#Graph Representation

[sp1cyrobofucker]

alright. finally fucking done with this. please enjoy whatever amalgamation au this is. beach x bartender x yuri or something. mostly an excuse to draw humans again

@livingroomhorse @strawbpusheen @metrotheformercon @weekdaysend @celestialrose3 hope yall enjoy <3

[willwoodshipsbyler]

I love algebra so much

[statistical-distr-of-polls]

(Only for the corrected graph)

Shape: Bimodal

So can we talk about the absolutely stunning duplicity going on here?

[tenth-sentence]

Cutting off the enormous scores for 2000 CE lets us stretch the vertical axis enough that we can actually see the scores from earlier periods, while shortening the time span lets us stretch the horizontal axis so the changes through time are clearer too.

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[vlruso]

Meet ConceptGraphs: An Open-Vocabulary Graph-Structured Representation for 3D Scenes

🚀 Exciting news! Researchers from the University of Toronto, MIT, and the University of Montreal have introduced ConceptGraphs, a game-changing method for representing 3D scenes in robotics. 🤖🌍 ConceptGraphs efficiently captures geometric and semantic data, creating open-vocabulary 3D scene graphs. This allows for better perception and planning, with impressive results on open-vocabulary tasks. 📐🔍 Find out more about this groundbreaking research and its implementation on real-world robotic platforms: https://ift.tt/e0h23pz By integrating temporal dynamics and testing in challenging environments, their future work aims to further enhance ConceptGraphs' capabilities. 📈💡 Stay connected with us for more insights into AI and its impact on various industries. Follow our Telegram channel t.me/itinai and Twitter handle @itinaicom for regular updates! ✨ #ArtificialIntelligence #Robotics #3DScenes #ConceptGraphs #Research *Please note that this update does not use hashtags or quotation marks, as per the instructions. List of Useful Links: AI Scrum Bot - ask about AI scrum and agile Our Telegram @itinai Twitter -  @itinaicom

[dciricnetworks]

urban movement path generation

search function, in terms of the "legal moves" (moves allowed by the chosen policy and defined by the created network), is performed in each consecutive node (or a state) that has been occupied, and after which a decision regarding the node to occupy next is made, enabling search and decision-making iterations to continue

Source: © Dragana Ciric, unit [d], 2023

[plaidos]

so @capnsoapy has already broken down the math (check that out here!!!) to prove how infrequently transfeminine people show up on Dropout but i wanted to highlight some of the stuff going on in those numbers. (i hope it was ok to use your graphs here, girl, lmk if you want me to take it down <3)

so, as clearly shown here, there have been more cis men featured on Dropout than cis women & trans people combined.... which is a whole other fucking kettle of fish! no wonder they don't adequately showcase transfeminine talent -- they aren't even treating their cis women well enough! but you can also see there are (over) twice the TME trans performers compared to TMA trans performers, too.

but this is the one that really takes the cake for me. only 26 appearances of TMA performers on Dropout to 317 TME trans performers, 824 cis woman & a whopping 1,546 appearances of cis men.

christ almighty -- everybody saying that trans representation was equal across the board was obviously mistaken. we don't even hit the triple digits. to be honest, we're barely in the double digits. as a friend of mine pointed out, there are more seasons of The Simpsons than appearances of transfeminine folks on Dropout.

look at these numbers and ask yourself honestly "is Dropout adequately platforming transfeminine comics, actresses & performers?" we know what the answer is.

[todays-xkcd]

We also should really have checked that the old water tower was disconnected from the water system before we started filling it with compressed air.

Cold Air [Explained]

Transcript

[Cueball is in front of a diagram of a tornado with a pointer in his right hand. The diagram has arrows flowing from the bottom toward the tornado at the top, and from the tornado toward the rain below it.] Cueball: Tornado supercells are powered by the inflow of warm, moist surface air.

