• Flying Squid
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    16711 months ago

    There’s several Shakespeare plays involving cross-dressing. So basically they’re going to outlaw Shakespeare.

    • @SCB
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      10611 months ago

      They already banned Shakespeare in several schools for being too sexual.

          • @[email protected]
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            1311 months ago

            Although it’s still fiction, one has to wonder whether it’s more common for a drunk father to sexually assault his children, or for children to get their father drunk in order to sexually assault him, and how it would be reported by said father if the former were the one to happen.

            • @ilex
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              111 months ago

              Oh that makes more sense.

        • Exatron
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          1311 months ago

          Or Ezekiel 23:20

          • TheLowestStone
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            11 months ago

            For those unaware, this is a verse about dudes with dicks like donkeys that shoot loads like horses.

      • @[email protected]
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        1011 months ago

        My freshman year of high school, my AP English teacher made sure to point out all the sexual stuff in Shakespeare, much to our chagrin.

        • @SCB
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          11 months ago

          My favorite things about Shakespeare as an English teacher was explaining the innuendos and explaining how Romeo and Juliet was absolutely not a love story lol

          I had a young woman who was a freshman yell at me, crying, that Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story of all time and it was adorable.

          • @MightBeAlpharius
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            1211 months ago

            I feel like some of that comes down to… Well, us, the adults. For some ungodly reason, we’ve been calling it things like “a love story” and “a tragedy,” and now people just don’t know what to expect.

            We’ve also somewhat sanitized it. The pop-culture focus on it tends to be the lengths they go to in order to be together, or the families coming together at the end; but we tend to ignore that the couple is just trying to be together to bone, it’s full of dick jokes, and at the end they basically get cockblocked so hard that they die.

            Actually, now that I think of it, Kenneth Branaugh is great and all, but I’d love to see a Seth Rogen adaptation of this one.

            • @SCB
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              311 months ago

              Totally agreed on all counts, especially the last bit.

          • @SheeEttin
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            611 months ago

            It’s sort of a love story, but it’s obviously a tragic love story. I’m not sure I’d use the word “adorable” but it could certainly be touching, especially to a teen girl.

            • @SCB
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              311 months ago

              Bad punctuation on my part. The teen was adorable.

            • Flying Squid
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              211 months ago

              I think they meant the teen girl was adorable.

          • @angrystego
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            311 months ago

            I’m a bit confused. Do the inuendos prevent it from being a love story? I always found it to be a tragic lovestory of two horny teenagers. I think hornyness is a common part of being in love.

            • @SCB
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              911 months ago

              It’s a tragedy about two teens in who know each other for 4 days, get married after 24 hours, and cause the deaths of 6 people.

              The story opens with Romeo pining after a totally different young woman, which is why his friends take him to the party in the first place

              Ultimately, it’s a warning about foolish love

              • @angrystego
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                611 months ago

                I agree with most of this. I differ in that I think foolish love is a Natural and integral part of the age of the protagonists. The teenagers are not ať fault in my eyes. So to me, it seems more like a warning about foolish adults with the prime example being friar Laurence - seriously, wtf man, what were you thinking, you were supposed to know better!

                • @WhiskyTangoFoxtrot
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                  411 months ago

                  Yeah, Romeo and Juliet is the story about how two naive but innocent kids ended up as the victims of their families’ senseless feuding.

              • @assassin_aragorn
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                411 months ago

                It’s pretty fucked all around. It’s not just any two teens, but the children of two powerful families who are feuding for no reason. I think we can generalize it as a warning against foolishness in general. In the end, all of them were Fortune’s fool, not just Romeo.

          • Flying Squid
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            11 months ago

            It may not be a real love story, but Romeo and Juliet definitely go to bone town. And it was played by two men when Shakespeare wrote it.

    • JJROKCZ
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      5011 months ago

      Republicans see no issue with banning Shakespeare and any other expression of art

      • @_cerpin_taxt_
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        3311 months ago

        Or knowledge. Keeping their constituents dumb and illiterate is the only way they can get votes.

