Thought For The Day: Douglas Coupland

I know a few drag queens, and the thing about drag queens and the Queen is that they’re both very much about power. It always amazes me how people misconstrue drag identities for transvestism. Transvestism is an almost entirely straight thing, where guys want to dress like women yet still have straight sex. Drag queens, on the other hand, are largely about power and creating a vivid powerful persona. A drag persona elevates you out of a world that marginalised you, and hooking up isn’t the end game. Some of the toughest people I know are drag queens, and I’d love to see the Queen having tea with them. She’d have a great time, I think: I see you have a very good tuck. Lemon or cream?

Douglas Coupland, dreaming of the Queen in his always great column in FT Weekend magazine.

PS Fascinating UK media fact: The Financial Times is the only newspaper that has a special two-day weekend edition, along with... the Morning Star.

Boris Johnson: Drag Queen

Gay Misogyny: No Problem

Telegraph.

This is too crass for words.

Yes, Chas - Charles - Newkey-Burden actually argues that 'fag hags' and drag - never mind Stephen Fry's 'baglady' joke - are signs of gay men's misogyny!

He claims gay men call women 'fish'.

I've never heard this in 20 years, but then we must move in very different circles.

And that is the case for the prosecution!

Whilst there are certainly sexist gay men, to say this is a massive 'problem', or that we excel at it, is utter bollocks.

It's obvious most gay men adore women; from their friends, to their family, to their idols.

Some women are homophobic, but does this tell us anything about an entire sex?

The real issue here is Newkey-Burden's hatred and snobby contempt of ordinary gay men.

This is self-loathing masquerading as critique.

Charles was an 'anti-gay' gay journalist for OutCast magazine.

He's also, you may not be surprised to hear, posh as fuck, extremely right-wing and a Zionist.

He now writes shitty pulp biographies of the likes of One Direction and Justin Bieber.

The cunt.

PS Fry defended by Brendan O'Neill!

Weegee: A Night At The Opera

Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee for his uncanny ability to beat the police to a crime scene, took this picture on the opening night at New York's Metropolitan Opera. The encounter between the society women and the snarling drunk on the right feels like a stroke of luck. In fact, Weegee's assistant had picked up one of the regulars at a local bar, plied her with cheap wine and, on Weegee's signal, sent her lurching into the frame.

Daily Telegraph: Viewfinder: the most inspiring and surprising images you'll see this week

So they're not drag queens, then?

Something that Weegee was noted for...

Drag Queens: I Came Across A Cache Of Old Photos...

Wearing sweeping gowns, fluttering delicate fans and showing off their era's finest boned corsets, the figures in a collection of 19th century photographs appear, at first glance, to be a series of society matrons.

However, the pictures, which were posted by littlethings.com provide a rare glimpse of some of the most laughed at, and often reviled, members of Victorian society - female impersonators and transgender women.

The article's author notes: 'We can’t tell you how most of the subjects in the following photos identify, but we can say with certainty that these people took a major risk by dressing this way during less tolerant times.' ...

Mail Online have published some enchanting old photographs of Victorian drag queens, apropos of nothing.

Visit littlethings.com to see all 54.

PS More here, but see comments, some are fake (ironically).

Shade: It's A Drag

GT launches new dragazine, Shade...

Remember Millivres online trans magazine Meta? Lasted three issues...

RuPaul: Drag Is Punk Rock

Fight the power!

Drag will never be accepted by the mainstream. Drag is punk rock. It mocks the mainstream. The mainstream is sceptical of drag, and rightly so: drag is making fun of it.

The Independent.

Erm...

Pride Of Place: Stately Homos Of England

Raid on fancy dress ball, Temperance Hall, Manchester, 1880.

We are teaming up with Leeds Beckett University and experts nationwide to explore and celebrate the relationship between lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) history and the country's historic buildings and spaces.

The project aims to show that LGBTQ heritage is a fundamental and fascinating part of our national heritage. It will also improve knowledge of, and access to, this history through images, archive materials and stories that focus on the huge range of places and spaces lived, loved, worked and played in by LGBTQ people through the centuries.

The researchers will work with community groups, LGBTQ advisory groups and the general public, using crowd-sourcing as a technique for people across England to name important 'queer' buildings and places.

Plot your own LGBTQ heritage places on our interactive map and see what buildings and landscapes others are remembering...

Historic England, English Heritage.

Through the Generations
Ten LGBTQ buildings with a fascinating past.

My Pride of Place
We asked celebrities and campaigners to tell us what their Pride of Place is.

Pride: Masked Balls

Textbook stuff from The Observer's photogallery on the straight media's visual cliches when 'representing' pride events.

The above is ideal for the online front page - or the print edition; because most importantly the participant (or 'reveller'!) should ideally be disguised. Though assuming someone on the parade might not be out is a just little bit out-dated, and rather goes against the whole point of gay pride.

A man in drag is usually the go-to gay for this - and they're so funny and colourful and fabulous, aren't they? Well, I guess they are to some straight people, though to most gay men they just make you think of being stuck in a really naff bar on a Tuesday night.

Anyway, this glittery bloke wearing a SODDING RAINBOW MASK is a double-whammy!

There's lots of drag, concealed faces and rainbows in the Telegraph's gallery, though I tip my pink cowboy hat to the picture editor who slipped this one in.

PS Oops! Most British newspapers used the same set of photos as both the above did from Getty Images - here's Mail Online. And The Independent. The Mirror. The Sun. Oh, and BBC News and Channel 4 News.

