Similarities between exaggerated drag queen shows and "blackface"?

[meadowlander]

110. I think it's problematic because they can be read as mocking trans people.

Is it exactly the same as blackface? No.

But I think it's still problematic because you have people who are generally not in a particular group pretending to be in that group for the consumption, entertainment, and laughter of other people who are not in that group.

I'm not saying that it always is, and I think there's a distinction to be made between drag (for fun or self expression at a Pride Parade as an example) and the drag show industry where the consumers are primarily cis people out for a laugh or a spectacle.

I don't find it inherently funny or outrageous or titillating for a person with one set of genitals to dress like a person with a different set of genitals. That's just my life.

If people genuinely want to express themselves and play around with their gender identity creatively more power to them. But my experience of drag shows are drunk sailors, frat boys and people at bachelor or stag parties going to have a laugh at trans people. Oh and my boss at one Christmas party putting on a dress and expecting all of us to find it hilarious. Because cross-dressing.

I do think or at least hope that in 100 years a more enlightened society that accepts gender fluidity as an everyday thing is going to look back at professional drag revues in the same way we look back on minstrel shows and circus freak shows with a great big "WhyTF was that a thing?"

Did circus freak shows provide employment for marginalised disabled people and potentially even a safe community where they could be accepted as themselves? Yes. Was it OK for "normal" people to pay to see it? Not really. And I know it's not going to be a popular thing to say, but I sort of think the same is true about drag shows.