this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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The vast majority of drag I've seen has not been shocking in the least. The biggest shock is at the awesome skills people have that I could never do. But that's not what you meant by shock humour.
Rick and Morty or South Park are way more shock humor, I guess they have done drag too though.
No, that's not a reaction where I live for the majority of people. As you can see from the OP's photo, men dressing up as women has happened for a long time. Women weren't even allowed as actors on stage in England until the 1660's, and also weren't allowed in ancient Greece. More recently the English speaking world has had Monty Python in the 70's who did a lot of drag in the tradition of English panto which was hugely popular for 100 years, Dame Edna Everage was an Australian icon who passed this year but had done female impersonation for a good 50 years. Buddhist countries like Thailand and Cambodia have had a drag scene since the 50's and have historically been fine with gender differences. The US had vaudeville in the 1800's... There have been movies about drag queens for decades (Priscilla Queen of the Desert was in 1994), drag queens were plot points in US 1970's sitcoms and dramas.
For many of us in less religious areas (which is where I see the most objection coming from), drag has been a very normal part of the entertainment scene for decades, if not hundreds of years. It's just costume.
I don't think about how silly ice skaters usually look in sparkly leotards either. Although some of them are... a choice.
Maybe from the view of someone who isn't in the LGBT+ community, I guess? But most of us aren't so hung up on that stuff. It's just good entertainment and performance art in my eyes.
Shock humor is absolutely a drag thing, Divine is a great example
Drag can and does contain shock humour, like Divine definitely did a fair amount of, but most drag isn't based in shock humour, which is what the other poster was saying. Some of the more recent famous drag queens are known for their insult comedy... and there are definitely a lot of drag queens who do some very dirty jokes, but even the most shocking thing about RuPaul these days is that she's fine with fracking and still hasn't forgiven Courtney Act for rightfully calling her out on transphobia.
Like if you want shock drag queens, you really have to go looking for them. It would be very difficult to accidentally stumble into a show that resembles Divine during her John Waters days. You're way more likely to find a trained dancer and their own dance-pop album.
Ah I see, I missed where the poster said "it’s all just shock humor" I misread it as "it’s just shock humor". Yeah no, thats a shitty take.