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Polls are stupid. Did the people who took the poll last year change their mind or did they just get another random group of people who happened to be 4% different.
Also, as a gay man, I’d love to click on an article about LGBT issues and not see a drag queen. The only Queen I’m interested in plays rock music.
GLAAD's Accelerating Acceptance is the most comprehensive survey we have to determine changes in public sentiment about LGBTQ+ acceptance. It's literally what I cite when writing research papers about queer issues. The difference is absolutely believable, and they validated the results with sampling bias in mind. There is no reason for you to cast doubt on the result like this, and it reads as disengenuine for you to do so.
Also, you don't get to decide what queer lives deserve to be in articles about LGBTQ+ people. Thankfully.
He was a dick about it, but it does get tiring to see mostly femmes and drag queens representing gay men in mainstream media. There are so many of us that aren't femme or catty or flamboyant. Those things are fine but it starts to feel like a stereotype instead of true representation.
I'm cishet but it is so refreshing to see the occasional gay male characters on TV that are not stereotypical in any way.
I didn't love Star Trek: Discovery, but I did love that the gay couple were just a couple of guys who loved each other and were married.
Oh man, I agree that it's super refreshing when writers add "minority" characters whose character doesn't revolve around that one part of their personality.
A lawyer who happens to be gay. And a father. And raised by a single mom, etc. He's not "the gay guy", just a character who happens to be gay as much as another character is straight.
An engineer who happens to be black. And is really into origami, etc. His character isn't constantly pointing out "white guys" and "black guys". He's just a dude from St. Louis.
It feels much more progressive and realistic and respectful to me.
In the 90s+ it was good to start seeing a lot more diverse characters, but too many have been one-dimensional, sometimes to the point of being props.
Popular media doesn't care about 'true representation'. It cares about getting clicks, readers and subscribers. Of course the media tends to sell stereotypes and fads.
Drag queens represent a general idea of 'gay' because they're flamboyant, and that sells, and the media doesn't have to care that this skews the idea of who gay people are. Furthermore, bigots won't learn that gay men can represent majority gender norms easily if they don't want to, because bigotry is not based on reality. I can imagine bigots generally reacting to pictures of gay dudes who look much like they do with "but they're not gay, they don't have nail polish".
I was hardly a dick. But it does get tiresome to never see people I can identify with in my own community. It just seems pretty exclusive.
I think it's that the media wants a picture that 'looks gay'. It's pretty unpleasant stereotyping, but it's not the fault of drag queens as individuals or as a group that the media latches onto their flamboyant femininity in order to show a picture of 'gay'.
It also helps that drag queens are very popular right now, and the media is all about chasing fads.
Couldn't possibly be because drag queens have very specifically been targeted and harassed over the last couple of years..
"Fad".. smfh..
I work with young adults. They love drag queen content. They're popular right now, and that popularity may wane as something new comes along. That's the definition of 'fad'.
The increased visibility through popularity has also caused bigotry to be turned against them, as happens to any visible queer person or group. Example: A female boxer is shown in the media being able to punch good > bigots see it > they make bigotry.
It would be nice if the bigotry was the initial driver for popularity, though, as that's a good social defence mechanism.
I understand perfectly well what the word "fad" means, It's why I'm criticising the use of it, and no amount of excuses you make for yourself will make it ok to frame why drag queens are all over the news now, as that.
Bigotry indulges in fads, too. That's why people are regretting having so much unsold anti-Biden merch.
I'm autistic, and I don't have a negative view of the word 'fad', because I approach terms in a logical and factual way. If you can explain to me why I should see the term 'fad' as diminishing the value and importance of things it applies to, I will change my language.
To me, humanity itself is a metaphorical example of a fad. All over the place for a bit, and then will inevitably disappear and not be remembered. That's just how things work, because conditioned existence is transient / impermanent.
If this is an excuse then, yes, fine, me being autistic and logical and not understanding what you mean is an 'excuse'. I'm bullied for that all the time, because society is ableist and others people for being different. As a member of the GSRM community in two ways, I experience it all the time for that, as well. You get to the point that you just move on from what strangers think.
I assume you mean to explain that 'fad' in pop culture and 'targeted and harassed' are mutually exclusive terms. I have absolutely no inkling how that can be possibly true, so I am all ears. To me, they often go together, because popularity > notoriety > bigotry. Just like how Tom Hanks was targeted by QAnon for being involved in CSA - they weren't going to pick some other Tom who wasn't famous, were they? There's no power in going after a nobody. And I use 'power' in a very human, twisted, self-serving, based-on-falsehood way.
If you think that I said that BEING a drag queen, or belonging to a queer community, was a 'fad', then I did not explicitly say that, and any implication is read into my statement by others.
The popularity is the fad, not the existence. Something doesn't only exist because it's popular: the fact that I (temporarily) exist is proof of that.
When media moves on from drag queens to some other topic, drag queens will not exist.
Although media comparatively ignores drag kings, that does not mean they fail to exist.
Fads don't make something important. It just means that thing sells. The end of a fad doesn't make something unimportant. It just means the market for it has reduced. To me, there is no moral weight to something being a fad or not, because I don't really care about popularity.
If me saying that media chases things that makes them money is controversial, then I guess (human-created social) reality is controversial. Which it should be, because humans have created social systems that work to oppress as many people as possible, making the world worse.
What about the underrepresented ones?
I agree! As a lifelong member of the community, being de facto represented by drag queens has been a cringeworthy experience. They’re character actors who do not represent even close to a majority of the larger group. The loudest, most obnoxious members of any group should not be allowed to hog the spotlight. It ruins the ability of the larger group to form political alliances. Gangster rap doesn’t represent black people. Jihadists don’t represent Muslims. Karens don’t represent white women.
Years ago my Bible-thumpy step mother was showing decent progress on accepting us when she was invited to a birthday party at a drag club. She went, trying to be hip, and a drag queen on stage came down and literally grabbed her hair and humped her face for the lolz, causing her whole project of acceptance to come crashing down. I guess the queen was roasting her verbally, painful enough I’m sure - probably she was dressed like Nancy Reagan, which is going to stand out - but then the queen physically accosted and humiliated her. She stopped giving a shit about our tribe after that. Can you blame her? Centering obnoxious outliers as representatives is bad strategy.
Well, I’ll stand up for drag queens now and say that single one was a terrible person. That’s truly a shame.
I’ve rarely met a drag queen I didn’t like as a person. But there is definitely some sass to the job.
This take is so damn toxic man, drag queens have been fighting for rights for people like us for a long time - the reason they’re so visible is because they’re on the front lines of this regressive culture war.
Be more inclusive, not less. Excluding people in our community because you think using their voice is them being “obnoxious” only fuels division. It doesn’t even sound like you were there to confirm your step-mother’s version of the drag story.
You’re part of the problem too.
Humping someone's face isn't speech.
It's sexual assault.
"I'd really love to stop seeing reminders of the people in my community who have a much bigger target on their back than I do, it makes me uncomfortable" 🙄
I think they're complaining that none of the other groups in the queer umbrella get represented visually. Always representing one marginalised group is indeed bad if it's always taking a place that could be representing a lot of different groups.
Also big assumption that they aren't a bigger target than drag queens.
It’s kind of hard to support some people in the community when they compare the size of their gayness, and make the world — ironically — black and white.
🌈 It’s a rainbow in all shades, and even the drab colors need love.
I’d really like to see a mixture of various types in the community so I feel more welcome and people outside the community see that it is a diverse group of people.