DivineDemento

Anyone who’s read any of my previous blog posts will, hopefully, not be surprised to find out that I’m rather invested in queer culture. So much so, that I started a blog dedicated to queer analysis of films, books, music, celebrities…any way I can put a defiantly queer spin on any given topic, I get excited. It is a way I’ve found I can express my deep, emphatic love and pride for my community. But sometimes, being an outspoken queer activist (if I may be so bold to give myself that title – God knows there are many who are more deserving) means questioning and criticising things that happen within your own community. Our community is not perfect, and often things we hold sacred need to be challenged when they’re not up to task. For a while now, RuPaul’s Drag Race has been such a cultural phenomenon. The show has done wonders for introducing positive representation of queer and gender non-conforming people into the media landscape. It was perhaps the first show to portray drag pe...

Conversations around social justice and social awareness are more centralized in pop culture than ever before in 2019. In our fraught political climate, we have made a shift towards consuming art that is socially conscious, and we are beginning to hold our artists accountable for the intentions behind their work. So where in this approach do we canonise the long and troubled history of art which is purposefully shocking, debauched and intentionally immoral? Perhaps since man first daubed figures on cave walls, the greater purpose of art has been a central debate in societies throughout history and across the world. Across most cultures, we accept that art should serve some sort of moral purpose - it should enlighten us, educate us, comfort us or invigorate us – all of this, of course, relevant to the standards and moral codes of the society wherein the discussion is taking place. Running parallel to this set of beliefs therefore is the inevitability of art inciting moral panic –...