’t walk, they sashay, or “sashay.” They do it on a pink carpet. It’s all so hilarious.
Cheryl Hole, Drag Race UK series one contestant from Chelmsford, said the event was a “fabulous” weekend.
Haw haw. Women are holes. You slay us, Beeb.
.
More importantly, is the BBC going to do a follow-up on the resulting world-wide shortages of eyeshadow, blush and lipstick? It looks like some of the attendees are, all by themselves, using enough of these products to paint all the men(!) women, and children of whole cities.
Seriously, who looks like that except drag queens?* I think mockery is exactly the right description. If it had any connection with the admiration or appreciation of women, they’d know enough not to do it in the first place. This is about power and control, by donning these outrageously stereotypical outfits they are assuming the power to “define” women, controlling how we should see them, and showing how much better at it they are than women themselves. It’s like a whole bunch of “Kayla” Lemieuxs, with more glitter and heels, or Barbie Kardashians without the knives, and a somewhat more precise application of cosmetics.
Are there ever any “Drag King” conventions? Are “Drag Kings” even a thing? If they are, they’re not a big one. (I know, size isn’t everything; sue me.) I’m guessing they’d be hard to distinguish from a gathering of “Village People” impersonators. They’d certainly have a wider range of stereotypes from which to draw than the narrow pool to which Drag Queens seem to limit themselves.
At the risk of Godwinning myself, these caricatures of supposed “womanhood” are at least as extreme as the caricatures of Jews appearing in Nazi era proaganda posters. There wasn’t a lot of admiration or respect shown there, either.
*It’s interesting to note that when the members of Monty Python did drag, they more often than not went in the opposite direction, with more of a stereotypical “British housewife” rather than “Vegas prostitute” look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIJvcWkVcs
And usually their target was some aspect of “Britishness,” not women.
Bruce, re the Pythons
Queen’s “I Want To Break Free” video was very much in that same mould, including Freedie’s immaculate mo.
Also, Barry Humphries when playing Edna Everidge was a slightly OTT imitation of suburban Melbourne women, and trust me, I have seen a few Edna’s in my life. He did push it further after Edna became a Dame. But underneath it all, Barry never once claimed to be a woman any more than he claimed to be a pisshead when he played Les Patterson.
Re: Drag Kings – I know they exist. I remember reading about British drag kings – they were a subculture of butch lesbians who deliberately performed a parodic version of masculinity.
I don’t know if they’re still around – the people who used to be drag kings are probably trans men nowadays.