British fascination with Drag Queens and trannies

[steeljack]

not sure which forum this belongs to so hope the Mods will sort it out .
What I want to know is why seemingly the Brits more than any other nationality have this fascination with Drag-queens/female impersonators/trannies or whatever, its not generational , it goes back to Old Mother Reilly,Pantomime Dames, Danny LaRue, Dame Edna, Lily Savage , it seems each generation has a new icon , even the Rolling Stones appeared in drag on one album cover and the rock group Queen did a video in female attire,
I've lived all over the world ,resided on 4 continents and travelled wildly but nowhere other than the UK is cross-dressing considered as normal (forget the guys in the bars in Thailand) as it is in the UK .
just curious , thanks

[Ianto.W.]

I had to laugh at this one steeljack ,iv'e got to wear some crutch length stockings for six weeks as part of post op care (to prevent blood clots) one of my grandkids told her mate "I think my grandad's going dodgy". Yes for my part you are definitely in the right forum.

[chav1]

what better excuse could a man ask for to drag up than the rocky horror picture show

to dress normal would look odd

[steeljack]

Originally Posted by chav1

what better excuse could a man ask for to drag up than the rocky horror picture show

to dress normal would look odd

Come on Chav , you can do better than that ..........

[Len]

It’s not a case of fascination but a case of forced political correctness. These days you can do what you like as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.

Why ask, curious are we?

Hehe vodka talking.

[chav1]

whats that australian guy called who dresses up as a woman

he was a total flop in australia but a big hit in the uk back in the 70's or was it 80's ?

dame edna everage or somthing


kenny everette used to drag up for his tv sketches and that other guy i can remember whos catch phrase was "oooh you are naughty but i like you "

then you have pantomome where men play womans parts abd women play mens parts

more recently there is eddi izzard who actualy is a transvestite

i guess on a whole us brits are pretty screwed up lol

[cashman]

personally i am not fascinated by em.in fact i think they should be put down. no problem with gays but to me these are just slimebags and creeps.

[flashy]

Originally Posted by chav1

what better excuse could a man ask for to drag up than the rocky horror picture show

to dress normal would look odd

dont tempt me to do it chav

[tadah]

To some people doing something different like that is a way of expressing themselves. To some its sexy funny and to others who have very closed minds its seen as disgusting. But why? Im a straight male but ive been to gay/drag bars in the past and had some of the best times ive ever had (nothing happened lol).

[flashy]

my ex mates ex husband liked to dress up at weekends, unbeknown to her when she married him,they'd been married 6 weeks when she was moving some stuff in the bedroom and found a suitcase under the bed full of old womens clothing, at first she thought it was his mothers clothes till she found a pair of size 12 knee boots, lol, she was mortified....and this was her husband thats the lead singer/guitarist in a rock band...he used to like getting 'dressed up' at the weekend to clean the house....go figure

[WillowTheWhisp]

There are probably many different reasons for the different types of "cross dressing" - pantos for instance. It's the leading young male role which is usually played by a woman. Maybe a woman can look more appealingly boyish and attractive than a man? The female roles in pantos played by men are usually the old or ugly characters such as Cinderella's sisters or elderly widows or wicked stepmothers. This implies that men can look uglier than women. So in pantos it's simply that attractive = female and ugly = male whether the role they are playing is male or female.

As for the likes of Kenny Everitt, he played it so obviously as a man dressed as a woman (beard apparent) that it was done for a joke and never meant to be anything else - in the same way Queen did their "I want to break free" video which was very OTT.

Then you get the likes of Danny LaRue who made a very glamorous woman and maybe for him it was an acting role or an extension of a fantasy but he always insisted that he never wanted to be a woman permanently. All actors play something they are not and he did it brilliantly. He was regarded as family entertainment on such shows as the London Palladium. I remember seeing him as a child and never thought "there's a man dressed as a woman". I don't know what any adult shows were like.

As for Eddie Izzard or Boy George for that matter I think they just enjoy wearing the nail polish and eyeshadow more than anything and there used to be a lot of that about. It's funny where clothing is concerned that no-one bats an eyelid when a woman wears jeans or any other trousers these days or sees a Scotsman in a kilt as perverted but Eddie Izzard in a frock is seen as a freak

[Acrylic-bob]

Cross dressing in the theatre (men acting the parts of women) has a long pedigree, stretching back as it does to the origins of western drama in 5th century BCE Greece. In England,considerations of morality kept women off the stage until the reign of Charles II. The social stigma of being an "actress" was still evident up until the sixties. The Pantomime Dame, performed by a man, is a survival of the traditions that have come down to us from Elizabethan theatre. As has been mentioned before, the example of Lily Savage is one of the latest popular incarnations of this tradition. Paul O'Grady, has said that the persona and mask he created in the character of Lily Savage allowed him to say and do things that he could not possibly say off stage and I would assume that this is true for anyone who has been involved in theatrical cross dressing.

Cross dressing, extended into everyday life, is a slightly different matter. While it allows the expression of a different aspect of the personality, in much the same way as any theatrical "mask", one must question the need for such expression and the need to assume a "mask" to effect it. In society as emotionally and sexually repressed as ours still is, it is perhaps not so terribly surprising that expression of anything even remotely outside rigidly defined norms of behaviour must carry with it the safety net of a "mask", whereby the individual, if challenged, has merely to point to the "mask" to achieve some exculpation of what is precieved by the majority as aberrant behaviour.

Basically, the prevalence in this country of Drag Queens and Transvestites points to our inability, as a society, to be honest, open and accepting of our sexual natures. In all aspects of our society we react instinctively to difference with fear and suspicion. Those who display the signs of their difference outwardly, ie those with differently coloured skin, are easily singled out for exclusion motivated by distrust, and we all know only too well the extremes which that can lead to. For those whose difference lies more in their perception of themselves and their relation to society the reaction of society as a whole can be much more severe, hence the need to assume a "mask" behind which the individual can hide.

[WillowTheWhisp]

That mask doesn't just apply to female impersonators though - look at ventriloquists where the dummy can get away with saying something which the ventriloquist himself responds to with mock horror - or how about Caroline Aherne when she's being Mrs Merton?

[garinda]

As has been pointed out drag, transexualism, and transvestism are all totally different things.

Just reading A-b's post re: masks, although rarer there are female to male transexuals, but I've never heard of any female transvestites, ie: women who feel the need to slip on their husbands Y-fronts when he's out of the house.

[WillowTheWhisp]

Maybe because women can quite openly wear trousers and jeans there is nothing of appeal.