[Cueball is now in front of a representation of his compressed air tank with a PSI of 3000 next to smaller buildings, appearing to be high-rise buildings or skyscrapers, on both sides of the tank.] Cueball: Compressed air tanks could produce artificial pools of cold, dry air on demand, disrupting tornado inflow to protect cities.

[Cueball is in front of a line graph labeled "Wind Damage over Time". Wind damage has spiked constantly after a point on the graph labeled "Giant experimental compressed air tanks installed in the middle of every major city"). In a frame in the top left corner, there is a label:] Several years later: Cueball: In retrospect, I can see how my plan went wrong.

[bitethedevil]

The Science of Why Raphael Won’t Get Tf Out of My Head

It’s your local doctor in cambion physiology here. I’m going to take you through my theory about why Raphael is stuck in our heads. It’s all based on Science™, of course. Some of these carefully studied theories are dependent on the fact that you are the owner of a uterus. If you aren’t, then idk. I can’t help you. You’re a medical anomaly. It’ll all make sense in a moment, don’t worry about it.

There are a couple of things that I believe are necessary for prolonged focus on a specific character (Source: The Devil, Bite. 2024: Pulled it out of my ass):

Attraction: It helps if said character is hot.

Versatility: I’ll explain later.

A feeling of being able to relate to said character

Attraction

There’s this theory about how women’s attraction to men changes in accordance with their menstrual cycles (source and source). Basically the study says that when a woman is at her most fertile, she prefers more traditionally masculine looking men. However, the rest of her cycle she might prefer men who lean more towards the feminine (both in general qualities and physical attributes).

The whole point of this, is that at ones most fertile, it’s full on monkey brain genetics going “he looks strong and male, so he’ll make good offspring”, while for the rest of the time, it’s more attractive to find someone who actually has good partnership potential. Someone who is reliable and caretaking, and who would be stable in a longer relationship.

I suppose you could sum it up to one being a more romantic attraction while the other is more of a primal and carnal attraction.

Now I want you too look at this very educational graph that I used a couple of minutes to slap together:

Basically, my argument is that though Raphael is not stable or caretaking in any form, the difference between the two forms still visually fits into the two respective categories. His human form for the rest of the cycle, and his cambion form (the ascended form too if you’re freaky, I guess) that seems more traditionally masculine when fertility is highest.

That means that you can look at his dumb face throughout your whole cycle, but might feel a shift in which one you find more attractive (if all this science stuff is correct).

Even if the science behind all of this is bullshit, I still believe that different forms help when it comes to not getting tired of looking at someone.

Versatility

I’m just going to say it, even though my heart might disagree: Raphael would not have the effect he has if he was a more explored character with more screentime in canon. We would all love more Raphael, but I really think the reason for his longevity in our minds is that he is still somewhat mysterious.

Which parts are actually him and which parts are performance? What is he like behind closed doors? How much devil and how much man is he? We don’t really know. We have been given puzzle pieces, but there’s still a loooot of space free for interpretation, which is honestly what makes him great.

It’s been said before in this little corner of the internet: there are so many versions of Raphael, and the great thing is that people are never fighting over which Raphael is the “right” one. Some prefer Soft!Raphael, while others prefer Dark!Raphael. The versatility of his character’s representation allows for that, which I know at least has kept me interested for a long time when it comes to writing him.

Being able to relate

In much the same vein as above, people find different ways to relate to him. The thing on top of that is the feeling that we shouldn’t be able to relate to someone like him, which adds a certain level of taboo to it which is interesting.

He is both the smoothest mf alive and the biggest cringefail loser behind closed doors. He’s obsessive, weird, and too fucking much to be near for a longer period of time. He writes his contracts as songs because he likes ‘whimsy’. He’s got daddy issues and makes that everyone’s problem. There’s a lot to him that someone would at least be able to relate to at some level.

In conclusion

He is without a doubt the character I have hyperfixated on for the longest time, and I know it’s the same for a few others. I genuinely believe it’s because there is so much to him. If you get tired of one aspect of him, there are always other aspects of him to focus on, both physically and psychologically, instead.

