It’s been a strange experience watching Disney transformed, at least in the minds of far right culture warriors, from a relatively staid, goody-two-shoes entertainment conglomerate into a symbol of “demonic” perversity — for the crime of incorporating LGBTQ+ characters in their media properties.
The latest outrage in the Disney-hating world? That Disney and Marvel have hired both a drag queen (RuPaul Drag Racer Shea Couleé) and a non-binary actor (Zoe Terakes) to the cast of the upcoming superhero show Ironheart, due out in 2023.
Reacting to the news, the American Spectator lamented that “Disney has gone out of its way to feature elements of the woke religion in its work.” Breitbart warned its readers that “Dirty Disney” was “making drag culture a prominent component of its entertainment for children.” IPatriot, which identified Couleé as a “Transgender Drag Queen,” worried that Disney is “continu[ing] to pump the gay agenda.” The Dissenter complained that both Disney (and Fox News, which surprisingly reported on the news without hysteria), are “normalizing … sexual perversion.”
But the strangest response came from a site called HeadlineUSA, which declared in a headline that “Disney+ features drag queen, grooming another superhero.”
The article doesn’t go on to detail what the “grooming” allegation actually means, but the simplest reading of the headline suggests that they think Couleé, or perhaps Disney more generally, will be “grooming” a superhero — that is, a fictional character.
Huh?
Meanwhile, a site called BlabberBuzz.com included the phrase “Grooming Alert” in its headline about the Disney news, without specifying who exactly is supposed to be “grooming” whom.
Does the mere presence of a drag queen or trans actor in a Disney show or movie mean that DIsney is somehow “grooming” the youth of America? Is the mere existence of drag queens and trans people a kind of “grooming?” It’s almost as if the right-ring culture warriors think that any time a drag queen or trans person appears in public they are somehow “grooming” every young person that sees them.
I’m being coy. It’s not really “almost” that; this is literally what right wing culture warriors believe. If appearing in public (or in the media) is a form of grooming, are trans folks and drag queens supposed to live the rest of their lives indoors? Or do they need to simply cease to exist? The now-ubiquitous “groomer” rhetoric on the right is but one small step from outright calls for trans eradication — that is, genocide. The more you think about the implications of their rhetoric, the scarier it gets.
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I….I got nothin’.
Pretty much, yeah.
Off-topic: I’m currently reading ‘Manhunt’ by Gretchen Felker-Martin, and while I highly recommend it (it is the kind of horror I would hold up as an example why horror as a genre can be important) and have difficulty putting it down, I wouldn’t recommend it without inquiring whether someone would like content warnings.
It’s a novel where a virus that latches on to testosterone turns people into mutated, feral men. As such cis women (a significant amount of whom have turned to millitant TERF-dom), girls and trans folk (and prepubescent boys) are what is left of humanity. I got a chuckle out of the chapter introducing a trans man pov being titled ‘not all men’, but mostly it has been tense, disturbing and violent. It also has really explicit sex scenes, and more than a few of them, so if that is a dealbreaker keep that in mind (mostly queer, also featuring fat and disabled bodies). Anyway, not a light and breezy read, but I find it valuable.
Well, I don’t see the problem. As (admittedly) an Old White Guy, I say hooray for Disney! Kids these days could use some proper grooming. The haircuts are awful, you’d think they were cutting their own without even a mirror, and dull shears. Linking shears at that. And I’d swear half of them neglect basic personal hygiene to boot. I’m okay, I guess, with all the dyes and whatnot, but I can’t help but think it’s bad for ione’s hair in the long run, and–
That’s not what they’re complaining about?
It means what?
Oh.
Well, that’s just fucking stupid. Disney ain’t doing nothing of the sort. And my family wonders why I left the Republican party.
It’s horribly simple: they are assholes who want to see people harmed by the stupid assholes who eagerly listen to them for indirect directions about who they can “morally” harm. And they want to wallow in having done innocent people harm AND deny that they have done anything at all.
They’re, in short, evil monsters.
I think a lot of conservatives were drive-in theaters in a past life, cause I’m sensing a lot of fucking projection.
