Incessant coverage of drag shows and drag queens has become something of a running joke.
I can’t make BBC News’ infatuation with drag seem any less bizarre. It is bizarre. But I can tell you about some of the push factors that have brought it to saturation point.
If calling it an infatuation seems extreme, look first at the numbers: firstly, 44 stories this year on the BBC’s Drag Queen page tag. That’s one a week, but it’s not all of them.
This, for example, about the death of the drag queen that inspired It’s A Sin doesn’t appear on the BBC’s Drag Queen page. Nor does this — a very worrying piece this week about the sexual abuse of a child who went on to become a Drag Race contestant, which suggests drag is a kind of healing therapy for abuse.
Plenty of items involving drag are dotted around the regions, on Tiktok (drag queen interviews Economics Editor Faisal Islam) Newsbeat (drag queen goes out on the town), on Instagram (drag queen funeral) and other news programme pages without the “drag tag”.
More can be found on the page for RuPaul’s Drag Race, some duplicated, some fresh, all affirmative, all about men. Then you have BBC Three’s pages for the global Drag Race programmes. You can see how numbingly effusively it’s treated by the media centre, here promoting Queen of the Mother Pucking World and Drag Race Down Under.
Drag culture is inserted when you least expect it: need someone to raise awareness about diabetes? No problem. Kids feeling left out? Don’t worry, here’s Bitesize — part of “Learn and Revise”, no less.
Drag is promoted internally too: staff-wide emails, front page of the internal Gateway intranet, promo screens as you enter the buildings. “Drag Race is a cultural phenomenon loved by so many around the world, not just for its fabulousness but also for shining a light on the LGBTQ communities and issues,” says the BBC’s PR team.
“We don’t just report the story — we live it” is the current slogan. We know, BBC: your petticoat is showing.
There are three main reasons for drag’s routine presence on the news pages. The BBC’s need to promote its own drag programming, the relative independence of its regional websites, and its enthusiasm for gender identity culture.
It doesn’t mean they’re good reasons. They are actually terrible reasons for promoting this repulsive and misogynistic pastiche of women. But they help to drive the BBC’s now infamous promotion of men who dress up as ugly women for a living, perform stunts such as the “snatch game” for compliments like “fishy”, “leading the way for transgender youngsters”, “appearing at Pride”, “dazzling in Lego mosaics”, “finding empowerment”, “electrifying their local scene”, gathering for conventions, drag in the Philippines, drag in a castle, drag running the marathon, drag on Dr Who, “taking drag to the countryside”, drag workouts, being arrested, being ill, retiring, dying or — ironically — calling for greater drag representation.