They all loved this one - make of this what thou will.

There are a few other things in the Sunday papers about Pride and gaymarriage etc, but I'm all fagged out to be honest. x

RuPaul's Drag Race: UK

The Telegraph!

This quiz could prove quite an eye-opener for a few retired old colonels in the Cotswolds.

PS If you've somehow missed the media megablitz, it starts Monday.

Andy Warhol: Missed This

Damn!

Fanny & Stella: Unforgotten

A new play by Taggart writer Glenn Chandler charts the forgotten story of two cross-dressers and a notorious 1870s court case..
The Observer.

This is the 'forgotten story' that was the subject of Neil McKenna's book, Fanny & Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England, published by Faber in 2013.

It was widely reviewed, The Guardian published a lengthy and thoughtful one by Kathryn Hughes, complete with an online photo gallery.

It's the first thing that comes up if you Google 'Fanny Stella' - hard to believe even this was beyond the journalist.

PS The Observer also has an article about homophobia in sport!!! SNORE!

Drag Studies: It's A Bloody Minnie Mouse Degree! Etc

'Senior lecturer and drag queen Mark Edward'.

A UNIVERSITY is launching a course on wearing drag for degree students.

Undergraduates in their third year will be invited to study the “art”.

It is open to those taking degrees in dance and drama or performing arts at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancs.

Senior lecturer Mark Edward — himself a drag queen — said: “This module not only explores drag as a highly camp performance art, it also engages with complex gender, feminist and queer theory.

“It is completely unique in exploring the crossing of boundaries in terms of gender and performance.”

Edge Hill — motto In Knowledge There Is Opportunity — has 16,000 students and was 2014’s University of the Year.

Mr Edward said the course was not just “wigs, make-up and high heels”.

He said: “Performers have been ‘dragging up’ since Shakespearean times.”

The Sun.

Like the way The Sun start by making this sound like you can get a degree in how to put on lippy and walk in heels.

Yesterday's Telegraph gave the module a fairly fair hearing.

Hopefully the Mail and Express will cover this soon and send their readers FEWMIN! 

PS The drag kings and drag queens of performance module at Edge Hill University.

Und! Are straight men in drag offensive to women? An NUS Women’s Conference recently called for a ban on cross-dressing 'as a mode of fancy dress'. Martin Daubney defends a man's right to wear a frock A spirited defence in the Telegraph by an ex-editor of Loaded.

Champagne Charlie: Bona Eke (Sic)

The original 'Bona Eek' was recorded by that most bona drag queen, Lee Sutton, live in 1968 (6.40 in) - this album is filthy gay genius comedy GOLD, pls listen.

'My heart starts a racket, every time I see your packet...'

Groundhog Gay: Damian Barr

New Statesman.

Every other month since the dawn of gay time someone has written an article asking this.

There is nothing interesting left to say about the subject - as Mr Barr shows.

And why is the New Statesman publishing this?

It's basically Damian Barr pushing his 250 page love letter to Margaret Thatcher, Maggie & Me.

Next week in the NS: Andrew Pierce asks is drag sexist.

PS I do like DB presenting Front Row, though. *balance*

Asifa Lahore: We'll Meet Again

The Sun.

Funny, I thought we met her in March.

Arcade Fire: Cause Everyone Gets Excited When A Famous Straight Man Does DRAG!

Julie Bindel: Why I've Always Hated...

It was early evening and I had not yet eaten, so I took a glass of wine and a packet of Haribos into the private screening of I Am Divine: the story of Divine. I touched neither, because early on in the film I felt a little sick. I’m unsure as to whether that queasiness was a result of the mention of dog excrement (more anon) or the scale of misogyny contained within its 90 minutes...

Footage from Divine’s one and only appearance on Top of the Pops (he was banned as a result of complaints about obscenity) in 1984 singing ‘You Think You’re a Man’ reminded me why I always hated drag. Feminists at the time of the TOTP atrocity labelled Divine ‘woman hating’.

So by the time, towards the end of the film, we were treated to footage of Divine in Pink Flamingos eating dog excrement, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to want dinner that evening. The fact that it was alluded to at the beginning of the film (it being the stuff of cinematic legend) made the rest of the film pretty unpalatable.

Julie Bindel - who else! - writes for Britain's best-selling right-wing magazine, The Spectator.

A bizarre lesbore who hates gay men and trans women - so tries to justify it with endless ridiculous bilious articles about how they hate women.

I guess she must practice being dull and sanctimonious.

Anyway, hope that slag-off by the dreadful Bindel's left you gagging to see the film - here's the all-singing all dancing website.

And here's a video interview with the director Jeffrey Schwarz at Flare: The BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.. 

Drag Queens Of London: God Help Us If There's A War!

A NEW show featuring drag queens has promised more drama than Towie.

DRAG QUEENS OF LONDON follows nine of the capital’s biggest performers on the scene.

One of its stars Lady Lloyd said: “Made In Chelsea, Towie? There’ll be more glamour and drama than all those shows put together!”

It airs on new channel London Live in the spring.

The Sun.

Quality programming brought to you by Evgeny Lebedev...

Édouard Molinaro: 1928-2013

Directeur, La Cage Aux Folles, et tous...

Apologies, it's late on Saturday night, but I'll post a more fitting tribute tomorrow.

PS Still waiting to see an interesting piece about Ed. Anyone?