Is drag "girlface"?

Team Drag.

Cancel Culture has become nothing more than online "re-education camps"

Of course they are misogynistic in nature. I find it entertaining at times too, but there is no denying it is rooted in misogyny.

R3, is it, really? I honestly thought most guys doing drag adore women and love the idea of looking like them.

Yes it is

It is rooted in envy and not a little admiration not misogyny. Male to female trans is misogyny.

It is the only genuine appropriation as in theft there is.

Yes.

Well, they kind of are a parody of women. But, since it involves a disadvantaged group, it might get a pass.

Women are the majority in most developed countries, so it's irrelevant.

It's often misogynistic, it's definitely "girlface" but since gays are lower than women on the Victim Scale, it gets a pass.

But your FB friends are right OP

When done well, the art of female illusionary is a compliment to women.

Most Halloween drag and ugly "girls" are definitely an insult to pretty women, but not fat or ugly ones..

To a bizarre Millennial, yes.

I think not because drag queens are being drag queens, not women specifically. Trans is woman face.

Christ, this crap again.

Women are immediately banned from all gay bars and all sports activities. Why? Same logic. Its appropriation. Women always turn every damn thing into “look at me! Pay attention to ME!”

Being obsessed with canceling authentic gay forms of entertainment means women are absolutely not allies.

Either deal with gay culture or fuck off back to kinder, küche, kirche. Don’t look for any support as your rights get eroded.

Cancel culture? More like Cancel Cunts.

I like drag, but it is girlface. You are dressing up and pretending to be something you aren’t.

As a woman I have never, ever had a problem with drag and I do not understand those who do.

I believe that drag characters are lovingly created by the male drag performers as almost an extension of themselves, I see no malice in it.

I guess you could call it "girlface", which is an obvious reference and an obvious comparison to "blackface" or "brownface". I believe that gender and ethnicity are two separate topics and that both come with different reactions from people and different challenges and problems.

I see drag as an art form, and drag queens as performers and I believe their characters are not a blanket statement about women as a whole but as individual characters with their own motivations and their own stories to tell.

Cosmetics were a french fashion that were for men and women. Coopting this as “women only” is historically wrong and typical posturing.

Not only is there a historical precedent for drag, the most political and outrageous forms of buffoonery as political satire were the only protected speech in Ancient Rome and Nazi Berlin.

Not women: fags in make up.

So shut the fuck up.

I remember an interview with some old school drag performer - maybe somebody else remembers it too - when asked if he wanted to be a woman, the queen answered vehemently, 'I ain't no damn woman. I don't want to be no damn woman', and on and on. It was clear from the way he talked about women that he had total contempt for them. He might be a big old queen, but he was still a man, and superior to them.

I think some drag is done with love, to celebrate. But there's plenty of drag that is mean-spirited and coming from a place of negativity for the very thing it's trying to evoke. The point is, it's not all the same.

Fraus [bold]love[/bold] RuPaul's Drag Race though, so if they're complaining about drag being 'girlface' at the same time, it's a bit disingenuous.

Who the fuck do you think is pushing this recent phenomenon of 'drag kids'? It's their mothers.

Oh, definitely Team Drag. This is the Datalounge for god's sake.

Tellingly, the OP is already on ignore as are most of the posts in this thread.

Stealth Trans-bashing thread by those odious hateful hags.

Dumb bigoted cunts are still dumb cunty bigots.

R15 That is trans, not drag,

Long ago, I used to do coat checks at the local gay bar as a fundraiser for an AIDS organization, and it had a regular Saturday night drag show, which was also the night with a DJ and dance music. So the straights came with their GFs and the gays came to dance and ogle the straight boys, and the drag queens did their shows. Inevitably the night ended with police presence, as either straight women insulted the drag queens or the drag queens insulted the straight women. Whichever it was on a given night, it wasn't ever more than 5 minutes of shouting until the shoes came off and got thrown, and wigs were pulled off of heads. It was entertaining, but a time or two I had to duck down among the coats to avoid the line of fire.

Yeah, they need to have segregated "straight nights" when the tourists can come around.

Decent gays and queens don't want to be involved in that mess.

O please! Girls/females have been canceled out by the trannies. That gender no longer exists or means anything.

Go to the ignore ghetto, R24.

You're too stupid to be read by normal people.

Also, please die as soon as possible because you are of no use to anyone in the world and no one loves you. TIA!

