How Has The MRC Been Freaking Out Over Drag Lately?

It’s been a while since we last checked in on how viciously the Media Research Center hates drag performers, so it’s time to take a closer look.

Comedy cop Alex Christy took issue with Stephen Colbert calling out a sweeping Tennessee ban on drag shows in a March 2 post, responding to his jokes with right-wing talking points — even the joke about an old picture of the Tennessee governor in drag:

Stephen Colbert voiced his displeasure at Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s announcement that he plans to sign bills that will prohibit “gender-affirming care” for minors and drag shows for children on Wednesday’s edition of The Late Show on CBS. Colbert was so disgusted by the moves that he addressed Lee as “you dick.”

Colbert began by announcing the news, “There’s some troubling news from Tennessee, thanks to Republican Governor and dad’s friend saying ‘Wow, you really grew up over the summer,’ Bill Lee. Lee announced he will be signing Tennessee’s sweeping new anti-LGBTQ bills, which, among other things will ban gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth.”

Expressing his opposition, Colbert continued, “Come on. Transgender or not, I don’t care who you are, all teens struggle with figuring out relationship to their bodies.”

Colbert is exactly right, but his conclusion is completely backwards. Teenagers do struggle with their relationship with their bodies which is why it is highly irresponsible to encourage boys to think they that they are girls and vice versa.

Moving right along, Colbert also reported that, “Tennessee isn’t just coming for the young ones. The governor has said he’d sign a bill that would restrict drag shows. Yes, he wants to severely limit drag. Our Founding Fathers did not create this country so men could wear frilly shirts, silk stockings, and powdered wigs!”

The Founding Fathers did not wear dresses or parade around in front of children in a hyper-sexualized manner.

For, Colbert the biggest problem was trying to define “sexualized entertainment,” as he argued Lee doesn’t have a good answer, “You know who else can’t define what drag is? Governor Bill Lee. Because the day before he announced he’d sign the bill, a picture of him emerged dressed in drag in high school. Okay, okay. Okay, okay, admittedly those are some great gams, but I’m sorry, those pearls?”

The photo in question is from a high school yearbook and shows Lee in a cheerleader’s uniform, but if Colbert was trying to portray Lee as a hypocrite, he failed because Lee wasn’t performing in a sexual manner in front of children.

[…]

Again, Colbert got it backwards it is people who are preying on the confusion and innocence of children who are appealing to their political base at the expense of real human beings. That is something someone who claims to be a devout Catholic should be able to understand.

So a guy in a cheerleader uniform is not acting “hyper-sexualized”? Weird.

The same day, Kevin Tober went on a hateful tirade after MSNBC’s Joy Reid pointed out the ridiculousness of the Tennessee drag ban:

On Thursday night’s The ReidOut on MSNBC, host Joy Reid once again lashed out at Republicans for wanting to protect children from degenerate groomers who want to genitally mutilate children and inflict sexually explicit drag shows on them. The latest source of Reid’s rage came as Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed two bills that would ban sex-change procedures and sexually-explicit drag shows. 

This was a problem for Reid who cried that “Republicans in Tennessee are moving full speed ahead in their quest to undo the thing they hate the most, the 20th century. With Governor Bill Lee signing a bill today that would restrict drag performances.”

Reid then claimed that drag was simply an art form that has been around since Shakespeare. She wants you to think Shakespeare’s kids went to drag queen story hour where a mentally ill man in a dress twerked and read to them.  

“If Governor Lee knew the history that Republicans don’t want you to learn, he’d know that drag is an art form that goes back, literally, centuries. It’s been around since Shakespeare,” Reid falsely claimed.

Actually, Reid is correct — drag does go back to Shakespeare.

Christy tried to defend the Tennessee governor again in a March 4 post:

A heavily imbalanced CNN Tonight panel declared on Friday that Republicans and specifically Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is a hypocrite for banning gender transitions for minors and to overly-sexualized drag shows for children are hypocrites, first for claiming to believe in limited government and second because he has been photographed in drag. Neither criticism holds up under factual review.

[…]

The photo of Lee is of him in a cheerleader uniform, he was not practically naked or doing any of the overtly sexual acts that are featured in some of the viral videos that served as the inspiration for this law that everybody, Hyde included, on this CNN panel ignored.

Christy also whined that the panelists didn’t interpret the Tennessee law to his liking, insisting that dressing in drag for “prurient interest” is what is outlawed. Does he really think a guy dressing as a cheerleader does not spark prurient interest in some people?

In a March 13 post serving up the MRC’s ritual bashing of the Academy Awards, Stephanie Hamill complained that Oscar-winning director Daniel Scheinert thanked his parents for “not squashing my creativity when I was making disturbing horror films or perverted comedy films or dressing in drag as a kid, which is a threat to nobody”:

I think it safe to say that many parents would disagree with this sentiment. There are many out there who would likely take issue with the drag queen agenda being pushed on kids, especially when children are being exposed to inappropriate shows in public places and even in some schools.

There’s a “drag queen agenda” now? Who knew?

