Everything has to be curated, people. Everything. We took the kids to a children’s musical on campus and discovered that two of the lead adult female roles were played by men. There was so much spreading of legs and throwing up of thighs while wearing skimpy shorts that I was permanently on edge that a stray body part was about to fall out.
It’s tiresome always have to be on the alert about this stuff.
I know Cliff Arroyo explained this to me a while ago, but I still can’t understand the fascination with men playing the role of women. It’s also not just a Western thing, same thing is/was very popular in China and other cultures.
To me it’s just unnerving.
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“Cliff Arroyo explained this to me a while ago”
I’m not sure if I “explained” anything…. I will say that cross-dressing in theater is as old as theater itself, sometimes by necessity (from Shakespeare or Beijing opera all-male casts to all-female casts in some regional Chinese opera or Japanese Takarazuka).
In mixed-sex casts cross-dressing in theater is at least partly about one of the big questions of the human condition… to what extent are women and men distinct and to what extent are they interchangeable?
The ideal cross-dressed performance is almost but not quite convincing… And the standards for that can vary – the great mezzo Christa Ludwig found out one of her signature roles in Europe (Octavian a young man in a romantic triangle) was rather less successful in the US than she expected and eventually she realized she was too feminine for US audiences who wanted more of a masculine illusion…
More recently I though Louie Anderson’s performance as the mother in Baskets was both the best thing in the show and his best work.
Drag, as a subset of theatrical cross-dressing works best for adults and (IMO) works best when it’s around a standard deviation and a half from reality a bit absurd but still relatable (Dame Edna, Verka Serduchka). If he didn’t take himself so seriously Dylan Mulvaney works in that tradition… and can be kind of funny but masquerading as some kind of political statement…. no….just no.
And lately it just seems there’s a monstrous glut of drag that’s just grotesque and hideously ugly and there’s no benign reason to want to expose children to that…
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SA’s best known political satirist has a cross dressing routine. It seems to be he most sensible way to talk about SA politics.
https://evita.co.za/about/
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“a cross dressing routine. It seems to be he most sensible way to talk about SA politics”
Another traditional use of cross-dressing…. to say what could not normally be said…. sort of like a jester, the cross-dresser becomes a liminal character outside of normal reality and can therefore recognize and name the absurd and grotesque.
Another valuable use of cross-dressing that overreach by freaks who want to sexualize children are ruining……
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I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t everywhere. I never did mind until it became a mandatory didactic thing. But I do want to be able to watch Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” without researching if Matilda was turned into an African American boy. Or to watch “Little Women” without wondering if they are played by big men dressed like little girls prancing around in pinafores.
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“More recently I though Louie Anderson’s performance as the mother in Baskets was both the best thing in the show and his best work.”
Oh yes, he was amazing in Baskets. It was crazy, most of the time I did not even think about that character being played by a man. That just seems like ultimate acting ability to be able to pull off something like that.
Same with the voice actor that plays Linda on Bob’s Burgers. It was a bit jarring at first, but eventually you completely overlook it. Very interesting.
“Drag, as a subset of theatrical cross-dressing works best for adults and (IMO) works best when it’s around a standard deviation and a half from reality a bit absurd but still relatable (Dame Edna, Verka Serduchka). If he didn’t take himself so seriously Dylan Mulvaney works in that tradition… and can be kind of funny but masquerading as some kind of political statement…. no….just no.”
One interesting observation I’ve made, if the transformation is good as in the man looks really good as a woman, people don’t judge very harshly if at all. But it seems to be a great sin to be a man trying to be a woman and totally not looking the part.
“And lately it just seems there’s a monstrous glut of drag that’s just grotesque and hideously ugly and there’s no benign reason to want to expose children to that…”
Agreed. I know it’s not the norm, but some of the pictures I’ve seen are just ridiculous and any parent who puts their children through that need some serious questioning.
I agree with just about everything Cliff said about the tradition of drag and men playing women’s roles on stage and screen. There is an interesting history there (and Louie Anderson in Baskets was great).
But to answer Ed’s query, I believe that a lot of the contemporary trans movement (which is separate from drag of course) is mired in misogyny: the idea is simply that men are better at being women than women are.
I think Dylan Mulvaney really crystallizes this. He’s thinner than any natal girl going through puberty is likely to be, doesn’t have to experience the annoyance of a menstrual cycle, and prances about in gowns and act like worst parody of a squeely teen. And for this, he gets celebrated as the “ultimate girl” as he is offered celebrity visits, endorsement deals, money, and opportunities that actual girls will never get. It’s setting a literally impossible standard for girls. I am a liberal Democrat and am overall very pleased with the Biden presidency (not a popular thing on this blog I know) but I really hate the contemporary trans movement and believe it is destroying feminism.
” a lot of the contemporary trans movement (which is separate from drag of course) is mired in misogyny”
Almost all of it is…. conservatively 95% I’d say, probably more….
MtF = men are better at being women than women (reduced to bonus holes and uterus havers)
FtM = “becoming” male is an upgrade that results in ‘gender euphoria’
I’d also say that’s on purpose, it’s a western version of the taliban telling women to stay home and tend to men’s needs and stay out of public spaces (which are being aggressively colonized by women… the threats of violence against ‘terfs’ are also part of that.
Once you hear the idea that the current trans movement is basically an anti-woman movement…. you can’t not see it (unless you’re really trying not to).
How did you respond to the situation?
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By remembering that even if the guy on stage stripped completely naked that would have an infinitely smaller negative effect on my child than me freaking out. 🙂
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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