Some of my best friends are Tommies…
What I find disturbing is his alleged wealth before apparently losing it all.
How the hell did that happen? I know nothing of the guys background and it’s not something I particularly want to look up either
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Thoughts?
I’ve never known anyone before be offended by drag, apart from maybe homophobes who are insecure with their sexuality.
Blackface is obviously offensive. As a man I obviously cannot put myself in the place of a woman so cannot comment if drag is offensive to women.
As a man, am I offended by women dressing up as men? No and never will be.
Do I find Mrs Browns Boys offensive?
Yes, but for entirely different reasons.
EDIT - Actually I could imagine that members of the trans community may find drag offensive. So the point is probably valid.
Divine - Walk Like A Man (1985) HQ - YouTube
Without pioneers like this guy the world would be a lot more of a miserable place…
Too many people take offence too easily these days, sort of dilutes every issue up for debate.
Really? It is an area that generates lots of offense from either side, both the “think of the children” and the “you mock femininity” crews. But also more recently from the trans community (important caveat later) but i always find focusing on individual offense an ineffective way to think about these things, if only because you then open up the discussion to unhelpful rejoinders about people being snowflakes etc.
I think the key is what is basis for it being insulting. For blackface it is because it is a result of a time in which black people were denied representation in popular (white) culture and so their roles were filled by white people playing absurd caricatures of black people. this is the not the genesis of drag. That doesnt rule out is being similarly problematic, but you have to present a far better argument for why the question is valid than just some poorly thought out whataboutism.
FWIW, my experience with drag, which is greater than most would imagine, is that it is often performed by those with disdainful attitudes towards women. This is also where the more recent trans issue comes into play, in that few if any transwomen have a problem with drag per se, but do with the anti-trans attitudes that have started to be more apparent in drag culture in recent years. These are issues which allow for criticism of the culture and individuals within it, without making the culture/artform itself problematic.
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I think the clear difference is that drag is mostly an act of self-expression with the gay community, more about celebrating gay culture, and reclaiming a stereotype to positive effective.
Whereas blackface is most often about mocking (even unintentionally) an already marginalised group. It isn’t positive or celebratory, it’s cruel and demeaning.
Yes. But I probably haven"t been paying attention.
Can I point out that a thing, saying, word, action or whatever cannot ever be considered as offensive? Offence is something that somebody takes at the above. Example, I perform a Nazi salute in the middle of a forest with nobody about. It’s not offensive as nobody is offended. The idea that a thing IS offensive is nonsense.
Yew hater.
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Yeah, fucking trees.
I’ve now had the opportunity to ask two women and the consensus is they do not find drag offensive.
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Whoopi Goldberg being suspended and rightly so I think. I watched her explanation on what she meant when she said those things and from her perspective as an American Black person, the word racism might mean certain things from certain perspectives, I can probably understand what she is trying to say but the issue was exactly that her insistence that the Holocaust is not about race reeks of similar veins of downplaying the holocaust even if she did not intended to. I mean all these are pure evil things so there is no need for her to get stuck into definitions and end up being seen as trivializing the Holocaust. I don’t think she is a bad person but I think she did all these to herself.
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Klopptimist approves of the robustness of this scientific polling.
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I think what was so strange about her perspective is even when you give her the benefit of doubt to understand the point she was trying to make, “man’s inhumanity against man” is the essence of racism. It is not an alternative explanation for a situation, it is just a more general way of describing the overriding issue.
What the response also reveals is how dumb the outrage about cancel culture is. My anecdotal observation is that the majority of the outrage has come from those on the “free speech” side of the aisle who rather than objecting to cancel culture have seemed to take on a Sean Connery from the Untouchables like reactionary attitude where rather than standing on principal are instead desperate to find “liberals” who can be cancelled in response to anyone they agree with currently being in the line of fire.
For me though the biggest insight is how the debate over it reveals jus how confused everyone’s understanding is of race. Whoopie was using race in a fairly appropriate way. While acknowledging that it is a made up construct (me, not Whoopie), when used in the way it is supposed to be used it does combine many different groups under the same umbrella. In other words, there is a ton of diversity in what it means to be “black”. Yet so many of the responses criticizing her were arguing that it was the inherited ethnicity of the jews that made them the target of the Nazis not their religion per se. i.e. Racism. And while that is correct (Nazis didnt care if you were practicing only what your blood line was) that isn’t a refutation of what Whoopie was saying as her largely correct use of race as a concept allows for a variety of different and distinct ethnic groups to be included in the same race.
Basically, it is reasonable to refer to the prejudice against an ethnic group as racism even if they are not technically a race.
What this should have done is opened the door into a discussion on what “white” means as the definition of this changes over time and often in line with whatever argument the person using the definition needs. This means that Jews do actually never know whether they are going to be treated as white depending on what the perspective is of the people drawing the line (in their head). It’s an important discussion.
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Jimmy Carr is a dick.
Just sayin’…
I’m of the opinion that there isn’t a subject you can’t make a joke about. Nothing is off limits.
However you do have a responsibility to create the necessary context and cushioning for the joke so that your intent is clear.
This is where Jimmy Carr fails. He is a good comedian and write funny jokes, but you always get the sense he is uninterested in creating the kind of narrative flow to contextualise edgier material. He just wants to do feedline, punchline, laugh. Feedline, punchline, laugh. Etc.
I’m aware this is the second Stewart Lee clip I’ve posted today, but he is spot on regarding Jimmy Carr.
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Last week was apparently National Public Transit Day in US. Several local transport authorities celebrated the day by reserving one seat at the front of the bus in honour of Rosa Parks. The move is now being slated by numerous people as insufficient with no end of supposedly better alternatives being suggested. One, using the money used to create the seat covers to provide free rides. How many free rides can you grant for the cost of a seat cover? 10? Would anyone else in the entire city know anything at all about the program? How does that contrast to a move that would result in every single rider of a bus seeing the seat and being reminded of racist practices that were only beaten because of the bravery of people they negatively impacted?
Why do we have to be so absolutist about everything. This isnt a case of someone’s tribute being insensitive and fucking up. It’s a case of people never thinking that anything is good enough.
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I think marking the bus protests with a seat cover is lovely idea. I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with it.
Because they could do more! Call yourself an ally!
You know…how it is the Houston Transit Authority who are the entity who have to make amends.