A few of my devoted readers know of my link to Fresno County, and a few of you know that, with death absenting our last familial connections, we are absenting our own selves from a place I too often must characterize as benighted. Sited barely a three-hour drive from San Francisco to the north and Los Angeles in the south, Fresno has largely made itself immune to the culture and liberality of these two cultural poles in the same way a stone in a pond makes itself resistant to the penetration of water.
Just now, the local zoo has hosted a family friendly nighttime event in honor of Pride Month. And part of the family friendly entertainment included drag performances. Quelle horreur! Or so claimed (but not in French) very many of the mouthier local grandees and church leaders, who for the millionth time trotted out that old saw about how any exposure to the LGBT community would ‘infect’ younger minds. What balderdash.
For the years Keith McCullar and I lived in England, it was a pleasure to take our godchildren to the Christmas pantomime at any one of a number of venues. For those of you not in the know, I’ll explain. The pantomime is a family friendly performance of singalong, and some manner of fantasy stage play, always for laughs and always slapstick, but based on some familiar story. Aladin and his magic lamp and Jack and the Beanstalk are perhaps the stories most often performed. Another feature- Aladin and Jack, young boys in the story, are always played by girls, and the female characters are always performed by men. If one were to say that this is some kind of aberrant seasonal behaviour that requires parents to spend the rest of the year debriefing their impressionable children, you’d be dead-ass wrong. The antecedents of the panto go back centuries and include venerable traditions that include the Commedia dell Arte, and ‘Twelfth Night’ from the pen of the hallowed William Shakespeare. In what I hope is gratuitous historical note- all the female roles in Shakespeare’s day were performed by men in drag. Something further- panto performances throughout the United Kingdom are invariably sold out.
Back, though to our own burgh of Fresno and those bleating their own notions of moral and right behaviour. I’ve nearly given up arguing the point, as the local opposition to gender fluidity appears concomitant with anti-intellectualism. A dialog about cultural and literary traditions falls on obtusely deaf ears.
And a final note, of particular moment to any parent anywhere who seeks to ‘protect’ their youngster. You won’t, of course, and this from my own self who grew up on a farm in rural Fresno County. I knew I was gay long before I knew anyone else was or anything about it, for that matter. What I did know was shame and embarrassment the germ of which I carry with me still and that I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to expunge. What I can also tell you is that whatever’s done in the guise of protection and avoidance of inclusivity thwarts an LGBT child’s positive sense of self and well-being. And that begs the question, is that what you really want to do? For anyone who answered yes, all I can say is I pity your kids who you’ve destined through close minded ignorance to years of a pitiably anguished existence.