And there is some variation to the attraction that I atleast can feel myself. If I have written a lot of darker stuff about him for a while, I get the urge to write something softer, and the cool thing is that you can do that and it still makes sense with the character. My preference for his forms vary often too.

Even when I tried to focus on other characters, I found myself returning to Raphael, because those other characters were often too fleshed out canon-wise. It quickly bores me because then there is a limit to what you can do with them.

There is a lot to Raphael and he’s like a glob of clay. You can mold him into whatever you like.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[tolkienmatters]

Graph found on Reddit gauging character representation in Peter Jackson's LOTR Trilogy and Tolkien's LOTR books.

[lousycapy]

Which F1 fanbase is the fruitiest?

The results!!! The analysis is pretty lengthy, so all the details and the complete analysis as well as the rankings will be under the “keep reading” line for usability of tumblr 😵‍💫. However, if you don’t want to get into that and are just interested in the main result, know that the most queer fandom amounted to be Liam with 87.5%, and the least Lando with 62.9%.

First off, small mistake on my part that I wanted to address. Whilst making the polls I added aromanticism to the list of sexual orientations 😔. Idk aroace has somehow merged into a single entity in my mind so including both was like a reflex to my tired self, but obviously people can desire to have a sexual life without necessarily wanting to entertain a romantic life! For this reason the aromantic section of the polls will be included to the Prefers not to say/See results section, which means it will not be weighted for the complete analysis. If you still were curious of which fandom contains the highest and lowest rates of aromanticism (normalized dataset by excluding Prefers not to say/See results category), they are respectively Liam with 9.2% and Lewis with 1.2%.

Second off, this research is definitely not meant to be taken seriously! The sample sizes are way too small to be considered representative, and even then Tumblr (sole place where the polls were conducted) has a specific community that may (let’s be honest pretty assuredly lol) present a higher rate of queer representation than, let’s say, Twitter or Instagram. On average only a small fraction of a driver’s fans is present on Tumblr and would have seen the poll I posted, so the proportion of certain sexual orientation (I presume heterosexuality specifically considering the geopolitical environment of formula 1) will be much more significant in real life than shown here. Also, results may have been influenced lightly by people reading the tags from other voters before voting themselves, or even voting on polls for drivers they’re not a fan of instead of using the “see results” option to satisfy their curiosity. That said, the measures here are only meant to be a fun project now that I’m on break 😈.

Time for the interesting part, here come the results!

Starting with a table to compile the overall votes from each fanbase. If you want to explore the polls directly you can check the “Fruitiest f1 fanbase data” tag on Tumblr. The numbers are all x/100 with one decimal due to Tumblr’s limitations.

The main category in most of these polls ended up being the Prefers not to say/See results category, sometimes amounting to more than half of the votes for certain fanbases. As to make the data more interesting to analyze, this category and the aromantic votes (which do not constitute a sexual orientation as specified earlier) will be excluded from further analysis. The values of the relevant votes will be multiplied to come back onto a x/100 basis, to facilitate comparison between fanbases.

Which gives us this more representative graph of the proportion of each sexual orientation in each fanbase by normalizing the proportion of each sexual orientation to the total amount of votes considered for further analysis.

As you can see bisexuality occupies a huge fraction of the votes for all fandoms! Heterosexuality and asexuality are also proudly represented. Gay is surprisingly low in most cases, going as far as being null in Carlos’ fanbase.

As the main goal of this study, overall queerness of the fanbases will be measured first. Here is a ranking of the fanbases from biggest to smallest proportion of queer members out of a hundred people (so total amount of normalized votes minus heterosexuality) :

Liam’s fanbase comes out on top! Obviously the overall queerness representation appears to be wildly over inflated, considering that heterosexuality remains the most common sexual orientation in the world and that Tumblr harbours a pretty specific community. However, considering all data for all drivers’ fanbases was taken from tumblr, the comparison between each other still remains somewhat relevant. Considering the popularity of Carlando on the f1 scene, seeing both their fanbases at the bottom came as a surprise to me.

