Kids Help Phone is a charity that focuses on kids in crisis, providing online and telephone counseling as well as bilingual text-based support to Canadian youth. And so naturally, their latest move is to release an advert featuring… drag queens. Why not? Everyone else is doing it.
The advert features two hairy men in makeup and low-cut dresses – the increasingly infamous “Fay and Fluffy.” The men are offering advice in response to questions.
Q: “What do you do when you have lots of feelings?”
One of the men hugs his teddy bear in response, while the gray-bearded member of the duo says “sometimes I like to draw my feelings.” Then music kicks in, and the two men start dancing.
“Fay” is actually kindergarten teacher John Paul Kane, and “Fluffy” is cultural producer Kaleb Robertson, but they are best known as the men in dresses who feature prominently at Drag Queen Story Time events. They also have a show on Amazon Prime called “The Fabulous Show with Fay and Fluffy,” which is described thusly:
A cabaret-style preschool series is hosted by drag duo Fay Slift and Fluffy Souffle. With puppet friends and special guests, they encourage inclusivity and kindness through community, stories, and song.
Yeah. Drag queens with teddy bears, reading LGBT books to kids, and hosting a “cabaret-style preschool series.” The Canadian state broadcaster CBC, of course, has leaned hard into defending drag shows for kids, rewarding the pair’s activism with a glowing review titled “Toronto drag duo Fay and Fluffy are a beacon of light for young hearts and minds.”
