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Dolly Parton might sadly be gone, but her legacy as one of America's greatest continues to live on in many ways. Today being a victory for free speech, with Texas Senate Bill 12, the "drag show ban" being ruled unconstitutional by Reagan appointee judge David Hittner for the pretty obvious reason that it violated the first amendment.
Dolly Parton's legacy is intertwined in this ruling in a few ways.
She is cited by Hittner as one example of ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” citing Dolly Parton specifically with "“as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure”.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Brigitte Bandit is a drag queen known for doing Dolly Parton impressions.
Parton herself had given Bandit a guitar covered in rhinestones after Bandit had testified at the Texas capitol against the drag ban.
It is important to note that the drag ban was on its face, "neutral" and didn't mention drag at all. The phrasing used was "sexually oriented performances", as Texas had tried to get around any textual blatant viewpoint discrimination. But expanding it to cover typical drag shows as stated for the intent required such vague wording that it could also possibly impact things exactly like Dolly Parton. If a impersonation of Dolly Parton by a man is too sexual, than Dolly Parton is too sexual.
Some other examples Hittner used included Miley Cyrus twerking, Lady Gaga, some more revealing cosplays, and swimmers in attractive bikinis. And even before the law was put into action, apparently The Texas House Research Organization had specifically listed cheerleading alongside concerts and theatrical performances as potential threats. It's so broad and the problems so well known ahead of time that it's possible this law was intended to fail to begin with, that it was red meat for censor loving voters.
Regardless of intent, there's one interesting takeaway from this then. If the state has to textually prohibit a large berth of standard constitutionally protected mainstream entertainment in order to target and censor drag shows, then the problem exists entirely within the attempted censoring of drag shows. If any drag show had a unique and non protected issue, that particular issue can be dealt with specific and focused laws.
Hittner also includes an answer for those who don't wish for them or their kids to see a drag show. Don't go. If you find something offensive, instead of using big government to censor it just don't show up and watch it. You have every right to boycott whatever you please.
This argument is like saying that if an impersonation of Barack Obama by a white man is racist, then being Barack Obama is racist.
That doesn't follow. In many contexts the act of impersonation itself is sexual, above and beyond the fact that there's sexuality because of the target of the impersonation.
This. For the most part, drag queens don't just "look like" women. If that's all they were doing, most people wouldn't care (and how would you even know?). Instead, they do a ridiculously exagerated caricature of women. Ridiculously stuffed breasts, buttocks, falsetto voice, etc. Some have described it as "girl face," like the "black face" that people used to do in minstrel shows to make fun of black people. It's completely different from how actual trans women dress, or how actors dress to present as a realistic woman. It makes for an incredibly cheesy, campy effect, and I'm tired of pretending that it's not in horrible taste. We don't have to ban it all together, but we can limit it to the more fringe parts of society, like strip clubs outside of town, rather than welcoming it into public streets, libraries, and everywhere else where we're forced to look at it without consent.
@magicalkittycat
I hate the way that "consent" language has infiltrated society at all levels. There's just a gradual erosion of people's understanding of private ownership, and public spaces. Whether it's oil pipelines, AI data centers or a new Buc-ees, everyone seems to think they should have a say in how private corporations use their own private property.
Black face is legal, and "girl face" is legal. If a privately owned business open to the public wants to put on a minstrel show or a drag show they are legally allowed to do that everywhere in the United States. The public is also allowed to boycott such businesses, if they want to. Stop being lazy and leveraging the government to do your work for you. Vote with your wallet, and don't frequent businesses that do things you find distasteful. If a public library has a drag show, go to your town council meetings and get the libraries defunded or whatever. Don't just hope that we'll all ban a thing you happen to dislike.
I've seen "you're violating my consent!" type language applied to copyright, immigration, spam, zoning regulations. It's everywhere. Laundering "I don't like this" into "I'm being raped." Hate it so much.
It really makes me feel like my consent is being violated.
On this meta note, I've seen a sort of parallel here with "consent" and "denial" that I find really odd.
In the past, I've seen some AGW-skeptics claim that the anti-AGW-activists calling them "climate deniers" is a dirty attempt at associating them with "holocaust deniers" because they're both using "denier." This, despite the fact that "denier" has a very well known, basic non-holocaust- (and non-AGW-)related definition in English that has no derogatory connotations whatsoever and only negative connotations in the sense that "denying" something means "negating" something.
More recently, I've seen some [people who consider AI training on copyrighted material without consent to be perfectly ethical] claim that the [people who consider AI training on copyrighted material without consent to be unethical] pointing out that the former are pro-violation-of-"consent" is a dirty attempt at associating them with rapists - i.e. people who violate sexual consent - because they're both relating to the word "consent." This, despite the fact that "consent" has a very well known, basic non-sex- (and non-copyright-)related definition in English.
Ironically, perhaps, these complaints are, in themselves, attempts to smear someone else as engaging in bad faith tactics merely through association of the same vocabulary.
That said, I haven't seen this that much. Just more than I would have expected and certainly far more than I would like.
I don't actually think consent is an ordinary word. It has a legalese connotation, and really does come up most frequently for ordinary people in the context of sexual consent.
Almost always the words "agreement", "signing a contract", "permission" or "asking me/someone" would be more casual ways to refer to this concept.
Part of the problem is the strange mismatch of expectations. If I say, "My neighbor starts mowing the lawn at 9 AM without my consent", it implies that there is some reason to think your neighbor should need your consent, but unless there are local noise ordinances or something, why should your neighbor need consent for that?
I suppose it's not too far from "molest" which is also an ordinary word with an ordinary non-sexual meaning, but which almost always gets used sexually these days. "Consent" is perhaps not an "ordinary" word, but I think most people who have been to the hospital as adults are at least familiar with "informed consent" or "consent forms" which have nothing to do with sex. And I think this is to enough of an extent that it's not justified to accuse someone who uses the term "consent" as trying to smuggle in sexual implications.
This is the true issue that should be being brought up in the example I provided. The disagreement with AI training on copyright-protected works without consent is whether or not consent is required. As someone who believes that there's nothing unethical about it, I openly say that I am freely violating the consent of the copyright-holders (and support Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, Meta, etc. doing so) and that I feel no guilt over this, because their consent doesn't matter. Much like your neighbor doesn't need yours in your example. That's the point to make, not the one claiming that invoking the copyright-holders' consent is a way of smearing oneself or AI companies as rapist-adjacent.
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