R.I.P. Barry Humphries aka Dame Edna

[Greg]

In Shakespeare's time, these same people would've happily embraced cross-dressing if it meant keeping the weaker sex's dainy little feet from treading the boards.

All the while being ruled by Elizabeth I.

[Sonic Youth]

In Shakespeare's time, these same people would've happily embraced cross-dressing if it meant keeping the weaker sex's dainy little feet from treading the boards.

[OscarGuy]

It's really amazing to think that our parents (and many of us) watched people like Flip Wilson, Milton Berle, Harvey Korman, Jonathan Winters. Then there's movies like Some Like It Hot, Victor/Victoria, Mrs. Doubtfire...I'm just astounded that it's suddenly become such a right wing bugaboo. It was common in Shakespeare's time and popular in Japanese theater. How do these people live with themselves without their wedge issues?

[Sonic Youth]

Wasn't sure quite where this belonged, but Theatre seems the most apropos.

Certainly a piquant point in the culture to lose perhaps the most famous cross-dressing act of the era.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/thea ... -dead.html

What a shame Humphries was so little known in America. He was quite a performer. If Americans know him at all, they know Dame Edna Everage - that's what many of the obits are focusing on - but he was so much more than that. He had a slew of characters, including the disgusting Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone a/k/a Australia's Most Boring Man who was a lovely creation.

As for cross-dressing, his passing is a reminder of how innocent and giddy drag usually has been, and how common it was since before any of us were born. But all of a sudden, we're now supposed to criminalize all forms of drag and probably suppress any mention of its antecedents as well. I'm hearing reactionaries complain about Tyler Perry's Medea, saying he has a sick mind for wanting to wear dresses rather than hire a woman to play the role. The insecurities simmering inside some of these people must run really, really deep.

[Mister Tee]

Wasn't sure quite where this belonged, but Theatre seems the most apropos.

Certainly a piquant point in the culture to lose perhaps the most famous cross-dressing act of the era.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/thea ... -dead.html