Drag shows are protected by 1st Amendment, performers tell federal judge - eviltoast
  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There’s several Shakespeare plays involving cross-dressing. So basically they’re going to outlaw Shakespeare.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They already banned Shakespeare in several schools for being too sexual.

      • AzuleBlade@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        My freshman year of high school, my AP English teacher made sure to point out all the sexual stuff in Shakespeare, much to our chagrin.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          My favorite things about Shakespeare as an English teacher was explaining the innuendos and explaining how Romeo and Juliet was absolutely not a love story lol

          I had a young woman who was a freshman yell at me, crying, that Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story of all time and it was adorable.

          • MightBeAlpharius@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I feel like some of that comes down to… Well, us, the adults. For some ungodly reason, we’ve been calling it things like “a love story” and “a tragedy,” and now people just don’t know what to expect.

            We’ve also somewhat sanitized it. The pop-culture focus on it tends to be the lengths they go to in order to be together, or the families coming together at the end; but we tend to ignore that the couple is just trying to be together to bone, it’s full of dick jokes, and at the end they basically get cockblocked so hard that they die.

            Actually, now that I think of it, Kenneth Branaugh is great and all, but I’d love to see a Seth Rogen adaptation of this one.

          • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s sort of a love story, but it’s obviously a tragic love story. I’m not sure I’d use the word “adorable” but it could certainly be touching, especially to a teen girl.

          • angrystego@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m a bit confused. Do the inuendos prevent it from being a love story? I always found it to be a tragic lovestory of two horny teenagers. I think hornyness is a common part of being in love.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It’s a tragedy about two teens in who know each other for 4 days, get married after 24 hours, and cause the deaths of 6 people.

              The story opens with Romeo pining after a totally different young woman, which is why his friends take him to the party in the first place

              Ultimately, it’s a warning about foolish love

              • angrystego@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I agree with most of this. I differ in that I think foolish love is a Natural and integral part of the age of the protagonists. The teenagers are not ať fault in my eyes. So to me, it seems more like a warning about foolish adults with the prime example being friar Laurence - seriously, wtf man, what were you thinking, you were supposed to know better!

                • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah, Romeo and Juliet is the story about how two naive but innocent kids ended up as the victims of their families’ senseless feuding.

              • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                It’s pretty fucked all around. It’s not just any two teens, but the children of two powerful families who are feuding for no reason. I think we can generalize it as a warning against foolishness in general. In the end, all of them were Fortune’s fool, not just Romeo.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It may not be a real love story, but Romeo and Juliet definitely go to bone town. And it was played by two men when Shakespeare wrote it.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Republicans see no issue with banning Shakespeare and any other expression of art

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The only book you need is the Bible and the only art is the CROSS. If you have time for entertainment you have time to work and if you’re a kid, go see your local pastor for “work”

        – them, most likely

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Republicans only care about Shakespeare, beethoven, and other such classical plays and music when they can use it as a dog whistle in order to imply an inherent criminality to Black Culture

    • Ertebolle@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      And then they’ll turn around and ban all of the ones that don’t involve cross-dressing because in Shakespeare’s time the female parts were all played by men.

  • kredditacc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The longer the Americans focus their attention to the culture war, the less likely they pay attention to economic issues.

    • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Same tactics the Tories are using in the UK now, their deputy chairman has even admitted their record is so poor, the culture war is all they have left.

        • kredditacc@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Both sides demonize each other. Both sides pay the large part of their attention span to the culture war and hate each other for it.

          US politics is 2 parties on paper, but in reality, it is a 1 party state with the purpose of dividing the common people by groups so that they are weak against the ruling class.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Only one party has to pull this shit to drag everyone down. You can’t just ignore dehumanization of LGBT people and continue to talk about the economy.

        It reminds me a bit of comic book superheroes. The nature of Good means the hero needs to watch out for everyone, and prioritize protecting people and saving lives. If forced to choose between saving a bystander and the crippling the villain, they pick the bystander. On the other hand, Evil doesn’t give a shit. Villains aren’t usually bothered by morality or collateral, especially if the ends justify the means.

        I know it’s a cartoonish viewpoint on the topic, but I think it’s applicable. We can’t ignore persecution of minorities, even when it’s very obviously an astroturfed cultural issue. Economic policy changes may help a greater number of people overall, but we can’t achieve that at the cost of the bystander in danger.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      We need to start hammering them. The media clearly is unwilling or unable to do it. Every time one of those right-wing family value fuckers starts talking about this stuff yell some catchphrase at them like

      “How about rent?” “What about the rising debt?” “Why isn’t insulin free?”.

      I am going to start with my local ones.

      • Adeptfuckup@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Don’t forget the infrastructure failures either. You know… the train derailments, the collapsing bridges, the tens of thousands of people killed on our roads everyday. Point out that the right is waging a culture war at the expense of public safety. This is really fucking dangerous. Good luck as I am not sure much can be done because words have become meaningless.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Big hunk of my workload is for infrastructure. Doing my part every day I stagger into work.

          For no reason whatsoever: If you are ever in Toronto ON, drink bottled water only.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Ding ding ding!