      • @[email protected]
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        611 months ago

        The only book you need is the Bible and the only art is the CROSS. If you have time for entertainment you have time to work and if you’re a kid, go see your local pastor for “work”

        – them, most likely

    • Queen HawlSera
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      11 months ago

      Republicans only care about Shakespeare, beethoven, and other such classical plays and music when they can use it as a dog whistle in order to imply an inherent criminality and inferiority present in Black Culture

    • @Madison420
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      1111 months ago

      All Shakespearean plays were originally performed by men for all parts aside from children at times as far as I’m aware.

    • Ertebolle
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      1111 months ago

      And then they’ll turn around and ban all of the ones that don’t involve cross-dressing because in Shakespeare’s time the female parts were all played by men.

    • @AllonzeeLV
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      311 months ago

      They’ve unintentionally banned the Bible in their regressionist book burning jihad, so probably.

  • @kredditacc
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    13011 months ago

    The longer the Americans focus their attention to the culture war, the less likely they pay attention to economic issues.

    • @CitizenKong
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      3711 months ago

      Or an ongoing, exponentially worsening global climate catastrophe.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Same tactics the Tories are using in the UK now, their deputy chairman has even admitted their record is so poor, the culture war is all they have left.

      • GreenBottles
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        1511 months ago

        it seems to be a lot more effective on the right wingers

        • @kredditacc
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          -911 months ago

          Both sides demonize each other. Both sides pay the large part of their attention span to the culture war and hate each other for it.

          US politics is 2 parties on paper, but in reality, it is a 1 party state with the purpose of dividing the common people by groups so that they are weak against the ruling class.

          • @havokdj
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            311 months ago

            US politics is multi-party on paper, bipartisan to the public eye, and one party in reality. Don’t know why you are downvoted but it is the truth. I’ve been saying for years that both Democrats and Republicans are the same pieces of shit with the same goals, but they have different methods and as such separate from each other.

            • @kredditacc
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              11 months ago

              Don’t know why you are downvoted but it is the truth.

              Most visitors on Lemmy.world are liberals (and by “liberals”, I don’t mean “democrats”, I mean followers of liberalism, supporters of NATO, participators of the culture war). Liberals don’t like changing their way. They rather hate the “other side” than revolutions, as you can see in under this comment section (my first comment which mentioned “culture war”, lemmy seems unable to link comment), where all the people here rather blame the “Republicans” than self-reflect. Yet miraculously, both sides will unite when it comes to the so-called “authoritarian regimes”.

              • @havokdj
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                311 months ago

                It’s not so much about changing ways as it is acknowledgeing that our system is not what it says it is, but you are right though.

                Also, most democrats tend to be center right in my experience

      • @assassin_aragorn
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        711 months ago

        Only one party has to pull this shit to drag everyone down. You can’t just ignore dehumanization of LGBT people and continue to talk about the economy.

        It reminds me a bit of comic book superheroes. The nature of Good means the hero needs to watch out for everyone, and prioritize protecting people and saving lives. If forced to choose between saving a bystander and the crippling the villain, they pick the bystander. On the other hand, Evil doesn’t give a shit. Villains aren’t usually bothered by morality or collateral, especially if the ends justify the means.

        I know it’s a cartoonish viewpoint on the topic, but I think it’s applicable. We can’t ignore persecution of minorities, even when it’s very obviously an astroturfed cultural issue. Economic policy changes may help a greater number of people overall, but we can’t achieve that at the cost of the bystander in danger.

    • @afraid_of_zombies
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      1911 months ago

      We need to start hammering them. The media clearly is unwilling or unable to do it. Every time one of those right-wing family value fuckers starts talking about this stuff yell some catchphrase at them like

      “How about rent?” “What about the rising debt?” “Why isn’t insulin free?”.

      I am going to start with my local ones.

      • @Adeptfuckup
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        811 months ago

        Don’t forget the infrastructure failures either. You know… the train derailments, the collapsing bridges, the tens of thousands of people killed on our roads everyday. Point out that the right is waging a culture war at the expense of public safety. This is really fucking dangerous. Good luck as I am not sure much can be done because words have become meaningless.

