'Drag Is a Right': Kevin Bacon Berated After Posting 'Cringe' Fundraising Video
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the ability to bring your 6-year-old to a drag brunch where a queen who goes by the stage name Sinnclaire Louisah performs a sexually explicit dance for children.”
Not really how you remember the Declaration of Independence beginning, no? I guess Kevin Bacon must have skipped civics while he was busy filming “Footloose” because he seems to believe that “drag is a right” and that statewide bans on sexually provocative drag performances for minors somehow abrogates that right.
In a series of cringe social media videos, Bacon called drag “a centuries-old art form of creativity, expression, and self-exploration” and “an opportunity to educate through entertainment.”
To support those fighting bans against drag shows for kids, he posted another video of him doing a corny dance in unison with wife Kyra Sedgwick. I’m as perplexed by the logic of that one as you’ll be when you see it, but I can only assume there’s an implied quid pro quo there: If conservatives stop attempting to ban children from seeing adult entertainment, America and the world will never have to be subjected to Bacon and Sedgewick trying to imitate a viral TikTok dance trend again.
Anyhow, here’s Bacon’s video from last week, telling us all how the right to drag is under threat:
@kevinbacon Drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community are facing unwarranted censorship and threats across the country. Like all artistic expression, drag is protected by the First Amendment and should be respected. #SixDegreesOfKB is proud to support the @aclu Drag Defense Fund and the nationwide effort to protect the drag community’s right to creative expression. Tap the link in my bio to shop or make a gift. #DragIsARight ♬ original sound – Kevin Bacon
“Drag is an art, and drag is a right,” Bacon said. “Drag is a centuries-old art form of creativity, expression, and self-exploration.
“It’s an opportunity to educate through entertainment, and it’s not dangerous. At Six Degrees, we believe in amplifying the voices of those that are experiencing injustice.”
Six Degrees is Bacon’s non-profit — named after the old-school pub trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” in which you have to connect any given actor to Kevin Bacon via degrees of cinematic separation.
For instance, former “The Price is Right” host Bob Barker is three connections from Bacon: Barker made an appearance with Adam Sandler in “Happy Gilmore,” Sandler appeared with Jack Nicholson in “Anger Management,” and Nicholson starred in “A Few Good Men,” which also featured Bacon.
Elon Musk, you may be surprised to know, has an even lower Bacon number than Bob Barker. Musk made a cameo in “Iron Man 2,” where the villain was played by Mickey Rourke, who appeared with Bacon in “Diner.”
Why do I mention this kind of pub trivia minutiae? Because it’s infinitely more entertaining than whatever this was supposed to be:
#DragBans are bad karma. Right now, drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community need our help. Shop the @SixDegreesofKB campaign supporting the @ACLU Drag Defense Fund or make a gift https://t.co/Ef2Eiz8Mzg #DragIsARight pic.twitter.com/BUyfecVFA4
— Kevin Bacon (@kevinbacon) April 23, 2023
On TikTok, that dance to Taylor Swift’s “Karma” was viewed over 6.5 million times as of Monday morning. I didn’t know there were that many people willing to subject themselves to 15 seconds of sheer horror, but there you go.
I’m not a believer in karma. However, if Eastern religious concept of human cause and divinely induced earthly effect does indeed exist, there’s enough bad karma in that corny video to warrant summary arrest by the karma police.
The proceeds that are raised from … whatever this was are supposed to go to the ACLU Drag Defense Fund, which uses oddly similar language to Bacon on its website.
“Drag performers and the LGBTQ+ community are facing threats across the country. In the face of these threats and censorship, you can fight back with the ACLU for the protection of all our rights,” the website reads.
“The freedom to express ourselves and our gender identity in creative ways fuels artistry across our country and culture — and Drag is protected by the First Amendment like any creative expression such as dance, fashion, and music.”
Much like Bacon, the ACLU has a preposterously skewed idea about what the right to drag entails. For instance, I’m pretty certain states have the fundamental right to bar minors from witnessing shows like this one:
WARNING: The following videos contain graphic imagery that some viewers will find offensive.
This is what a “family-friendly drag show” in a bar looks like pic.twitter.com/oTnLmdEkaZ
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 16, 2022
A drag queen named “Jenna Tailia” performed at an “all ages back to school drag extravaganza” in Provo, Utah pic.twitter.com/2OkdmXFhTE
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 5, 2022
A handful of states have moved on legislation that would bar minors from attending these shows. This is somehow in violation of the First Amendment, according to some people who have an exceptionally limited understanding of the Constitution.
Kevin Bacon, I’m not going to him for his hot takes on constitutional law. As for the ACLU — always a leftist organization, although one which has tossed any pretensions to genuine constitutional consistency aside over the past decade or two — dying on this particular hill seems both utterly bizarre and yet totally on-brand for them.
It’s not a brand that Twitter seemed to embrace, however:
Cringe
— Ultra Mega MAGA Force Nuclear Martha 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@Martha_FaFa) April 24, 2023
We will boycott everything you do and support. Disgusting Communist Pigs. Satanic.
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill9) April 24, 2023
Stop trying to sexualize children.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) April 24, 2023
This must be Six Degrees of Being a Groomer.
— Rusty 🎙️ (@rustyweiss74) April 24, 2023
The thing that Bacon and Sedgwick seem to misunderstand — along with the ACLU, although one assumes their legal misunderstanding is more deliberate than two aging Hollywood character actors who happen to be married to each other — is that nobody’s outlawing the “right to drag,” whatever that would be.
Lawmakers are simply putting an end to sexually charged performances given for minors — and we’re generally not talking 16- or 17-year-olds that are being trotted out to these shindigs. These are kids that wouldn’t be able to make it into a rated R movie even with the most laconic ticket-counter guy at the cineplex. But it’s totally cool to bring them out to see “Jenna Talia,” because why not?
So, to sum up, Kevin Bacon: Three degrees from Bob Barker, two degrees from Elon Musk, one degree from grooming.
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