Thge MRC’s chief transphobe, Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, melted down yet again in a March 16 post over a planned “Drag Story Hour,” then cheered fellow a fellow transphobe attacking it:

The March 19 event is being sponsored by James and a nonprofit called “Drag Story Hour NYC.” Supposedly, said non-profit has been “showered” in over $200,000 in taxpayer funds to shove drag queens in the faces of the city’s children.

[…]

As a counter to the blasphemous drag event James is hosting, LibsofTikTok owner Chaya Raichik – who’s also the author of a great, wholesome children’s book called “No More Secrets” – is hosting her own story hour down the street from James’ drag show, co-hosting the truly family-friendly event with Trent Talbot, author of “Fight For Freedom Island.”

These conservative voices are right. It’s disgusting that New York’s taxpayer money is helping drag queens groom kids, but it’s even more disgusting that James thinks this is something to be “proud” of. 

There is nothing “wholesome” about Raichik’s hate and homophobia, and “grooming” has become a meaningless slur from right-wingers like Mandelburg.

Nicholas Fondacaro spent a March 21 post demeaning  “gay actor” Billy Porter — whom the MRC hates for his flamboyant manner of dress — for defending drag queens:

In the latter half of Tuesday’s edition of The View, gay actor Billy Porter screamed like a banshee as he denounced Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for cracking down on child exploitation at drag shows. The unhinged Porter screamed that DeSantis had launched a “civil war of the mind” and conspiratorially shouted about how investigators needed to “follow the money.” His manic tirade received nothing but strong approval from the rest of the cast.

Joy Behar noted that, in the eight months since Porter was last on the show, “things have only escalated” in terms of DeSantis’s legal challenges to kids being at drag shows. “What do you make of the fact that we’re still talking about this, and that it’s happening in other states too, not just Florida?” she wondered. “There’s this war against trans people,”she answered for him.

Things immediately dipped into the conspiratorial as Porter shouted about the need to “follow the money” like it was Watergate:

[…]

Failing to explain why kids needed to take part in drag shows or attend them at all, Porter made the asinine deflection that “the leading cause of death in children are GUNS!” “They’re guns! I know it’s the morning and I’m not supposed to be screaming, but they’re guns!” he screamed.

“Not drag queens,” Whoopi Goldberg added. “Not drag queens! LEAVE US ALONE!” Porter shrieked at the top of his lungs.

[…]

“It’s a distraction on purpose. We don’t know what to pay attention to … What’s happening?! … What are we talking about, and what are we doing?!” he continued to come off the rails. “We’re already in a civil war, y’all! It’s a civil war of the mind! They’re messing with our minds! We’re already in it!”

This crazed hyperventilating by Porter got nothing but praise from The View cast. “But you’re making the right points,” Hostin said, with Behar proclaiming: “The civil war on the mind is a very good point.”

Fondacaro made no effort to rebut anything Porter actually said — presumably because he knew he couldn’t. That’s why he chose to distract from that by trying to ridicule him instead.

Christy defended anti-drag laws yet again in a March 24 post:

Benjamin “BenDeLaCreme” Putnam of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Comedy Central The Daily Show temp host Al Franken not only alleged that Republicans in Tennessee had no idea what they’re talking about when they passed their “insidious” ban on children attending drag shows, but such laws contribute to high suicide rates.

Franken began by declaring that “I think there are a lot of people objecting to drag without even having any idea what it is.”

[…]

Putnam also found it offensive that drag shows would be labeled “as adult entertainment,” claiming that “is insidious within itself to say that someone dressing this way is only appropriate for adults when they’re not doing anything that is adult-oriented and the idea that children are somehow going to be made more queer by access to queer culture.”

If Putman genuinely believes that drag shows do not qualify as adult entertainment, his anger would be better directed towards those in the viral video that inspired this law that featured little children rubbing their hands against a performer’s crotch.

Christy didn’t explain why a context-free video from a right-wing website should serve as a credible explanation of anything.

Christian Toto spent his March 25 column trying to defend anti-drag hate from a Hollywood industry publication (which Toto inexplicably insists is “far-Left”) that brought the the Tom Hanks-starring ’80s drag comedy show “Bosom Buddies”:

The far-Left outlet brings back “Bosom Buddies” to suggest that conservatives are suddenly, inexplicably outraged by drag performers.

Why do they hate people who are different? Why can’t they leave drag performers alone? That’s not written in the piece, but it’s implied from start to finish.

In doing so, the site ignores the key reason for the Sturm und Drang.

Some drag queens are performing highly sexual material for very young children … even toddlers. It’s being encouraged across the culture, including by New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James.

The media is downplaying this element of the story as much as possible, but platforms like Twitter abound with footage showing drag queens interacting with children in highly sexual ways.

Hanks and Scolari did no such thing. Nor did other famous drag performers like Milton Berle, Flip Wilson and, famously, Robin Williams in “Mrs. Doubtfire.”

They dressed in drag, while drag queens add more dimension to the art form. It’s often sexual in nature and has been aimed directly at adult audiences for decades. The practice has had its detractors, but their voices were small and on the boundaries of the culture.

That’s no longer the case.

Toto didn’t explain why he insists that the mere act of dressing in drag for public performance must automatically be presumed to be “highly sexual,” or why Hanks and Berle deserve a carve-out from the hate. Drag is drag, is it not?