        • @afraid_of_zombies
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          311 months ago

          Big hunk of my workload is for infrastructure. Doing my part every day I stagger into work.

          For no reason whatsoever: If you are ever in Toronto ON, drink bottled water only.

    • @[email protected]
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      1511 months ago

      Ding ding ding!

      This is the answer right here. Conservative politicians don’t give a shit about any of this but as per usual they found het another irrelevant issue that they can use to rile ou their constituents to ensure the sheep folk votes for them and against their own interests.

    • @[email protected]
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      011 months ago

      Economy is gone, look at the cumulated inflation over the last few years. And depleting Treasury.

  • @TheJims
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    10711 months ago

    Don’t let Republicans pretend they care about children while allowing them to get slaughtered in the classroom and raped at bible camp and forcing them to give birth,

    • @[email protected]
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      3411 months ago

      allowing them to get slaughtered in the classroom and raped at bible camp and forcing them to give birth,

      while restricting the books they can read.

      First things first.

    • @[email protected]
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      811 months ago

      They don’t give a shit about children.

      They care about people voting for them (and with that, against their own interests) and the only way to get that done is to rile these people up with irrelevant issues like drag queens. Why do you think fox news all of the sudden jumps on top of issues like this?

      If people have nothing to freak out about they might look at real issues and notice that the conservative parties are working hard to thing their lives. Can’t have that, so let’s ruin the lives of others too by demonizing them. In the past it was the gays, this time it’s the drag queens because let’s face it: easy target and gays are acceptable now. Colored people and people with “funny” languages are also always a popular target for this bullshit.

    • @mind
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      211 months ago

      deleted by creator

  • vlad
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    9211 months ago

    This is exactly why the 1st amendment is so important.

    • @Adalast
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      2411 months ago

      I have no idea who down voted you, but here, have it back.

  • @BonesOfTheMoon
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    8911 months ago

    I drove through a tiny rural town, population 4300, in my province earlier this summer, which barely has enough people living there to support running a donut shop, let alone any sort of drag venue, and some idiot had signs at the end of his driveway saying “No more kids at drag shows!”. I mean, it’s literally the asshole of northern Ontario, a drag queen has never had a reason to go anywhere near there, he’s obviously never left the town in his life, let alone seen a drag queen in person, and yet he paid to put up signs on his driveway people will mostly ignore about a subject that has nothing to do with him. Conservativism really is like a brain fever or something. The things they believe are so exquisitely stupid.

    Anyway, I love drag and want to marry Naomi Smalls, and I’m hopeful this psychotic legislation in the US all gets struck down.

      • @BonesOfTheMoon
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        311 months ago

        Probably so but the thing is most people wouldn’t even notice his signs, I just happened to look up as a passenger at the right second, and he lives on a rural highway with few neighbours. He wants attention but isn’t going to get it.

  • @[email protected]
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    5211 months ago

    This feels so stupid. There are people out there that really want to ban such shows? It’s an art like any other. What’s next, ban street mimes? Make improv ilegal?

    • @[email protected]
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      3411 months ago

      It’s part of the Republicans’ strategy to stir up trans panic and use it as a wedge issue. Drag is only tangentially connected to trans people but their voters don’t know that.

    • @iforgotmyinstance
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      2711 months ago

      Men portrayed women for thousands of years until western societies began allowing female actors join their troupes.

      • @[email protected]
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        1511 months ago

        In the UK, it’s still traditional for a bloke to play a female character comedicly in Pantomimes each Christmas.

        • Flying Squid
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          811 months ago

          Imagine even suggesting drag be banned in the UK. Even the church would be saying, “what about Widow Twankey?!”

          • @[email protected]
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            811 months ago

            I mean, wankers like Lawrence Fox and Calvin Robinson are trying to push all this stuff in the UK, but it doesn’t seem to be picking up as much steam as in the US.