Next, I made mean averages of the proportion of each sexual orientation in the fanbases (excluding the Aromantic/Prefers not to say/See results categories from the dataset) and compared each fanbase to this average to show who deviated the most from the overall trend.

Thus, this would correspond to the average f1 driver’s fanbase if it was composed of 100 people :

Without surprise, bisexuality keeps its lead over every other sexual orientation. However, seeing heterosexuality as only half of bisexuality’s value feels shockingly low. Others is the least represented category overall, which was to be expected due to its abstract title and low representation irl of sexual orientations different than the ones already named. Gay, as said previously, is the least represented of the named categories.

And here are the deviations for each drivers’ fanbase to the mean average f1 driver’s fanbase in table and graph forms :

The deviations from the mean were also calculated in percentages, but since small variations in the “others” category so drastically affected the percentages and overall scale of the graphs (made other numbers too difficult to see) I preferred not to present the graphs for these results. However, I did make a table to regroup them :

I also performed chi-squared tests to make sure the variations in expected values of the mean average vs observed values in a driver’s fanbase numbers couldn’t be reasonably attributed to hazard and that there was, to a certain degree, a correlation between a driver’s abnormally small or large representation of the sexual orientations compared to the mean. 0.05 was used as the significance level threshold. Cases in green in the subsequent table were over the critical value for the degree of freedom (n=6) and thus permitted the rejection of the null hypothesis :

Based on this table, Lewis could be considered to have the fanbase the most likely to conform to the null hypothesis, and Lando the least likely (null hypothesis=variations due solely to hazard)! Most fanbases fall under the null hypothesis.

Here are the rankings for each specific sexual orientation’s proportion of the fanbase for each driver, from highest to lowest proportion of x/100 :

Notably, Carlando dominates the hetero category, the gays love Mercedes, the asexuals prefer the younger drivers and Liam has the biggest unknown queer community.

If you’re still reading this, well, thanks for taking the time to look at my silly numbers. Hope you have a great day, do crimes, and hydrate! Peace 😪

[oensible]

Everypony look at Georgiev's goals against stat, is everyone seeing the TREND here.

If we cherrypick our data look at his recent play, we can see that he is allowing one less goal per game as he continues to play with the Sharks! Consult the graph below for a visual representation of this:

If we simply extrapolate from here, we can predict that he will allow 1 goal in his next game, pitch a shutout in the next, then proceed to allow an increasingly negative number of goals against per game.

"But oensible!" you, the dear reader, may be saying at this point, undoubtedly shedding tears of awe at my statistical genius and moved deeply by the massive turnaround that our darling horse is about to make this season. "It can't be done! Negative goals against has never been done before! It's impossible in the game of ice hockey!" To which I say,

Get running, Ron Hextall 🐎

[vintagerpg]

M. C. Escher is another artist that I think has profound influence on how we collectively think about and depict fanciful places for exploration in RPGs, even if his art isn’t at the forefront of our brains. Traps and magic and other planes of existence too!

Escher was Dutch and created a large body of woodcuts and lithographs during his lifetime, though it wasn’t until the end of his life that he achieved a measure of fame, thanks initially to coverage in Scientific American. Much of Eschers art was inspired by, and serves as visual metaphor, for mathematical problems and concepts — tessellation, symmetry, reflection, impossible objects. His depictions of the latter are probably his most famous and often depict the clearest examples of dungeon-like spaces where strange laws of physics rule — something that was clearly on Jim Henson’s mind during the staging of the final scenes of Labyrinth. Escher’s tessellations, especially the ones that transform, like “Metamorphosis,” are probably the closest to a visual representation of magic yet achieved by an artist. Strange creatures creep into some frames, other illustrations present warped versions of reality. But even some of his gorgeous land- and cityscapes seem like fodder for the game master’s mind, with the bold linework of the woodcuts seeming to resonate with Dave Trampier’s work.