@Battering Lamb
I loved that book and heavily recommend it to horror fan friends (with content warnings obvs). Felker-Martin has some truly garbage opinions tho.
More specifically she tends to be… really denialist about the idea of art being propaganda and causing real, material harm. And also doesn’t distinguish between serious/respectful vs. exploitative/titillating portrayal of things. Sometimes this leads to calling out personality cult leaders, but more often IME it leads garbage like e.g. defending incest erotica, defending Game of Thrones’ titillating use of rape, and opposing any and all content warnings.
She’s a brilliant writer, and I respect that she dares to say things in Manhunt that basically nobody else does, and that she portrays trans people as realistically messy, traumatized, and fucked up. I’m willing to recommend her book because I think both the trans community and the cisgender public need it. But as a person I find her honestly kind of repulsive.
@Cyborgette: Thanks for that input. Pity about the author’s opinions. I knew next to nothing about the novel except that it had the right in a frenzy because it apparently featured JK Rowling dying (haven’t read that part yet, or read past it).
@Battering Lamb
Yup, Rowling is canonically dead in the book. And her death was 100% due to being a bourgeois snob with poor understanding of biology. It also wasn’t at the hands of an infected man (which I’m thankful for TBH), but that’s all I’m gonna say 😛
@Battering Lamb
That sounds like a great novel! I am adding it to my reading list.
@Cyborgette
Yes I have just been reading reviews which took me to reading up in the author and some of her views and comments (especially on rape and depictions on rape in art) have been….interesting.
Some the reviews of the book have been….interesting too.
I still want to read it but may source a free copy.
I note that nowhere does it say that Shea Couleé is actually going to be playing the role of a drag queen, or similar. That’s potentially another layer of wrongness.
It’s so fucking depressing watching this conversation get dragged backwards. It’s horrible in the UK – a culture that literally has The Dame as a part of harmless Christmas children fun – now discussing seriously the perverting influence of drag queens. And fucking “feminists” enabling it.
@Steph
I mean she’s also a monetarily poor disabled trans woman, and AFAIK is not an abuser or anything, so I’d strongly recommend actually buying the book. But yeah, IMO a lot of her opinions should be taken with a 10 lb bag of salt, and the novel itself probably needs a more critical eye than I gave it.
@Robert Haynie: Somewhere, Emily Litella feels seen. “Never mind”. 🙂
The entire point of this rhetoric is to cause stochastic terrorism. It one of the steps that opens the door for pogroms, then open legal discrimination, exclusion… and it ends with death camps. That’s where this fascist propaganda goes for minority groups. We need to get people to take the blinders off, before the US becomes the next Nazi nation. Since we’re hurtling toward that very situation at alarming speed. As the GOP fights and wins in tha battle to dismantle the safety measures that prevent it.
Disney’s real crime is that they keep censoring episodes of Australian kids’ cartoon Bluey for US viewers!
@Cyborgette:
Yup, Rowling is canonically dead in the book. And her death was 100% due to being a bourgeois snob with poor understanding of biology. It also wasn’t at the hands of an infected man (which I’m thankful for TBH), but that’s all I’m gonna say.
Spoiler: there are other kinds of women who shave, suffer pattern baldness, and get called “sir” over the phone.
@FullMetalOx:
It’s one of the things about TERFdom that scares me, that as an afab person who happens to be tall, broad-shouldered, wears a size 12 men’s shoe, a deeper voice, and a wispy beard. (I also tend to wear very male-gendered clothing, which I’m not sure helps or hurts.) But most of the reasons for the above, besides genetic influences, are because I have PCOS.
(TBH, I’m coming to the realization that I’m probably more genderqueer/enby/transmasc than I’d really thought about, but even if I was entirely secure as a female in terms of gender, I’d still be having issues.)
The “groomer” talk is absolutely laying the groundwork for escalating violence, with genocide as the endpoint.
The “think of the children” crowd has always annoyed me, but particularly nowadays. The MAGAts/Qs get all het up over non-existent threats to children, and then they leave their own kids orphans because they don’t take Covid vaccines.
(Which often means Uncle Pedobear or Stepdad Perv ends up with even more access to the children.)
‘grooming’==’raising a child not to hate and fear non–straight/cisgender people’