Do you still want drag with that?
To paraphrase a famous saying, whenever I hear the words ‘gay culture’, I reach for my (metaphorical) revolver.
I reached for my revolver when George Michael, once again arrested trolling for anonymous sex, cried out “But it’s my culture”.
No, George, random anonymous sex is not ‘gay culture’. It is a relic of the days when that was all we dared, lest we be hounded by the mob and strung up on the gallows. Let’s grow up, shall we?
I reached for my revolver again last week as newsreaders across the nation began blathering about Mardi Gras as ‘a celebration of gay culture’. Really? Several people said to me this past week, “I recognise nothing there that represents me or my life”.
Take drag. Just as you can’t have a motor show without bikini-clad babes, it seems you can’t have a gay event without drag queens.
Once drag queens were the standard-bearers at events like Stonewall. Once they said what others could not or would not say. But is that still the case?
By now everyone has worked out that ‘gay male’ does not equal ‘pop on a frock at the drop of a handbag’. Straight men are as likely to be effeminate as gay men. And that ‘gay event’ does not mean ‘Straights: venture in at your peril’.
Surely the once unsayable is now sayable by anyone, with or without a frock?
Drag is a historical relic of the days when we had to always be hidden, or in disguise. As a well-known drag queen explained, “When I put the slap and drag on, I can say and do the things I wouldn’t dare otherwise. Then I take it all off and go back to being me. I’m safe. No one recognises me out of drag”.
That was once an essential function that helped our community to cohere. But do we really need it any more?
Surely that disguise has largely outlived its time. Increasingly, when I watch a talented drag performer with good material and a great voice, I find myself thinking, “You don’t need that frock, darl. Your talent will stand up by itself.”
And as a community we don’t need to use the lazy marketing strategy of putting a few blokes in frocks up front as shorthand for ‘gay’. We can stand up by ourselves now, as well. Can’t we?
Hmmmm
I have nothing against drag queens………but it does shit me when some untalented miming hack interupts a decent dance session…….I guess they are the commercial breaks we have to have……….if you cant be a bitchy, witty, ascerbic, entertaining bitch get out of the frock….:)
actually i agree michael. i think it may all be just to get a response from people.
this opinion columnist is obviously a fossal with nothing but flawed arguments and myopic gay man syndrome stuck in the 70’s. no appreciation for the divestity of the LGBTIQ community. one wonders if he is simply grappling for reactionary forum posts
It was really biting satire, evoking and lampooning the old stereotype of the bitchy and bitter old man. The previous column which was in print but not online insulting the LGBT National Health Alliance was an earlier example yeah?
I sure hope so. Should I make a joke about reaching for the revolver? Maybe the next time I see an effeminate boy being abused in public, should I join in to help toughen him up?
Perhaps help abuse him to prove to the homophobes out there that we are really more “diverse” and “evolved” than drag queens?
Oh yeah, and loudly denounce beat users to prove I’m not “one of those queens”………………?!?!
It’s funny because this column regularly seems to question the relevance of LGBT organisations/ behaviours just for the sake of saying something controversial.
I doubted that many people were saying out loud “I can’t believe he went there” etc……..
But I guess they do lol
Well said Doug. Brave for sticking your head out, because it was bound to get chopped off by the reactionary hysteria that comes when anybody dares to raise this issue. I love the diversity of our “community” and don’t want to see a homogeneous “gay culture” develop that then merges with straight society. How boring would that be. However, like many of my peers, I am disappointed that the Mardi Gras is simply a vehicle that further perpetuates the stereotypes. Any political message was lost long ago in the spectacle farce that Mardi Gras has become. Having said that, I’m off to Daylesford Chillout this weekend, and looking forward to being amongst the vast cultural diversity that does make up our “community”.
I agree. Who is this “we” who should grow up and question “our” need to dress in drag? Surely how a person presents is up to the individual.
Also, I don’t see a great deal of drag happening in everyday public life; it’s primarily a form of entertainment and a viable one at that (that is, it is entertaining). Not all drag performers are great entertainers- neither are all pop singers, TV show cooks etc- but that doesn’t negate the form. Drag is certainly no more of an extreme gay statement than hairy men in leather harnesses, yet nobody tells them their tired stereotype is outdated. Seems that “we” don’t need biological women around to indulge in a little sexism.
One more thing: I find the expression “I reach for my revolver” quite offensive. Sure, it’s humorous exaggeration but the repetition is a little on the scary side, man.
At this time of year shouldn’t we be celebrating the diversity of community instead of villifying people who don’t fit your mould of what a gay man should be? So some men like to have sex in toilets and some men like to dress as women and belt out tunes. Does it matter? It may not be my choice of lifestyle, but yes it’s still part of the gay culture that i’m proud to be a part of. I’m sorry but I won’t listen to bitter self haters like you, drawing divisions between us when we still have such a long way to go. I think that old school men like yourself with your prejudicies are the true historical relic.
This is so typical of Gay Men. Drag is humor, an art form, and often a in your face political statement. If you don’t like it , go to the leather bars where guys dress up in motorcycle or cowboy drag. Quit trying to transform ALL gay men into the hypermasculine clones you wish them to be. Get over it. Many gay men are feminine. Many like and appreciate drag. That is part of your community, like it or not.
Doug – As Im sure you know, there is a difference between a transexual and a transvestite. Now this is my opinion, but It can be argued that alot of transexuals before they change their sex, dress in a manner which suggests they are transvestites AKA Drag queens, and you cant have the term GLBT without the T. Also the term drag queen is just a nice fuzzy term for transvestite, just like the word gay is for homosexual. I have no problems with Drag Queens in the parade.