Donnelly served as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier from April 2016 to September 2018, during which time Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley performed as a drag queen under the name “Harpy Daniels” at a department-sanctioned “Morale, Welfare, and Recreation” event on the aircraft carrier.Harpy Daniels? Is that like Stormy Daniels? Was it political commentary? Political commentary of the anti-Trump kind?
I don't know but drag in the Navy was right there in "South Pacific," the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical based on a James A. Michener's 1947 book "Tales of the South Pacific."
Who can forget "Honey Bun," the sailor with grass-skirt hair and a coconut bra, performing in front of a huge Navy audience?
America, when did you become so repressive?
'Cause we're a having so much fun with Honey Bun... not anymore.
पोस्ट्स
७४ टिप्पण्या:
Ironic drag has a long history in combat units :)
RADM Donnelly lost the confidence of his superiors. Appeals from people outside the Navy regarding Broadway musicals cannot win that back.
Oh please. Back in the South Pacific days, there were no women aboard an aircraft carrier. So drag was required. If I’m a female sailor aboard ship, why should I find drag a morale booster? What if I find it irritating that women are portrayed in over-the-top caricatures in a still male-dominated environment?
EAB: excellent point
This is why you don't get invited to the cool parties EAB.
Transsocial.
Shorter EAB: thatsnotfunnywomanfoldedarms.jpg
Wasn't Ray Walston "Honey Bun?" Is portraying a Martian another subgenre of drag?
Big sign at the opening sailor outdoor shower scene: Look but don't touch.
SP was pretty woke for its time. Was the book?
I suspect there's more to the withdrawal than this. Perhaps he lied about it, or they discovered it really was anti-Trump.
Before women were on naval ships, the Crossing the Line (equator) ceremonies would put a mere drag show to shame.
LOL. Compare Harpys pics to the South Pacific “drag queen”.
Same thing? I report, you decide
That IS a good point, EAB. I was going to comment from the other camp - drag shows, taken as comedy, are entertaining and serve a purpose kind of like a court jester, poking fun at the powerful in a sanctioned way - but I hadn't considered the presence of female sailors and officers.
Some Navy women might take drag in that proper spirit, but we are at least a full generation into That's Not Funny, so why tempt fate?
There's more than a bit of tradition here from the Crossing of the Equator initiation of 'shellbacks' to the HMS Pinafore's "Little Buttercup", but nonetheless the-times-are-a-changin'. Perhaps a hiatus is in order?
I was never Navy so I have no skin in this fight, but some goofy traditions might have to be modified to placate the semen.
(Go Army, Beat Navy!)
Josh Logan may have been a great Broadway director, but as a movie director he sucked. That number is not well staged at all. And the hairy chest and belly is very distracting. Its much better if some big muscular guy plays the comic female part.
And I doubt its ray walston, guy looks too young. But who knows maybe Ray -despite looking like 50 years old in the movie - was built like a 20 something broadway dancer.
Seems to go a little beyond recreational humor.
"The U.S. Navy hired this non-binary drag queen as a “digital ambassador” to try to recruit people"
Drag parts were also done in WW1 and WW 2 POW camps (in Germany). There's no real reason to have drag on US navy ships or the military, because there are plenty of women on board. And some of them get pregnant.
And the hairy chest and belly is very distracting. Its much better if some big muscular guy plays the comic female part.
I was a big fan of Klinger, who certainly wasn't big or muscular and who certainly was hairy (I recollect his hairiness being part of the gag). My favorite thing about him was the way he walked, though. It was pure dude.
A gay old time was culturally appropriated by males in the transgender spectrum.
Transsocial parades are a mockery of trans/sims in equivocation and inclusion.
Misogynistic progress? Women are pushed to the back of the bus, girls thrown under the bus, and our Posterity is sequestered in sanctuary states. You've come a long way, baby... fetus.
There's no real reason to have drag on US navy ships or the military, because there are plenty of women on board. And some of them get pregnant.
Not really catching your point here, RCO - but it could be that, as a female Air Force Best, I don't understand what a drag show would be for on a ship.
Is it meant to titillate the guys? Because I've seen exactly one actually sexy drag queen, an Australian guy on RuPaul's Drag Race who could rock a bikini convincingly (at least in the supermodel era - he still didn't have hips, though I think he did have gluteal implants or at least wore padding in that area).
“And the hairy chest and belly is very distracting. It’s much better if some big muscular guy plays the comic female part.”
Queer eye for teh Muscled Guy?
Geez. Air Force *brat*.
The point is, in the old days men needed to play female parts - there were no women. Now there are.
And its funnier if you have a big galoot dress up in drag. Arnold in drag is funnier than Dustin Hoffman in drag. Contrast.
Ask any Trusty Shellback how far back drag on Navy ships goes. (I can attest to at least 53 years.)
…also in Bridge on the River Kwai. Prison camp but could still come up with a coconut bra. The greatest generation…
Its funny that some are blaming women for the reason drag shows went away. Attend one nowadays and its mostly women in attendance.
And thanks for reminding me how cute Mitzi was.
