clawsofpropinquity:

kontextmaschine:

Broke: Public library drag queen storytime hours feel a bit off ‘cause of how they valorize transgression to young children

Woke: Public library drag queen storytime hours feel a bit off ‘cause of how clearly they locate drag in the clowning tradition

I’m confused as to what’s off here - the performer in question is very explicit about drag being a type of clowning and taking influences from other clowning traditions. 

More broadly part of the subtext of Ru Paul’s Drag Race is that it’s reclaiming drag as a pure performance tradition with no conceptual connection to transgenderism - as against the idea of a drag/full-time-crossdresser/trans continuum that you could see taking shape in the 90s/00s. Hence why all the “gender critical” radfems on here love it.

Well, as I grew up a lot of analytical attention was dedicated to “rediscovering a useful queer history and tradition” and drag was a major focus, presented as fun community-building but also a semantically complex tradition making statements about the nature of identity and lived experience to a sophisticated audience

So I guess that’s how I mentally filed it, and pitched-at-preschool-level “haha we’re a bunch of sillies in ridiculous makeup and outfits” feels… off