Iowa’s Heinous, Bigoted, Incompetent, and Hypocritical “Drag Show” Bill

Orlando and Rosalind in Curmie’s As You Like It

The Republican-dominated Senate would have us believe that folks like Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, and Kristi Noem are anywhere near qualified for the leadership positions to which they were confirmed.  At least the first three are outright threats to the nation and its citizens; Curmie was holding out hope that Hegseth would be merely incompetent, but it isn’t looking that way.  Noem is a vicious and self-righteous fool; that makes her look pretty good by comparison to the rest of that lot.

And 217 of the 218 House Republicans just voted for a budget resolution that would strip billions from necessary social programs that benefit the most vulnerable among us to clear the way for a tax cut for billionaires… and add trillions (yes, trillions) of dollars to the national debt.  So much for these assholes’ claims of fiscal responsibility. 

But with all due disrespect for the GOP quislings in Washington, the greatest example of legislative malfeasance just might be Iowa House Study Bill 158.  It’s currently been reported out of subcommittee with a recommendation to approve.

This totally wackadoodle legislation would criminalize “drag shows” (Curmie will explain the scare quotes in a moment) that allow minors to attend.  Venues would be fined $10,000 per minor in attendance; adults who bring a minor (anyone under 18) to such an event would be guilty of a class D felony (!), subject to “confinement for no more than five years and a fine of at least $1,025 but not more than $10,245.”  Oh, and parents or legal guardians can sue the venue for up to $50,000 plus legal fees for each offense.

Holy Dionysus, where to begin?  Curmie doesn’t attract a stupid or ignorant readership, so we’ll mention the obvious bigotry only in passing.  There is, of course, no rational reason to keep children out of drag shows simply because they are drag shows.  Some such performances may be unsuitable for other reasons, but it’s because of what can loosely be called “adult content”—language, actual sexuality, etc.—not the fact that a biological male (or someone who was once a biological male) is dressed as a woman, or vice versa.  “Drag queen story hours” never hurt anyone.  No, never.

So let’s move on.  The definition of “drag show” in this proposed legislation is a performance in which the following is true:

The main aspect of the performance is a performer who exhibits a gender identity that is different than the  performer’s gender assigned at birth through the use of clothing, makeup, accessories, or other gender signifiers.

The performer sings, lip-syncs, dances, reads, or otherwise performs before an audience for entertainment, whether or not performed for payment.

Needless to say, there are a lot, and Curmie does mean a lot, of theatrical and quasi-theatrical forms that fit that definition but aren’t drag.  The first one to come to mind is British pantomime—you know, Gentle Reader, that entertainment form that hundreds of thousands of British parents take their kids to every Christmas season?  The Dame, the comic older female character, is always played by a man.  And if there’s a juvenile male lead (as in, say, a version of Jack and the Beanstalk), that role will go to an attractive young woman. 

One of Curmie’s friends is one of the UK’s leading Dames.  He writes and performs in pantos not infrequently, but he also does solo work written specifically with children in mind.  He preaches that it’s okay to be different—sort of the kind of message that got actress Julianne Moore in trouble with the censorial asshats Trump administration for her children’s book Freckleface Strawberry.

I’ve seen my friend in a panto and in a solo show live, as well as a few performances online (it’s a long commute from Texas to England).  He’s very good at his job.  He’s empathetic and nurturing.  And I will positively go to war against anyone who says he’s doing anything but a positive service to the children who see his shows. 

But it’s not just panto, of course.  Many traditional Asian forms feature men playing women.  Ask virtually anyone to name a star of Chinese opera, and if they can think of anyone, it’s more than likely to be Mei Langfan, who was best exclusively known for—well, you’re ahead of me again, Gentle Reader—yes, playing the leading female role. 

Similarly, many Japanese Nō and Kabuki companies still employ traditional all-male casting; the onnagata (a male Kabuki actor specializing in female roles) is very much still a thing. But wait… wouldn’t that mean that the Iowa bill isn’t merely homo- and trans-phobic, but also racist?  Well, it kinda seems that way.

Of course, there are plenty of Western examples, too.  The most notable of these is probably Shakespeare’s As You Like It.  Curmie acted in it once and directed it once (that’s a photo from the latter at the top of the page).  There is no question that the play is very much about an actor playing a character not of the same sex.  What’s particularly interesting here is that there is no way to avoid that issue.  In the original, all-male production, we had a male actor playing a female character (Rosalind) playing a male character (Ganymede) playing a female character (Rosalind, again).  But whoever plays Rosalind, that actor is going to take on the identity of someone of a different sex; it just a matter of which scenes.

Curmie used to live in Iowa.  Imagine if you will, Gentle Reader, if Curmie had directed a production of that play with a special afternoon performance for local high schools.  This kind of thing happens all the time.  (We didn’t have such an audience when I did As You Like It in Texas, but we did for Macbeth.)  In this scenario, assuming a good attendance, the college and Curmie would each be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, and both Curmie and every high school teacher who brought kids would have been charged with a felony.

