Just as the half-woman, half-fish mermaid found on the prows of ships allowed sailors to sublimate the threatening aspect of the sea, the half-man, half-woman characters of drag queens are intended, through their festive nonchalance, to be reassuring as to the dangers that gender changes would represent.
However, at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, this was not the case for everyone. The French right saw in their demonstration only a parody of cultural elements that it considers to be of great value, such as family, culture or religion. Confusing through its lack of culture the praise of the Greek Olympian god Dionysus at the meal of the Last Supper of Christ, this right perceived it as a degrading representation of Christianity.
Yet, through their humorous aspect, not only do drag queens want to be harmless, but they also intend to participate in reducing tensions linked to the rise of the trans effect in the world.
Through their numerous clownish manifestations, they intend to soften the effect of current social changes through their humor and act as a balm on the wounds of those who might have difficulty following them.
Intolerance
However, it must be said that, unfortunately and rather paradoxically, as we have been able to observe in France and also elsewhere in the world, this phenomenon of liberation of genres through such shows does not always materialize and often transforms into its opposite, that is, into a radicalization of mentalities in terms of genres.
To understand the ambiguous effect, we can refer to the American broadcast RuPaul’s Drag Racea television show that has been running since 2009 and whose rights have been sold to more than 130 countries around the world, including Spain, Latin America, Thailand and France. It should be noted that in France alone, it has seven million loyal viewers.
However, it would seem that this competition, where the grotesque and vulgarity reach unprecedented heights, owes its success not to a trans or homosexual audience, as one might have expected, but on the contrary, to a heterosexual audience with a conservative tendency. For these millions of viewers made up of men, women and children, it would not be a question of endorsing any gender liberation whatsoever, but rather, on the contrary, of laughing heartily at it in order to reduce its social impact as much as possible.
Far from contributing to the emancipation of this deep America so dear to Donald Trump, these shows would only reinforce intolerance towards anything that escapes the strict principles of his sectarian Christianity.
It is understandable that for production companies, this type of trans show embodies, in addition to an immense commercial success, the height of what they can allow themselves as humor with any social group with a macho tendency. By the total incongruity of the trans people they present, they reassure the macho man as to the sustainability of its male prerogatives.
Moreover, while in the East women are veiled to make them inaccessible as objects of desire, in the West they are transformed through these hirsute spectacles into objects of seduction so laughable that any serious feminist claim will necessarily appear in the eyes of a conservative population as out of place and not credible.