US Marines I've known, who have been deployed on naval vessels seem fond of the phrase: "There's friggin' in the riggin'".
I can't remember who said it, but the quote that "drag is female blackface" is pretty spot on at least currently. As other commentors have alluded, there was a time when that stuff was standard fair for tongue-in-cheek entertainment, but some of the ultra-qweer stuff of the last 20 years is clearly designed directly to mock women. And as Mark says, it's mostly women lapping it up.
You may not know this ladies, but a lot of modern drag-qweens (I'm talking civilian here) are ultra-misogynistic homos that genuinely despise you and part of their act is a not-so-subtle overexaggerated caricature of what they think female behavior is like (or should be), the same way blackface was in its day.
If that's your thing, power to ya, but it's enabling.
“ Oh please. Back in the South Pacific days, there were no women aboard an aircraft carrier. So drag was required. If I’m a female sailor aboard ship, why should I find drag a morale booster?”
Don’t be so heteronormative. I’m sure there are plenty of lesbians on carriers these days who might appreciate the show. Also, drag shows can include drag kings. Something for everyone!
A distinction with a difference.
rehajm, I admit it's been a long time since I watched The Bridge on the River Kwai but I sure don't remember a drag scene. There is a kinda-sorta-drag scene of a 'dance' in Stalag 17.
I’d have to see the show. If it’s all in good fun, then it’s absurd this guy lost a promotion over it. If it was political (i.e., woke), then he’s not fit for the role.
Worth noting, though, that such things were encouraged at the time, so Donnelly isn’t necessarily a bad commander for allowing it.
Jamie (3:59pm):
You might want to avoid calling yourself a "brat" around here. Ann and some of the other Wisconsinites may think you're claiming to be a not-very-spicy German sausage. (I was confused the opposite way the first time I read about the Wisconsin delicacy "roasted brats": sounded cannibalistic.)
Das Boot had a drag scene showing morale getting killed when the crew heard that the German soccer team lost in the world cup.
There's drag and there's drag. Are we going after Princeton and Harvard because of their (old style) drag shows? Are we cancelling F.D.R., F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Fred Gwynne because they might once have gone on stage in a dress?
*
When my school did "South Pacific" kids turned the lyrics of "Honey Bun" into:
"101 tons of fun,
That's my anti-aircraft gun ..."
I guess that’s going to exclude a lot of captains who presided over equator crossing initiations. One of the highlights being the wog beauty contest. Every division is required to provide its own contestant.
Drag shows are funny because they are ridiculous. And, dear "Progressives", please, please tell me you can see the difference between the South Pacific movie and supporting surgery - butchery - on minors. On forcing everyone to play along with any individuals act including forcing us to use language that we can clearly see is a lie. For tax payer dollars to go for....
Please tell me you can see the difference.
I admit it's been a long time since I watched The Bridge on the River Kwai but I sure don't remember a drag scene
Grok doesn’t know everything…
If it’s all in good fun, then it’s absurd this guy lost a promotion over it.
Where does it say that the only reason RADM Donnelly lost his promotion was because of the drag shows? With all due respect, I fear that a majority of the commentariat have fallen for The Narrative.
Surprised nobody has brought up Cdr Krills drag turn in Under Siege.
There's a difference between an obviously ungainly man en travesti and a man doing a very good job of looking like a genuine sexy woman.
Something something shellbacks something…
Yeah, I just saw pix of the tran show on the Reagan and I now remember this guy. He was a full bore swishy tran "performer" and nothing whatsoever (heh) like the Crossing the Line "trans" characters. Donnelly's show was a whole woke deal. So good call on 86ing the promotion.
The old drag shows were expressing a desire for women. The new ones are perverts.
Cross-dressing Corporal Maxwell Clinger played by Jamie Farr on Mash was the most famous get-out-of-the-military guy ever invented.
Beavis said….
“Rear Admiral. Heheh, heheh, heheh.”
My father was as straight as they come, very much to my mother's unabashèd delight for almost 60 years. He was also a Navy officer in the Pacific War. Late in the war he was XO on a destroyer and the men were both discouraged and short on rations. They were also somewhat anxious about the impending invasion of Japan.
He and the CO plotted a morale-booster for a day when the sea was calm, but with a cloudy sky, and threat-level at Zero. They enlisted several junior officers for their plot, and when conditions were just right, the CO announced "Now hear this: Engines to idle. Terminate galley activity. All hands on deck. Repeat, ALL hands on deck. Report immediately."
The officers put on a classic '30 burlesque show, including tropical dancers in drag, as well as a fair bit of other drag. But it was their closing skit, "mistaken identity" situation, if you will, but what brought down the house was my father's limerick to close the skit and the show.
There once was a faggot named Bloom,
Who had a lesbian up to his room.
They spent the whole night
In a terrible fight
Over who would do what, and to whom.
A couple of weeks later the CO when on the blower again to announce: "Attention, all hands. I have set our course at 80° [a bit north of east], and the engine room has been ordered to make turns for 15 knots. Japan has announced cessation of hostilities, and will formally surrender. We've been ordered to Hawai'i. This war is over."