Ah, you say, but no rational person would consider As You Like It a drag show even though it fits the description in the proposed legislation.  Well, no rational person would introduce a bill this fundamentally stupid, but here we are.  And I’m not ready to trust that Deputy Dunderhead, D.A. Doofus, and Judge Jackass aren’t more interested in parading their pseudo-morality than in exercising reason.

There are other examples, too, of course.  Arguably the greatest Spanish play of the 17^th century, Life Is a Dream, and the greatest Italian play of the 18^th century, The Servant of Two Masters, both rely on cross-dressing.  Is that “the main aspect of the performance”?  Well, it’s a main aspect of the performance, for sure.  And of course the multiple-Tony-winning musical Some Like It Hot is pretty much about the cross-dressing.

Curmie can’t think of a show he did in Iowa that would have caused problems, but he may well be forgetting something.  Beloved Spouse directed at a local high school there, and didn’t have enough boys audition for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, so she cast a couple of girls as “brothers.”  She probably would have been okay, though, as that wasn’t central to the production.

Similarly, when Curmie has occasionally cast women in roles originally played by men, he’s changed the character to female.  He did strap a fake beard on an actress to play a small part in Woyzeck, and had obviously fake mustaches drawn onto both men and women appearing as the fireman chorus in (Biedermann and) The Firebugs, but complaining about that would be a stretch even for Deputy Dunderhead. 

But Curmie has directed not just As You Like It and The Servant of Two Masters, but also The Breasts of Tiresias, in which the female lead decides to become a man (and does, beard and all), while her husband starts wearing a housedress and gives birth to tens of thousands of babies overnight.  (“Willpower!”)  Yeah, that one might rattle a few cages.  We didn’t have a lot of kids in the house, but those who came (and their parents) seemed to enjoy it.

There are also, of course, some productions (as opposed to the requirements of a play) which might raise the ire of the censorial set.  When Curmie and Beloved Spouse honeymooned in London many years ago, one of the highlights of the adventure was seeing Sir Peter Hall’s brilliant production of Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy.  

Publicity for the show emphasized the fact that the performance would be historically accurate in the sense that it would feature an all-male cast.  Thus, Clytemnestra, Cassandra, Electra, and the specifically female choruses of both The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides were all played by men.  Is that “the main aspect of the performance”?  Well, it’s the one that got highlighted in promotional materials…

We can, of course, add to this list any performance by a trans person.  Curmie can easily imagine a performance art piece by a former student describing his experience as an actress and the various psychological and physical forms of transitioning.  It would be, no doubt, a valuable service to those of us who have never experienced similar urges and especially, of course, to adolescents experiencing them right now.  Nope, can’t have that.

Which leaves us with the final term of the title of this essay: hypocrisy.  According to the sanctimonious right, it is reasonable to home school your kids even if you lack either the education or intelligence to do so.  It’s fine to deny them immunizations which would make them and indeed the entire population more impervious to diseases like polio, measles, mumps, etc.  You can make them go to your church.  What you do with your children is your business.

Well, it’s your business unless you decide to take them to a drag show.  Then, it’s a felony.  Your kids can attend an R-rated movie if you accompany them.  But if you accompany them to a drag show, even a drag queen story hour, perhaps even to a classic play, you’ll be arrested. 

Whoever thought this bill was a good idea is a clown.  Unfortunately, Curmie is developing a case of coulrophobia.  Perhaps you should, too, Gentle Reader.

Roald Dahl Can't Catch a Break

Roald Dahl (1916-90)
Suddenly controversial to left and right alike

When last we left Roald Dahl, he was being censored for such crimes against humanity as using “female” as a noun, referencing only male Oompa Loompas, and failing to mention that there are multiple good reasons to wear a wig. These objections, of course, came mostly if not exclusively from the Loony Left. Now the Ridiculous Right wants equal time. 

A couple of hours south of Curmie is Houston’s Main Street Theater, part of whose mission is to create “memorable theatrical experiences for audiences of all ages.” That means, among other things, a three-show season in their Theater for Youth series, which has been active for over four decades. One of this year’s offerings—the one currently playing—is a stage adaptation of James and the Giant Peach, probably Dahl’s best-known book. 

As might be expected, a lot of local schools bring their students to the theatre, and the company provides all manner of services: group rates, study guides in both English and Spanish, etc. Students in Spring Branch, about three hours to the west, were to have attended a recent performance. But you’ve already sussed where this story is going, haven’t you, Gentle Reader? 

Yes, the trip was cancelled, not because that’s a long time to expect little kids to sit in a bus, but because the show was alleged to be age-inappropriate. You see, the 19 roles in the play are performed by only seven actors, and sometimes that means that a male actor plays a female… insect. And that’s drag, and to allow kids to see that, to borrow a line from late, great George Carlin, will curve their spines, grow hair on their hands, and keep our side from winning the war. 

