Scotland must stand its ground in culture wars

It could be that in our internet age that the world has become a smaller place, connections are more easily made, and communications between countries take seconds. When we see a movement in the US its usually not long before the hyped-up headlines start running across our social media here.

The latest attacks against drag performances is something that is so absurd to me. Drag is something we have loved and lived with, enjoyed, and accepted as a part of our own culture and history. To see this now be used as another dig at any non-conforming gender expression is an attack on our liberties and our arts.

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As an Elvis fan, I have often pondered the reaction to his hair, clothing, and his dance movements when he rose to stardom. He was banned from dancing and only filmed from the waist up on TV shows; he was branded a pervert, and a work of the Devil.

David Bowie was certainly a curiosity for many, ditto Marc Bolan and women like Annie Lennox. She was called a “gender bender” in the press for not looking or dressing like a stereotypical woman – she took to the stage at the Grammys dressed as Elvis, to double down and push back against these tropes.

It’s a time for reflection on our drag acts as within one month we have had the passing of two of the most iconic drag artists of modern times. Paul O’Grady and Barry Humphries were legendary performers, creating characters that were so convincing you could easily forget that they weren’t people in their own right.

I was first aware of Humphries’s act Dame Edna Everage when I was a young girl. I would stay up late at a weekend to watch her. I would just love the energy she would exude, and mostly the laughs she brought into my living room.

Her humour would mostly go over my head, but some jokes would land, and as I matured, the humour only got better as my understanding grew. Her satirical ways ensured that many a hypocrisy was picked up in political and institutional circles. She was the walking embodiment of snobbery and judgement, and she did that so it could be laughed at for the odious traits they are.

O’Grady’s Lily Savage character was one of my favourite artists, and the fact she came from gay bars to mainstream Saturday night TV and then weekday daytime TV is a credit to hard work, and a resolve to make drag something we could all enjoy.

To make that connection to LGBT people, their history and culture straight to mainstream TV did a lot to reduce stigmas which were still prevalent along with Section 28.

The LGBT community had suffered terrible stigma during the 1980s and 90s, and Lily’s work – which took many years of garnering trust – will be wiped away in months if we don’t reject the current right-wing “culture war” tropes.

Tennessee was the first US state to restrict drag performers with a law that prohibits “adult and cabaret performances” in public or in the presence of children.

Another step forward from the right-wing conservative anti-LGBT agenda is to tag “perversion” onto anything that doesn’t conform to their views and beliefs, and many other states are aiming to create similar laws.

With the recent state bans on abortion after Roe v Wade was overturned, I genuinely fear for US citizens and what the future holds, but all I and others can do is stand up and reject the reactive nonsense before it takes a firm hold here.

We have seen here recently already the exaggerated attempts by right-wing activists to gain media coverage of their “concern” about drag acts, by protesting a drag queen storytime at a pub that wasn’t even happening. All this hyperbole, thinly veiled by their bigoted views, was an attempt for this to pick up momentum here.

A few years ago, I had friends visiting from America who attended a pantomime. After the show they voiced their shock at the humour and the panto dame being a man in women’s clothing. So, I do recognise cultural differences between us and America, and I also accept things must move with the times, but pantomime is something that is embedded in our history.

With our panto dame being the main character of the show, we can see that drag is not a modern concept, it was born from artistic performances way back in history.

The humour can be innuendo targeted at the adults attending and meant to go way over the heads of the children, though over the years this has changed as writers and appropriate guidance has been more informedaudience expectations change. If we did see the banning of cross-dressing performers enacted here like in America, we would see the end of pantomime. Can you see how absurd an idea this is?

We have a long tradition of performing arts where people have portrayed the opposite gender. The acts have often been protests in themselves to carry messages of a political nature through satire, or to add humour to testing times.

When the gay bar Lily Savage was performing in had a police raid, which was common in the 80s with the culture war against gay peoplehomophobia being rife, the police wore rubber gloves as they were so ignorant as to what HIV wasto supposedly “protect them from HIV”. Lily quipped down the mic: ‘‘Well, well, looks like we’ve got help with the washing up.”

In the most intense and brutal times the character used her humour as a form of utter defiance. She didn’t let them grind her down.

I sincerely hope that whatever the future holds for us and our nation, that we are always wise to those who seek to impose their agenda on our long-established and cherished cultures.