#sources from wikipedia; from an exhibit on kimono fashion at the Quai Branly museum; and from Linfamy on youtube

[morporkian-cryptid]

Welcome to

🇯🇵Elliott's Japan Trivia Corner!🇯🇵

Where you can learn random stuff about Edo-era Japan (and sometimes other periods) from your local neurodivergent nerd ✌️✨️

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So y'all have heard of Kabuki right? If you haven't, it was the more popular form of theatre during Edo (by opposition to the more intellectual nō theatre), and it's got awesome makeup and fun flashy costumes.

Like a lot of cool things, it was created by women, who where then slowly driven out of it by men 🙃 But it was also super queer! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Kabuki originated from female travelling entertainers, then later welcomed male actors. Plays mostly happened in the pleasure districts, and they eventually kinda merged with prostitution. Long story short, if theatre-goers really fancied one of the actresses, they could go home with her for a reasonable fee 💸

The shogun, who didn't like many things and especially did not like fun, decided that this was unacceptable. And that the best course of action was obviously to ban women from performing kabuki.

Wanna guess what happened ?

That's right. The exact same thing continued, but with male prostitutes instead 👍 Good job, shogun.

Male actors playing female roles were called onnagata, and they were considered an ideal of feminine grace and beauty, that all the Edo-era women tried to copy. Which, if you've ever been to a drag show, is pretty understandable imho 💅

(Some onnagata apparently stayed in feminine attire even off-stage, which I personally cannot interpret differently than "Me? 🏳️‍⚧️Trans🏳️‍⚧️?? Noooooo, you misunderstand, I'm just reeeaaallyyy into method acting! 🤞")