      This is the answer right here. Conservative politicians don’t give a shit about any of this but as per usual they found het another irrelevant issue that they can use to rile ou their constituents to ensure the sheep folk votes for them and against their own interests.

    • bankimu@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Economy is gone, look at the cumulated inflation over the last few years. And depleting Treasury.

  • TheJims@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Don’t let Republicans pretend they care about children while allowing them to get slaughtered in the classroom and raped at bible camp and forcing them to give birth,

    • spider@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      allowing them to get slaughtered in the classroom and raped at bible camp and forcing them to give birth,

      while restricting the books they can read.

      First things first.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      They don’t give a shit about children.

      They care about people voting for them (and with that, against their own interests) and the only way to get that done is to rile these people up with irrelevant issues like drag queens. Why do you think fox news all of the sudden jumps on top of issues like this?

      If people have nothing to freak out about they might look at real issues and notice that the conservative parties are working hard to thing their lives. Can’t have that, so let’s ruin the lives of others too by demonizing them. In the past it was the gays, this time it’s the drag queens because let’s face it: easy target and gays are acceptable now. Colored people and people with “funny” languages are also always a popular target for this bullshit.

    • mind@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Don’t let Republicans pretend they care about children while allowing them to get slaughtered in the classroom

      Disarming the working class will hurt those kids more in the long run than the risk of a school shooting.

      Strict gun control would be much more palatable if the police were demilitarized first, but the most vocal gun control advocates don’t talk about that.

      They might want “a discussion about racial sensitivity” or some other ineffective method of reforming the police, but never want to talk about power, class, and institutionalized violence in a meaningful way.

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I drove through a tiny rural town, population 4300, in my province earlier this summer, which barely has enough people living there to support running a donut shop, let alone any sort of drag venue, and some idiot had signs at the end of his driveway saying “No more kids at drag shows!”. I mean, it’s literally the asshole of northern Ontario, a drag queen has never had a reason to go anywhere near there, he’s obviously never left the town in his life, let alone seen a drag queen in person, and yet he paid to put up signs on his driveway people will mostly ignore about a subject that has nothing to do with him. Conservativism really is like a brain fever or something. The things they believe are so exquisitely stupid.

    Anyway, I love drag and want to marry Naomi Smalls, and I’m hopeful this psychotic legislation in the US all gets struck down.

      • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Probably so but the thing is most people wouldn’t even notice his signs, I just happened to look up as a passenger at the right second, and he lives on a rural highway with few neighbours. He wants attention but isn’t going to get it.

  • victron@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    This feels so stupid. There are people out there that really want to ban such shows? It’s an art like any other. What’s next, ban street mimes? Make improv ilegal?

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      It’s part of the Republicans’ strategy to stir up trans panic and use it as a wedge issue. Drag is only tangentially connected to trans people but their voters don’t know that.

      • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        In the UK, it’s still traditional for a bloke to play a female character comedicly in Pantomimes each Christmas.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          Imagine even suggesting drag be banned in the UK. Even the church would be saying, “what about Widow Twankey?!”

          • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I mean, wankers like Lawrence Fox and Calvin Robinson are trying to push all this stuff in the UK, but it doesn’t seem to be picking up as much steam as in the US.

            • Viking_Hippie@feddit.dk
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              1 year ago

              *reads up on Fox *

              What an asshole! Hilarious though that he ran for mayor and, in spite of having the name recognition of being an actor from a prominent family, he didn’t even get enough votes for his deposit to be refunded 🤣

    • Compactor9679@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Not ban, just make sure if you have adult content only adults can attend. Simple as that

    • bankimu@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Who is banning such shows? Nay, why, let’s all also make lap dances and pole dancing available to kids in school. Sure they are art forms and first amendment applies there too. /s

      • Stinkywinks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Lap dances and pole dancing are not the same as a drag show, but while we are on the topic. You cool with me whipping Jesus in public, then nailing him to a fake cross with fake blood running down his face?

        • bankimu@lemm.ee
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          The topic was first amendment. Stay in context. Either acknowledge that it’s not a good argument, or accept that they are “the same as drag show” within that context.

          Not even sure what the Jesus thing is about, but I suppose everything is being allowed under the pretext of first amendment so why not. It sounds like an enactment which is a - what did people call it - an “art form”.

    • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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      There’s a fantastic picture out there of British troops manning a gun emplacement in dresses as the alert went up during their show.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      They used to do drag shows in WW2 during downtime from killing Nazis

      You’re not trying to get republicans on board like that, are you?

  • Bibi Blush@lemmynsfw.com
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    Imagine getting your knickers in a knot over a creative performance no one is forcing you to attend and is harming no one. I’d love a drag queen reading me the Little Engine that Could or whatever (not a child, dont have a child, don’t know kids books these days)

  • LostDeer@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    I know of a judge who would be happy to disagree… once he’s back from his 5th vacation trip this month.

          • Viking_Hippie@feddit.dk
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            1 year ago

            Maybe, but even if so, the Venn diagram of the kind of person who’d want to have anything to do with him and the kind of person who thinks minorities should have rights is just two circles.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Maybe they can pay for Rudy Giuliani to go down there and testify about that time he dressed up in drag and got motorboated by Donald Trump. Rudy’s low on cash right now, I bet he would do it.