Our friends at the Alberta Public Interest Research Group (APIRG) have a fun fund-raiser coming up in Edmonton on Friday, 8th May. Bare details below. Full details over at APIRG.
[Poster for "Life is a Cabaret"; descriptive details of event below]
Poster art: Craig Campbell
With Toronto Burlesque Pioneers: Skin Tight Outta Sight
and featuring amazing local talent
A little something for everyone!
Burlesque, Belly Dance, Tribal Fusion, Comedy and Drag show.
May 8 2009
Doors: 8:30 pm Show time: 9 pm
New City Suburbs 10081 Jasper Ave, Edmonton
www.newcitycompound.com
Tickets: $20 in advance $25 at the door
COME EARLY: Limited Seating!
I find this poster extremely problematic and while it may be meant as a sort of farcical interpretation of an iconically racist image, I have to wonder at such reclamation for a fundraiser and for anything that is likely aimed at a much more homogenous audience than such a reclamation could/should target.
I have to agree. The image on the poster doesn’t appear to me to twist or ironicize (if that’s not a word, it should be) the old racist trope of pale white woman menaced/seduced by dark quasi-animal male, but simply reproduces it, albeit in a somewhat unusual context I’m thus not too sure what it’s doing on a poster for APIRG, a progressive organization, other than getting attention. “Life is a Cabaret” – you could have Weimar Germany, you could have Liza Minelli, you could have plenty of cool things which don’t repackage tedious old racist images.