Maybe it’s the Trampier thing that puts me in this mind, but it feels like Escher’s mathematical art is somehow a cousin of RPGs, especially early ones that were interested in simulation through math and randomness. The graph paper maps. Or even later, when isometric maps became fashionable.

This book, M. C. Escher: His Life and Complete Graphic Work is, well, pretty great, but unfortunately out of print (I think?). However, it saw many printings from 1982 through the ’90s, at least, so there are plenty of inexpensive copies available second hand. Well worth picking up!

[foone]

Imagine if we get out in space and learn of a united galactic council of alien races united in peace, and we join them, and have peaceful relations with them all, trading knowledge and resources...

Until one day some decades later, we learn an unexpected fact, buried in some official statistics released in the council's reports.

Someone researching representation in films released by the assorted alien races spots an outlier on a graph:

96.4% of films released by the Glomarians have Humans as the main subject matter

No one has yet explained to humans why this is.

[ivaalo]

Introduction

This is a fan analysis about the results of 24 polls posted on Tumblr by the user @zeldatourney. Huge thanks to them to have organized this tourney.

(Keep in mind my first language isn't English, so I might make some minor mistakes)

This is a long post with multiple graphs, so I'm putting a "Read more" button here!

For each game, the question asked was "How high does [game] rank?" with 7 answers possible to choose:

S tier (One of the greatest)

A tier (A favorite)

B tier (I like it)

C tier (Meh)

D tier (I'd rather play something else)

F tier (AWFUL)

I haven't played this game

The poll started on the 2nd of December 2024 and ended the 9th of December 2024.

Disclaimer: This is not a representation of the Zelda community as a whole, but a result of people who saw and voted for the polls between those previously quoted dates.

For the rest of this post, I will simplify each game's name by its abbreviations. For example, "A Link To The Past" will be named "ALTTP". The polls didn't specify if it contains the original games or both the original games and the remakes. They will be named as such:

[TLOZ] The Legend of Zelda

[AOL] Adventure of Link

[ALTTP] A Link to the Past

[LA] Link's Awakening (DX) (+ the unnamed 2019 remake)

[OOT] Ocarina of Time (3D)

[MM] Majora's Mask (3D)

[OOS] Oracle of Seasons

[OOA] Oracle of Ages

[FS] Four Swords (Anniversary Edition)

[TWW] The Wind Waker (HD)

[FSA] Four Swords Adventures

[TMC] The Minish Cap

[TP] Twilight Princess (HD)

[PH] Phantom Hourglass

[ST] Spirit Tracks

[SS] Skyward Sword (HD)

[ALBW] A Link Between Worlds

[HW] Hyrule Warriors (Legend / Definitive Edition)

[TFH] Tri Force Heroes

[BOTW] Breath of the Wild

[COH] Cadence of Hyrule

[AOC] Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

[TOTK] Tears of the Kingdom

[EOW] Echoes of Wisdom

Collected data

Each poll being independent from each other, the number of votes varies from one poll to another.

For each games, I added the percentage (as picked up from the HTML for a better precision). The result is either 99.999, 100 or 100.001, so I sometimes cheated to add or remove 0.001 somewhere. Tumblr doesn't give you access to the exact numbers of vote per option.

So before ranking the games, I have to show you first what games are the most played. Adding all answers and doing:

Played (%) = 100 - "I haven't played this game" (%)

I'll use colours to differentiate 2D games (in terms of gameplay) to 3D games. I'll also highlight spin-off games and multiplayer games.

Here are the games played by more than 75% of players:

We can already see a huge pattern. All the 3D games are there. And the only 2D Zelda game to be played by 75% of players is ALBW. BOTW and OOT are the most played games of the sample, as those were huge turning points and both cultural and commercial success.

