Sunday, July 28, 2024

Why the far right gets so worked up with drag queens

In a world of monsters feeding on fear and anxiety to create more of it and thus ensure a good picking in the next harvest, it is no surprise that images are deployed in pointless culture wars while the world is literally burning. My first call was to dismiss the controversy on the last supper/ Dionysian bacchanalia representation and worry about more serious matters like global warming. After all it looks like another clash between the stuffy world of mullahs of all stripes and artists playing on symbols and cultural archetypes,as they have done for centuries. Sure some would ask what would liberal leftists have said if the image being mocked and parodied was Islamic? Apart from the fact that the Olympic games are being held in France (where the dominant culture is not Islamic) not in Iran, I would say that mockery is a precondition for an inclusive society. There is also a difference between acts of racism like burning the koran in an attempt to stir civil strife and playful artistic representations or literary works like the Satanic Verses whose author faced a despicable and cruel fatwa which was executed 33 years after being issued. So yes the left should be stronger in denouncing Islamic fundamentalists and mullahs and defending secularism. There can be no tolerance for those who want to cancel identities and people with them. Still there is one aspect which i find particularly irritating: the false equivalence made by far rightists invoking free speech: Their argument being that global elites (Elon Musk excluded) are guilty of double standards in advocating artistic freedom while censoring the views of bigots, incels, homophobes and racists. This just exposes the nature of a totalitarian project; which boils down to a normalisation of hate and a marginalisation of critical and academic inquiry as well as sheer humour. And while they lash at some global liberal conspiracy their greatest advocate is Elon Musk, a symbol of predatory capitalism and the normalisation of bigotry in the social media. Of course not all those taking offence belong to the latter camp, and most probably some catholic leaders even speak up out of fear that the far right will outflank them. For once again the far right is usurping Christian symbols to deploy as weapons in their bid to impose a new order. They may well end up using the cross as their new swastika in promoting a nationalist ideology which is so alien to christian universalism. Still Catholic leaders who rushed to condemn this representation are once again losing an opportunity; that of rising above puerile culture wars, and show the self confidence of people who can take irony and ridicule while focusing on the existential threats facing humanity. But this brings me to another reflection, why is a presumed representation of a last supper (depicted in all kinds of bizarre ways on t-shirts, posters, and adverts) which includes a drag queen offensive in the first place? Does this in itself suggest that some bodies are less equal and more offensive than others? For ultimately what irks them is the visibility of bodies which defy their ideology. They want to turn back the clock to a time when certain bodies lived out of sight.

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