Just like his character in “Footloose”, Kevin Bacon is taking a stand against the ban through dance.
The “Mystic River” star posted a video on TikTok on Sunday in which he and his wife, actor Kyra Sedgwickdance to Taylor Swift’s “Karma” in matching t-shirts.
At the end of the 14-second clip, the two show off their shirts, which read: “Drag is an art and drag is a right.”
The shirts, which protest a growing wave of government drag bans in the United States, also feature an illustration of a drag performer wearing a fan embellished with a mustache and goatee on her face.
“#DragBans are bad karma,” Bacon captioned the video Twitter sunday “Drag artists and the LGBTQIA+ community need our help right now.”
Bacon added that the shirts can be purchased through his nonprofit SixDegrees.com, which supports the American Civil Liberties Union’s drag defense fund.
Bacon’s videos quickly went viral, receiving 9.9 million views on Twitter and 2.3 million views on TikTok.
Republican state lawmakers have introduced 469 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this year in the US, according to an ACLU legislation tracker.
Tennessee became the first state to restrict drag performances in public in March. The law, signed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee, imposes criminal penalties on “a person who engages in an adult cabaret performance on public property” where minors may see it. That same day, the state also banned all gender-affirmation care for transgender youth.
At least 14 other states, including Arkansas, Kentucky, North Dakota and Texas, have introduced bills with similar language.
Bacon and Sedgwick aren’t the only celebrities to decree drag bans. Over the weekend, Lizzo invited drag artists on stage during a concert in Knoxville in a powerful act of defiance against Tennessee’s ban. The state law has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
“In light of recent and tragic events and current events, people on the Internet were telling me, ‘Cancel your shows in Tennessee,’ ‘Don’t go to Tennessee,'” Lizzo said in Knoxville on Friday. “His reason was valid, but why wouldn’t he go to the people who need to hear this message the most? The people who need to feel this release the most? Why not create a safe space in Tennessee where we can celebrate drag artists?
He added, “What the people of Tennessee are doing is giving hope, so thank you so much for standing up for your rights, protecting each other, and holding the people who should be protecting us accountable.”