[quote] 'I ain't no damn woman. I don't want to be no damn woman', and on and on. It was clear from the way he talked about women that he had total contempt for them. He might be a big old queen, but he was still a man, and superior to them.

Exactly, it's like a form of knocking down for them because of what straight male society did to them. And as time goes on and gays gain more rights, it is even more ugly. I suspect the people defending it so vehemently and telling everyone who is critical to shut up are very old. And saying that women are ok with that doesn't really make your point. There are lots of women who wear burkas who think it empowers them and is not misogynistic in any way. Doesn't make that true.

So R26, drag is bad because you feel it’s gay men knocking down women. But it’s ok for you to demean supporters of drag by saying, in an insulting way, that they are probably ‘very old’. Because to you, it’s ok to ignore or insult those who you see as ‘old’.

You fucking, lousy, bent-double hypocrite. Fuck off.

It's totally misogynistic. Gay men degrading women by exaggerating their most vulnerable characteristics.

And that's what makes it so much fun! 💁🏼‍♀️

R25 cannot handle the truth and quit projecting, cunt.

Yes. They exaggerate women's supposed behavior, but really they just act like a bimbo, i mean not all women are loud, like to cake on makeup or wear flashy, revealing clothes. In that sense, you could compare it with blackface because they're only portraying an stereotype of how they think women are.

[quote]'I ain't no damn woman. I don't want to be no damn woman', and on and on. It was clear from the way he talked about women that he had total contempt for them. He might be a big old queen, but he was still a man, and superior to them.

But if a straight guy says the same thing in response he gets a pass. He was probably just sick of hearing how "gay men are all jealous of women" at that point.

I hate the Internet.

i've noticed many places and articles using brownface instead of blackface are they trying to minimize it because justin is a liberal or what? it's usually blackface and his face was as black as boot black.

It is no different than blackface.

Misogyny is not the same as blackface. Most people hate the bitches because they are cunts.

A drag performer doing Liza Minnelli or Barbra Streisand is exaggerating an individual’s characteristics and has put some thought and work into the performance. It doesn’t seem insulting to me, but I’m not Liza or Barbra. A guy in drag in 4” heels, a platinum wig, six pounds of make up and sequins is mocking women by defining womanhood as those things. It’s not the world’s biggest problem.

I saw a bunch of six grade boys dress in drag for their school talent show. They were not mocking women, they were mocking men who dress as women. I was pretty shocked but, now that I think about it, if drag queens can mock women, maybe boys can mock drag queens? The boys’ performance strict me as pretty ugly, but nobody else seemed offended.

R36 That would be a class known as “female impersonator”.

Drag is usually political. Drag is dangerous.

[quote]I was pretty shocked but, now that I think about it, if drag queens can mock women, maybe boys can mock drag queens? The boys’ performance strict me as pretty ugly, but nobody else seemed offended.

It was males mocking males, so...?

And you all got trolled by Mary Cheney.

Fuck the Cheneys.

It absolutely is. "Hahaha!! I'm dressed up like a WOMAN! Isnt that HILARIOUS??!!"

I agree with the posters who said that not all drag queens have the same intent. It can be VERY misogynistic and mean spirited ("fish"-- need I say more?), or relatively harmless (RuPaul), or even sweet and tender (Edith's friend Beverly on "All in the Family"). Motivation matters.

Now trans... Yes, that is womanface. It degrades women in a way that drag does not, IMO. Like, legally.

W&W for Girl Not Offended.

I love women and I enjoy seeing [italic]creative[/creative] drag.

Oops [/italic] Closing italics.

If you’re going to get offended by culture appropriation, there are no blurred lines. I don’t know any male friend who didn’t dress up in Indian garb...meaning Native North Americans, for Halloween from childhood on. We all know this, unless you’re Amish, let’s stop being shocked.

When do we call over tanning unexceptable. Kim Kardashian constantly portrays everything except what she actually is. Yet she gets away with it because we all think she mentally deficient.

Stop with “the face” thing. It’s like calling everything political “gate”. Watergate was the fucking hotel. That’s it! Everything is offensive now! I actually don’t know if the next sentence I write, will be offensive to someone. My guesses, yes!

Cancel culture is being weaponized by the opposition to plant the seed of turning against one of your own.

"I hear he / she doesn't recycle at home! Cancel!" "I hear he / she shops at Walmart! Cancel!" "I hear he/she celebrates Halloween! Cancel!" "I hear he / she serves food with high fructose corn syrup! CANCEL!!!!!" ...

Cancel = Burn the witch!