            • @[email protected]
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              711 months ago

              *reads up on Fox *

              What an asshole! Hilarious though that he ran for mayor and, in spite of having the name recognition of being an actor from a prominent family, he didn’t even get enough votes for his deposit to be refunded 🤣

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen
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      2111 months ago

      I mean they’re already implementing what is next: Making it illegal to look/be trans in public

    • Flying Squid
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      1011 months ago

      What’s next, ban street mimes?

      I might be in favor of that one…

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Who is banning such shows? Nay, why, let’s all also make lap dances and pole dancing available to kids in school. Sure they are art forms and first amendment applies there too. /s

      • @Stinkywinks
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        11 months ago

        Lap dances and pole dancing are not the same as a drag show, but while we are on the topic. You cool with me whipping Jesus in public, then nailing him to a fake cross with fake blood running down his face?

        • @[email protected]
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          -1211 months ago

          The topic was first amendment. Stay in context. Either acknowledge that it’s not a good argument, or accept that they are “the same as drag show” within that context.

          Not even sure what the Jesus thing is about, but I suppose everything is being allowed under the pretext of first amendment so why not. It sounds like an enactment which is a - what did people call it - an “art form”.

          • @Stinkywinks
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            1011 months ago

            Youre the one talking about lap dances dipshit

            • @[email protected]
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              11 months ago

              And you are the one talking about drag shows, and started verbal slurs “dipshit”.

              bankimu

                • @ilex
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                  011 months ago

                  You two were made for each other. If you were both dolls, now is when you’d start kissing.

                  This subbranch starts with a “/s” comment; it isn’t clear what is supposed to be sarcastic and instead reads like earnest illogic. There’s no spacing distinction between sarcasm and not, so is the entire comment sarcastic?

                  Then you jump in with a serious reply that immediately starts providing evidence for an unstated claim, which you presumably believe is “obvious.” The first girl is introducing the context of schools. Are you sticking with that or switching to the different context of public? If you’re pivoting to the general public, then you’re off topic.

                  Then the first girl replies as if she made an argument. She also doesn’t acknowledge you (maybe) changing the context to public. She seems to be fixated on exposing children who are in school to material unrelated to the curriculum.

                  As a note, the first amendment is context dependent. For example, shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater is not covered; this is because it would likely lead to injury via a stampede. A realistic re-enactment of a Jew being tortured and executed by a foreign government being performed for children at school might not be covered.

                  Then comes hurling of insults.

    • @[email protected]
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      1411 months ago

      There’s a fantastic picture out there of British troops manning a gun emplacement in dresses as the alert went up during their show.

    • @Ensign_Crab
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      611 months ago

      They used to do drag shows in WW2 during downtime from killing Nazis

      You’re not trying to get republicans on board like that, are you?

  • Bibi Blush
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    3811 months ago

    Imagine getting your knickers in a knot over a creative performance no one is forcing you to attend and is harming no one. I’d love a drag queen reading me the Little Engine that Could or whatever (not a child, dont have a child, don’t know kids books these days)

  • @[email protected]
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    3011 months ago

    I know of a judge who would be happy to disagree… once he’s back from his 5th vacation trip this month.

    • @[email protected]
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      911 months ago

      You mean happy to agree, happy to disagree. Depends on who is paying for the vacation this month.

        • Flying Squid
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          311 months ago

          Oh I’m sure he’s far from the only one to bribe Clarence Thomas.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            Maybe, but even if so, the Venn diagram of the kind of person who’d want to have anything to do with him and the kind of person who thinks minorities should have rights is just two circles.

  • @NatakuNox
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    2811 months ago

    You would essential have to outlaw all acting.

    • TheLowestStone
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      1511 months ago

      Hmm… better outlaw dancing while we’re at it.

      • LEX
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        11 months ago

        And what causes dancing? Music! Probly should add it to the list.

      • @AA5B
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        211 months ago

        And MTV … no more music videos. Oops, already done

  • @dhork
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    1111 months ago

    Maybe they can pay for Rudy Giuliani to go down there and testify about that time he dressed up in drag and got motorboated by Donald Trump. Rudy’s low on cash right now, I bet he would do it.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    1111 months ago

    Ordinarily I’d say no shit. But with Clarence getting a free ride…

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    10 months ago

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