Dad said that the banging of tools, pans, and anything available -- plus the celebratory firing of the 40 mm Bofors [AA] and quite a few rounds from the 5/38s -- was something he'd never forget. And he didn't.
Weeks before he died, nearing 90, he described it as the best sound he'd ever heard ... because it made possible all his other favorites: the wedding bells, my mother's frequent moans of conjugal pleasure, and the infant cries of his children.
Drag was in “River Kwai” - but it had absolutely no political overtones.
In the 70's I was on a sub where we'd do 72 day patrols. Day 36 was hump/halfway night and we'd have a beauty contest where crew members would dress up as women. It was all in good fun and a morale booster.
Whoever, one guy borrowed clothes and makeup from his wife and looked (and acted) so good it was freaking out the crew (who the the F*** is this?). It was really weird, sorta uncanny valley stuff. He was asked to stop.
We on the tender wondered what sort of things the bubble heads got up to on patrol. I know they acted craze when they come off patrol.
Big Mike said:
"Where does it say that the only reason RADM Donnelly lost his promotion was because of the drag shows? With all due respect, I fear that a majority of the commentariat have fallen for The Narrative."
As a retired officer this ring true to me.
I'm pretty sure there was a Village People song about this.
Nobody found it suspicious that he was a Rear Admiral? I would have expected Trump to promote a Boob Admiral.
"Under mounting pressure from feminist groups the DoD has withdrawn the nomination of Admiral What's-his-face who allowed Burlesque shows while he was Captain of the U.S.S. Va-Va-Voom." I could imagine this headline. I also imagine many people who have the opposite reaction to it than to this story. I will just note that men dressing as women as joke is different tone than men dressing as women with some sort of hope for titillation.
There is Nothin’ Like a Dame!
Bart Hall — beautiful story, thanks for sharing.
Bart Hall — beautiful story, thanks for sharing.
'Cause we're a having so much fun with Honey Bun... not anymore.
When you're all heterosexual males, and when "Honey Bun" is a joke, you can do drag.
When "leadership" starts letting freaks in, and you're no longer mocking "Honey Bun" but "celebrating" the drag, then it has to go away.
Freak shows that celebrate the freakishness are bad, but that's what the Left is pushing on the rest of us.
So we push back
This seems like pretty weak tea considering. Crashing subs into sea mounts, letting aircraft roll off carrier decks, letting the Bohomme Richard burn uncontrolled for three straight days, the LCS fubar, the Fat Leonard scandal and all the rest of the corruption and incompetence involving the USN concerns me way more than do shell-back parties and drag shows tbh. The Navy is the main & indispensable armed force of the US.
"...Following inquiries from The Daily Wire about Donnelly and the drag queen shows he permitted on board the USS Ronald Reagan, a source at the Defense Department said that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is withdrawing Donnelly’s nomination to lead the 7th Fleet..."
The Daily Wire connects every single dot so the reader doesn't have to do any thinking. They would have us believe that their phone calls to the DOD about a drag show once upon a time are responsible for causing a panic among the dilettantes, about optics. I wonder what the real reason for the withdrawal is. Background checks can be exacting things.
Drag was great at one point. Beach Blanket Babylon, drag brunch in Times Square, Klinger (brilliant). And I’m one of the few who remembers and laughed at Bosom Buddies. If I’ve lost my humor, blame it on the tedious trans crap and a sense the Navy is doing it not for humor but to be “inclusive.” It’s lost its appeal.
For young heterosexual man, you are also forgetting the modern capacity to carry three deployments worth of porn on a smart phone or a flash drive.
Yes drag performers are creepy like clowns and mimes. Well done thematic progression, Althouse!
Deep State, consider the possibility that spending time with drag shows actually was done in lieu of spending time training on maintenance and avoiding crashes.
I'm with Big Mike, nobody and nothing says the creepy drag guy was the reason the nomination was pulled.
Big Mike said....Where does it say that the only reason RADM Donnelly lost his promotion was because of the drag shows? With all due respect, I fear that a majority of the commentariat have fallen for The Narrative.
This would be a valuable contribution if you had found a way to say it without being an asshole putting words in my mouth.
---- America, when did you become so repressive?
When the puritanical left and the Boomer feminists won the cultural war.
Attributed to Winston Churchill: And what are the traditions of the Navy? Rum, buggery, and the lash.
It is blindness to claim an equivalence in the appeal and purpose of drag from Honey Bun to Rupaul. For one thing, there were real girls onstage with Honey Bun.
Reply to Amadeus 48 @ 08:08 AM
That's the British Royal Navy he was referring to and NOT the USN. And to another commenter above in re digital porn.. What are you gonna do with it? On deployment, at least on a sub, you can't even take a crap in private let alone anything else and your hot-bunk neighbors sure don't want to hear, see, or smell you pleasuring yourself. Porn on board is like having a can of soup but no can opener.
Went to an all-boys HS. In student shows, always had one of those. Stupid fun.
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