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that one of the actors is also, completely independently, a drag performer. Sigh. 

Anyway, someone under the soubriquet @htxkidsfirst posted this kind of drivel online, and the school district promptly capitulated to yet another bullshit heckler’s veto from the right. Curmie can’t find who actually made the decision—the superintendent? the school board? a collection of principals?—but if he’d done something this spectacularly stupid, he’d want to duck responsibility, too. 

Initially, of course, parents weren’t even told why the cancellation was going to happen. We can only guess that district officials feared the collapse of the telephone system under the weight of dozens of simultaneous phone calls all clustered around expressions like “It’s James and the Giant Peach. Are you fucking insane, or what?”. 

OK, there are two responses to this nonsense. The first, obviously, is that there is no legitimate complaint. As Main Street’s marketing director, Shannon Emerick, points out, this isn’t drag: “Drag is a different art form. There is a whole art form that is drag.” And here is where Curmie goes all professorial (forgive me). There is a difference between “drag” and “in drag.” The former is indeed a very specific performance style. Curmie, like many Spring Branch parents, apparently, would see no harm in having drag seen by little kids, but at least recognizes a weak but extant rationale for the objections. But that’s not what this is. 

The latter term, “in drag,” means simply the portrayal of a character by a performer of the opposite sex. This would include the original performances of literally every Greek tragedy, every play by Shakespeare (a show like As You Like it, in which a male actor played a female character who plays a male character who plays a female character is especially fun in this regard), and almost every Nō or Kabuki play. The list goes on, but you get the point, Gentle Reader. 

Every English pantomime, many of which feature not only a male actor as the “Dame,” but an attractive young woman as a boy—a character like Jack of beanstalk fame, for example—would also be on the list. And bringing the kids to the local panto is very much a Christmas-season tradition for thousands upon thousands of English families. Curmie has a friend and former student who is one of the best-known Dames in England; he is adamant that what he does is not drag. And he’s right.  (Of course.)

Virtually all performances of Peter Pan are also “in drag” shows: the most famous portrayals of the title character include Nina Boucicault, Maude Adams (not to be confused with two-time “Bond girl” Maud Adams), Mary Martin, and former gymnast Cathy Rigby. 

Plus, of course, dozens of films—the best known of which would have to be “Some Like It Hot,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” and “Tootsie,” but there are many more—would also be on the list. Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Benny Hill, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, John Travolta, and a host of others that Curmie can’t remember off the top of his head at the moment, all appeared “in drag.” The earliest performance by Laurence Olivier that Curmie knows about was when Lord Olivier was a teenager at school… and in drag. 

In the other direction, there’s Glenn Close, Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Gwyneth Paltrow, Dame Judith Anderson, Fiona Shaw, Sarah Bernhardt, and, again, many more. 

The allegations of “grooming,” of course, are too inane to even bother to refute. If you want to complain about grooming of kids by men in floor-length gowns, come back when you’ve cleaned up the Catholic Church. 

So the objection is completely unfounded. But, just as Curmie suggested recently that Tommy Tuberville isn’t the problem, neither are the constipated parents who apparently are more interested in promoting a particularly noxious brand of puritanism than in allowing their kids to have a fun day at the theatre. No, responsibility for this foolishness falls squarely on the shoulders of the school administrators for whom stupidity and cowardice are in a death struggle to be their defining characteristic. 

If school officials want to let parents keep their own children from seeing James and the Giant Peach, Curmie is still going to think a little less of them, but it is at least a passable response. But that isn’t what happened here. Curmie refuses to believe that anything approaching a majority, or even a significant minority, of Spring Branch parents are insular, ignorant, and repressive enough to keep their sons and daughters from seeing the play. 

But what’s happening here is that everyone’s kids are prevented from doing so. Curmie considers it bad parenting to unilaterally and arbitrarily decide that one’s own progeny ought to be prevented from reading this book, watching that movie, or attending that play. But it’s understandable, and parents have a legal and indeed ethical right to do so, even if Curmie would do something different. 

Demanding that someone else’s kids be thus restricted, however, is arrogant, narcissistic, and unethical. (Curmie notes an exception for legal authorities.) That’s the point school officials who aren’t auditioning to be the Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion in the community theatre production of The Wizard of Oz (which would also, no doubt, be boycotted by the yokels) ought to be making: keep your kids home if you want, but we’re going, and we’re going to have a great time. 

But that would require a modicum of common sense or courage, and those attributes are in increasingly short supply among today’s educational administrators. We have ample evidence that the next attack from the pathological do-gooders may come from the left or the right. We can be sure of two things, however: the perpetrators will have no doubts about the righteousness of their actions, and the rest of us must stand ready to defend free expression, access to works of art, and intellectual curiosity. 

Oh… One more thing. We can but hope that in whatever afterlife he inhabits, Roald Dahl is laughing at the idiots on both fringes.