www.erininthemorning.com: On Saturday, Jan. 17, far-right judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued one of his most extreme rulings yet, finding that West Texas A&M can ban drag performances on campus. In reaching that conclusion, Kacsmaryk discarded long-standing First Amendment precedent and made demeaning assertions about drag itself, including a comparison to “blackface.”
4 comments:
“[Drag shows] do not convey any message about gender subversion, exempting it from first amendment protections” how does it feel to be loud and wrong??? I don’t understand how a university can ban something for being harmful without any proof of that harm to back it up. Harmless performances do not violate the first amendment, even if they are on college campuses. This is also such a blatantly ignorant avoidance of actual history and marginalization that communities who do drag face. Saying that an overplaying of femininity is inherently harmful to women, too, because it reduces women to that femininity. I guess I don’t really expect a conservative university president to understand or agree that gender expression is simultaneously very nuanced and very loose, but it is. Comparing it to blackface is also insane. Even ignoring historical precedent, blackface is a mockery of features, while drag is an imitation of expression.
Obiously, drag being equated to black face makes zero sense. Among many other reasons, drag originated in reverence of femininity while black face always has the effect of mocking Black people and culture. But that claim, even though it is ripe with glaring logical fallacies, is only a cover for a much deeper agenda. Its absolutely unquestionable that the aim here is to attack queer community and silence any political dissent. Every time I comment on something related to a political entity attacking art, performance, or culture I write about how resistance often shows up first in art, and specifically in performance mediums. This goes hand and hand with the attack on queer and trans people and queer culture. Whenever I see the government trying to regulate art, my fascist alarm bells go off. Time and time again, this is how fascist regimes begin. Other than that, I thought it was so funny that he thought “drag carries no discernible message.” Of course it doesn’t carry meaning to this guy - he’s straight, white, male, and conservative. People feel a a lot more comfortable silencing things they can’t understand.
The equating of drag to black face is absolutely disgusting and shows just how ignorant this individual is about both drag and blackface. Blackface has been historically used to disenfranchise and mock African American individuals. It is associated with performances such as minstrel shows which were made with the direct purpose of mocking African Americans and profiting off of racial stereotypes. Drag on the other hand is a form of performance that plays an experiment with gender expression. Although it uses what might be considered over the top makeup and costumes the fundamental difference is that it is not used to disenfranchise people. Drag is not a way of mocking women, and to compare it to black face which has directly played into the systematic oppression of African Americans is absolutely disgusting. I also think that the judges ruling that “drag shows do not convey any message about gender subversion” is absolutely ludicrous.
This is repugnant. I’m convinced that people who constantly hate on drag have and never will experience excitement, because though drag isn’t for everyone, exciting is a word that always applies. Not only does this demand set a terrifying precedent, but it also seems impossible to properly enforce. I hate to be the one to break it to you Mr. Kacsmaryk, but drag has been around since the beginning of entertainment and if we really want to get technical, a staple of Shakespeare. Not only that, but reasoning that “drag carries no discernible message” is such a clear sign of zero creative interpretative skills/media literacy and even for drag performances that are meant to be non-sensical, since when was it a crime to have fun? While this notion will definetly have its consequences, severe even in impact, I refuse to believe that this order will prevail in the grand scheme of performance art.
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