Come Halloween, how many Indians are we going to see. It’s such an easy costume...a headdress that you can buy at your nearest trading post, (this is a thing in Canada). I’m Canadian, I know reality here! So, should I call the cops on a child dressed up as a Native? Honestly, people really do active genetic searches to find out if their.0000489 percent Native to get the benefits of true Native Canadians. This really is a thing and beyond offensive.

[quote]Fraus love RuPaul's Drag Race though, so if they're complaining about drag being 'girlface' at the same time, it's a bit disingenuous.

What makes you think the women on OP's facebook page are the same women who watch Drag Race?

Most of the replies on here act like women are some sort of monolith and that if OP sees three ladies on Facebook say something then all women believe the same thing.

[quote]Cancel culture is being weaponized by the opposition to plant the seed of turning against one of your own.

That's the way it's always been though. Republicans and also media types say Democrats should be held to a higher standard so we get things like Al Franken, who was definitely one of those old touchy-feely Boomer types, get run out of the Senate for things that no Republican would get run out for. When I was a kid Republicans were always slamming Carter for being less moral than he claimed he was, there was a whole thing about how he admitted to having lusted after women but never cheated, and Repugs were "he's a hypocrite!!!" 24/7.

Republicans have always accused liberals of doing the things they themselves are doing. It's not a cancel culture thing, it's a Republican thing.

It's because the Arabian character he was playing wasn't black, R33. It's brownface when it's a white person who put on cork to look Latino, Arabic, Native American, etc. It's blackface when they're wearing cork to look like a black person.

Shall we bring up the instances and actual movies where culture appropriation is the selling point.

Sit the fuck down you pious ones. I’m pretty sure you did stuff as a ‘normal’ thinking it won’t be dredged up. If this is the worse they got, for fuck sakes, they literally have costumes with masks of a different colour.

Oh, yeah...anyone on this site, speaking out against Trudeau, you are helping a dick who literally goes on anti gay rants, and refuses to apologize.

Only when it comes from a place of derision and ridicule, I.e., Milton Berle et al. But in general, most drag queens admire women, they love performing as women, even when they go to exaggeration for entertainment value.

Blackface performers always mocked blacks, whom they considered inferior. No admiration there.

I’m sure Trudeau “loves” black people too r52, still doesn’t make it right or not an act of condescension.

Condescension is a bad enough reason to do blackface, since you can love a culture yet still feel superior to them. That’s not the case at all with drag queens, with the exception of some straight performers like Milton Berle. However, there were others who did drag without resorting to condescension - like Curtis&Lemmon, Flip Wilson, Dame Edna, et al.

This guy sums it up beautifully.

Was there any criticism when the Wayan brothers did White Chicks? I honestly don't remember.

Drag is so cringey, if only it would just cease to be.

Lol at the vid at r55. Yeah, men don’t get to decide if a parody of womanhood is offensive to women.

All you non Canadians, do you know who Trudeau’s opponent is? He’s Andrew Scheer. And he super hates the gays. Yes, this piece of shit has gone on many rants about the gays, and still refuses to apologize. Gay marriage will be abolished. I’m not making this up. Stop being self righteous idiots. By today’s standards, we all misappropriated something. I’m not willing to take 3 gay steps back for ugly ass Scheer. He’s actually doing “thumbs up”, to gain the Trump crowd.

R56 There was not an ounce of outrage over the Wayans brothers' film 'White Chicks'. The Wayans brothers are doing just fine.

Cancel culture and those who are exempt from it....I dunno.

Thanks R42!

White Chicks was black men mocking WHITE women. The element of race plays into why no one said anything about it. Plus, it was 15 years ago. If a movie was made today about the Wayans dressing up as a stereotype of black women.... Well, they wouldn't even try it and you know it.

A lot of the ‘lesbian’ MTFs excel at Frauface.

R62 And if the film had been made today with the Wayans brother imitating and mocking white women there would still be zero outrage.

People who want to be exempt from responsibility or treating others as they would like to be treated who then constantly complain that they're not...oh, never mind.

The fact this is being raised is a ticking time bomb for drag queens. Overnight, the mob can suddenly deem it offensive and careers destroyed. Ru Paul included.

The mob has already tried to destroy RuPaul several times in recent years.

e.g. "You've Got She-Mail", the Vixen, stating that trans women wouldn't be contestants on his show.

What is the difference between this cancel culture nonsense and religious extremists? We've had spates of it here over the decades. We had Carrie Nation and the prohibition movement. That turned out *really well*.