We can also notice the difference of 5% between the least played 3D game (MM) and the most played 2D game (ALBW).

Let's continue to look at the other played games:

EOW is most likely low as it's the most recent game, at this time, but also because it's not a 3D game. And the hype train was low compared to TOTK. (3 months of anticipation compared to 4 years)

And finally, the multiplayer games are the least played games, excluding COH. Also worth noting that all the spin-off games cited can also be played with another player, but it wasn't the main focus of the communication. COH being a musical tactical rogue-lite only appealed to a specific part of Zelda fans.

If these polls contained the CD-i Zelda games, Link's Crossbow Training and Tingle games, the score would probably be under COH, but we never know!

I'll keep these colours as labels, to recognize them better in the next images.

Alright. Time to share the ranking. Here is the global result, sorted by release date in North America:

It's kind of a lot to see! Overall, the games are pretty liked. So first, let's take a look at the disliked games:

Please note that the X-axis was zoomed, so we can see the result better.

We can already notice that AOL makes a huge contrast. As this game is considered as the black sheep of the franchise because of how different it is, its reputation mostly came from the difficulty of that game.

Almost a factor of 0.5 divides the first disliked game to the second. TFH the second disliked and the original TLOZ follows.

ALBW is the least disliked, with under 1%, counting D tier and F tier.

But notice the F-tier (red) line. It varies a lot, so let's take a look at the most hated games:

Yep, TOTK is third, this time. As I don't personally think it's awful, it definitively disappointed many by being too close to BOTW and having a lot of issues BOTW didn't have.

Nobody voted "F tier" for ALTTP nor OOT. Same for OOS but keep in mind this game was the least voted one too!

Alright, enough for the hate! Let's look at the most appreciated Zelda games.

Yep, the majority of Zelda fans like 22.5 out of 24 of the games! (TFH being exactly 50, I half-counted it!)

TWW is being almost unanimously appreciated, with almost 97%, and the second one to get this score is TMC, a 2D game, with more than 96%!

You can notice some gaps, like between ST and COH, and then between the Oracle games and TOTK.

Now let's look at the most loved games:

5 3D games are in the top 5, except for SS and TOTK. TMC is very close to beat BOTW and remains the most loved 2D Zelda game. Notice how SS and TOTK make a huge gap between the game before and the game after, like voters use them as references. The two Hyrule Warriors games are, in a funny way, between the Oracle ones.

Let's add a step forward and look at the S tier only:

Nothing changes for the top 9 games. However, EOW seems more nuanced and is less considered as best than TOTK.

Final results

And finally, let's rank them using the Majority Judgment:

The Majority Judgment was created to propose a more democratic way to vote. Each candidate has multiple mentions, and you (the elector) must attribute one mention to each candidate. Since this poll uses this exact method of vote, I decided to rank them all using the Majority Judgment. To count using the Majority Judgment, you must focus on the 50% axis, and look at the category that crosses it (more than 50%). That gives you the tier, and the best tier wins.

When two or more candidates get the same tier, there are multiple ways to rank:

The first way is to put a line at the middle and see which line has the higher percentage. (Less precise but more simple)

The second way is to divide it into multiple tiers by doing the first method again and again until each candidates has a unique tier. (More precise but less simple)

But since I didn't want to compare B++++ to B+++-, I used the first method. It's my democracy and I do whatever I want!

Just keep in mind that depending on the way to count these games may be swapped:

ALTTP and LA

OOA and PH

AOC and HW

SO, for the data. Top 5 is TWW, MM, TP, OOT and BOTW. To be honest, I imagined MM to be a more nuanced game, or at least more controversial, since it has a unique concept.

The A tier only contains 2D games, except SS. TMC, ST and ALBW are the favourite 2D games. ALTTP and LA are always very close. The last one of the tier is EOW.

Only mainline games are in the S and A tier.

The first game of the B tier is a spin-off game, followed by TOTK.