Why is it that a little power turns into such a dangerous drug?

[quote] What is the difference between this cancel culture nonsense and religious extremists

Zero.

[quote]It's totally misogynistic. Gay men degrading women by exaggerating their most vulnerable characteristics.

Yes! Just like EVERY MtF tranny!

R67, and don't forget the postwar Red Scare and McCarthy era. People were (the 1950s equivalent of) canceled for beliefs they had held 15 years earlier, or for refusing to turn in friends and colleagues whose politics might have been a little pink.

Most moral panics have a core of reality. Racism is real; sexual harassment is real. There really were Americans spying for the Soviets in the '40s. But then we take it too far; what started as a reasonable concern gets whipped into a frenzy of zealotry until eventually the whole thing collapses and is repudiated by a subsequent era.

Correct R70. And "zealotry" is very apt word.

"The mob has already tried to destroy RuPaul several times in recent years. e.g. 'You've Got She-Mail', the Vixen, stating that trans women wouldn't be contestants on his show."

That was beyond ridiculous. If transwomen ARE women-- as they chant loudly and endlessly-- then how on earth can they be drag queens? Drag queens are MEN portraying women. That's the definition, FFS. Poor Ru took their words to heart and they went after him anyway.

I'd think any reasonably intelligent and self-aware woman would be able to understand the difference between simply being a woman and the performance of womanhood. The latter is socially encouraged/enforced. It's the cultural force behind women saying things like "I can't leave the house without putting on my face." Drag queens are about playing with that *performance.* Many drag queens aren't particularly clever about it, they're just going for a very literal aping of beauty queen presentation standards. And I've seen some claim that they're better at performing womanhood than any woman, which certainly comes across as hostile. But there's nothing inherently misogynistic about drag. (Unless you think putting on a full face of makeup is inherent to womanhood.)

I'm a woman, I don't see the appeal in drag although there are some extremely talented performers (Divine) that are out of anyone's league, but now that you mention it OP, yes, I've always felt it was "girlface". It feels like a caricature or a misconception of what being a woman is. I've never seen the point, but some people love it.

It's simple, really, and applies to all arguments on appropriation/blank-face/dressing up:

1. Are you my personal/political/social enemy? Then what you are doing is hate and literally is the result of pain and violence for countless people worldwide.

2. Are you my personal/political/social ally? Then what you are doing is either an homage, being open to understanding others' points of view, or a simple, misunderstood indiscretion.

or

3. DO I NEED ATTENTION?!?! THEN LISTEN TO MY COMPLAINT AND VALIDATE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

No one is truly ever hurt by this. It's all a platform to suck away power from others. Backlash will come eventually.

In other words, R75, its okay if someone you like does it, not okay otherwise. That's called hypocrisy.

R76 Yes, the hypocrites are now excusing the dopey Canadian who loves playing dress-ups.

It's gender critical/feminists that have been pushing the "drag is woman face" narrative lately. First they said, a man wearing makeup and dresses doesn't turn you into a woman and now they are saying if a man does wear makeup and dresses it's "woman face" lol and for all their talk about transgenders reducing women to stereotypes... they can't even keep up with their own BS arguments, and worse of all is how they are comparing this to blackface as if it's the same thing. Good, god, it just shows how unbelievably stupid they really are and their lack of comprehension on the history of drag. I've been following them for a few good few years now. At first I was with them on their views on transgenderism but recently I've grown tired of them, this and their harassment of high profile gay men, accusing them of either being pedophiles or pro pedophilia, abusing them whenever they start a family via surrogacy, and bemoaning that we are worse misogynist than straight men only to then have the gall to turn around and say "why aren't gay men supporting us?!" And you wonder why gay men aren't interested in your female problems. I've had enough of them and their homophobia. They may well be right on the trans issue but that's about it.

Even if drsg is not offensive, it's still kind of gross and painful to watch.

^^^ drag

And another thing is a lot, if not all, of these feminists/gender criticals are left leaning. They like to claim because they are left they cannot be homophobic, yet they have no problem with calling out leftist men on their misogyny, again with their blatant hypocrisy.

Most gay guys I’ve seen do drag for parties get bored with it after a few months.

ALL the ones who continue to do it are low-class morons who are in lousy jobs or unemployed.

"At first I was with them on their views on transgenderism..."

Blackface: Dressing and acting in an exaggerated manner, using stereotypical makeup and mannerisms in order to ridicule or otherwise make the butt of jokes a traditionally suppressed group of people. Usually done under the guise of good natured entertainment.

Drag: Dressing and acting in an exaggerated manner, using stereotypical makeup and mannerisms in order to ridicule or otherwise make the butt of jokes a traditionally suppressed group of people. Usually done under the guise of good natured entertainment.

This shit is the beginning of something worse. Soon, gay guys having sex with men instead of women is going to be considered a misogynistic and sexist hate crime. Trust me, something awful is brewing in society, and cancel culture is just the horse it’s riding in on.

If these idiots are going to say drag queens doing female impersonation is misogyny then by equal reason drag kings are misandrist for appropriating manhood. And given that most drag kings are lesbians, go tell Gladys Bentley, Stormé DeLarverie, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich...etc, how horribly offensive they have been for dressing up in tuxedos and top hats.

^ Greta and Marlene only did it for half an hour.

R85 That already happened. In the late sixties, a homophobic radical feminist group called Red Stockings emerged and declared gay men were misogynist for rejecting women in their dating pool.

Link please, R88. (Because most radical feminists are not exactly hoping for MORE men-- of any kind-- "in their dating pool.")

R84 Drag is a mockery of gender stereotypes, I.e. femininity/masculinity, not womanhood/manhood. Unless you think lipstick and high heels is what makes a woman a woman then you are the misogynist here.

R89 Look it up, 'Redstockings of the Women's Liberation'.

R89

Here you go. Im not the person who brought up Redstockins. Took seconds to find this.

I see, [r90] so you are okay with blackface because it is mocking black racial stereotypes.

R93 Blackface was always intended to disparage African Americans. It was not an original performance art rooted in the Black community; it abused them for the amusement of Whites. Drag is an authentic gay entertainment with strongly political overtones and intended for a gay audience.

It's been coopted by straights for their amusement who now demand political correctness from gays of a gay art form.

r47: There are plenty of fun costumes to wear that don't involve dressing up as a stereotype of someone else's ethnicity/race. That's just laziness and offensive the farther it's taken (e.g., "sexy squaw", brownface, etc).

r50: There's also yellowface. Same concept but yellow makeup to mimic/mock East Asians.

Girl Not Offended / r60 / r64 - The same argument you made in your "Girl Not Offended" post can be made in the two shit stirring posts at r60 and r64 that you curiously chose not to claim: The Wayans weren't making a blanket statement about white women as a whole but on two specific characters (Brittany & Tiffany) with their own motivations and their own stories to tell (trying to avoid kidnapping).

Cancel culture is moving more and more towards right wing ideals morphing more and more into early stage Nazism with each passing day.

It's already morphed.

Drag...I mostly subscribe to John Mulaney's funny bit on drag, which is if you want to do it why is it always big and brassy women --like out of a Far Side cartoon? And then go around being loud and insulting. Seems their idea of being a woman is a lot like being a man...you could have forgone all the trouble to get dressed up if you were just going to be an asshole about it. It is a very clever bit. I would say it applies to a lot of trannies, too.

I will add I would NEVER date a drag queen, I would rather scratch my own eyes out.

This old chestnut? Ugh... here we go again. Old as the wind.

R97 One of the many reasons I plan on fleeing America after I finish college.

[quote]Is drag "girlface"?

When females do drag and dress like men is it “boyface”?

No R101

Systems of oppression never flow in both directions (especially if you are white). Even if you are toothless and dirt poor.

Punching up is heroic, punching down is evil, and the devil will crap down your throat for all eternity.

[quote]r28 It's totally misogynistic. Gay men degrading women by exaggerating their most vulnerable characteristics.

Their eyelashes?

[quote]r37 Drag is usually political. Drag is dangerous.

Though it's also been said, [italic]"We're born naked. Everything else is drag."

What an absurd notion, OP. It is THEATER.

I'm trying ignore out and finding there are recent anti-trans posters who were posting anti-drag stuff on this thread from two years ago...

Hilarious, R106, I started scrolling and I've got a bunch of people on ignore too, and their posts are from October 2019 apparently. They've been here forever.

I think it depends on the performer. Some of it is no different than blackface and really insulting bullshit. The older really camp stuff came more from admiration.

I think drag is probably at the bottom of the list of things women have to worry about right not

R16 are you a lesbian? Because if you’re not why are you here?

R94 in fairness, blackface was intended only for a white audience.

They are clowns, pure and simple. Like all other clowns they appropriate a look and exaggerate it for comic effect. A talented drag queen can be inspiring and entertaining. They emulate the best in women. The others....