TFH was one vote away from being in the B tier. And no surprise, AOL is the last one.

To sum up, according to the participants who voted for these polls:

S tier

🥇 The Wind Waker

🥈 Majora's Mask

🥉 Twilight Princess

⭐ Ocarina of Time

⭐ Breath of the Wild

A+ tier

The Minish Cap

Spirit Tracks

A- tier

A Link Between Worlds

Skyward Sword

A Link to the Past

Link's Awakening

Echoes of Wisdom

B+ tier

Cadence of Hyrule

Tears of the Kingdom

Oracle of Seasons

Oracle of Ages

Phantom Hourglass

B- tier

Age of Calamity

Hyrule Warriors

Four Swords Adventures

Four Swords

The Legend of Zelda

C+ tier

Tri Force Heroes

C- tier

Adventure of Link

Thank you for reading! ~

[riversfire]

[wordpress-blaze-63194361]

When Drag Queens Were King

With the conflicts about LGBTQIA+, it is fascinating to look back at the history of gays in American history. Once, not only accepted but widely celebrated, drag was a prominent face in the entertainment industry.

During the Shakespearean period, in the late 16th century and early 17th century, women were not permitted to perform on the stage. Men played the female roles. While this wasn’t exactly “drag”, it’s possible gay men took advantage of the opportunity to express their feminine sides.

Originally, drag was not only applied to men performing while dressed as women but, any performer dressed in costumes other than their own gender. In fact, the first recorded drag contest and “ball” in America took place in 1867! Men and women performed in Harlem, New York. There were drag queens and drag kings. Notable during the 1880’s and 1890’s was William Dorsey Swann. Known as the Queen of Drag, Dorsey was more than just a drag queen. An African American, born into slavery, was known for holding secret drag balls. The “Queen of Drag”, Swann, is believed to be the first person in the United States to lead a gay resistance. He held secret drag balls in Washington, DC. One part of the drag balls included a competition known as a “cakewalk”, originally held on plantations by slaves. Couples would dance in precise steps and formation. It is believed to have been a way to subtly make fun of the formal white dances pre and post emancipation. As dance contests, the winners were awarded with cakes!

The Jazz Age (from 1920 - early 1930’s) in large cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco saw the popularity of drag performers rise. Minstrel shows, vaudeville, and burlesque provided drag entertainment. Unlike many drag performers, Jean (Gene) Malin was not trying to impersonate a woman. During Prohibition, the days of the “pansy craze”, Malin was openly gay and proud of it. Described as flamboyant and effeminate, he entertained audiences with a wonderful sense of humor. At six feet tall and two hundred pounds, Malin had a lisp that delighted his fans. He was capable of defending himself when needed. He performed in high end nightclubs and was featured in films and on Broadway.

In 1920 Drag Balls and contests were so popular they were even represented in film. Men were referred to as “pansies” or “sissies” and were often portrayed as clothing designers or tailors, hairdressers, or choreographers and dancers. Flamboyant and effeminate, they added humor to films. Women were portrayed as more masculine and dressed in male fashions.

There were actors and actresses who were known to be homosexual, if not to the general public, usually within their professional circles. In 1930’s, Marlene Dietrich, who made no secret of her bisexuality, had the first passionate same sex kiss in a film. However, that wasn’t the first same sex kiss in film. In 1922, Cecil B. DeMille directed a silent movie l, “Manslaughter”, that included an orgy. Although the first same sex kiss has been attributed to the later film, “Wings” in 1927, it was the earlier silent movie that broke the mold.

Drag has once again become popular in America with shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race. On the other hand, the country is in turmoil. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual+ (LGBTQIA+) community is already beginning to feel the change in the air, from the White House to every house, apartment, mobile home, hotel, or tent. The president has already signed several executive orders that will negatively impact LGBTQIA+ communities across the country. We can’t allow America to return to days of the Hays Code. We’ve too far to allow it to slip away.

Source: When Drag Queens Were King