Thursday, September 2, 2004

Ladylike NYC Billionaire This photographer at fotolog has captured a shot that could easily have been part of our Dallas, Texas L.A.W. fashion show. Although I have to say that the people who joined us at that 1984 Republican convention fashion show event had the most wrinkled, sad thrift store attire I'd ever seen. After the event a pregnant protester (who wore a tattered second-hand wedding dress) gave us a gift and told me her story. Her boyfriend left her after six months of pregnancy, and she was destitute. She ended up with a part time job in a Bible shop, and for the first time became aware of how evil the religious right wing politicos were, by observing and serving them. She wanted to help, and donated a top of the line preacher's concordance Bible for us to use in sharpening our religious parody. I still have it. We put it to use in preparing our stage shows for the next six years, for the orbiting Prayer Wars faith-based defense initiative, and quotations for Pat Robberman, a new Jaime Walker character, and his scripture quote-mangling wife Dodie, played by Sharon Harrington. 8:32:16 AM     comment []

In 1984, for Reagan's second coronation, we took Ladies Against Women to Dallas, Texas. By most any standarrd, the highlight of our trip was our bake sale for the deficit, held outside the Thursday morning Ronald Reagan prayer breakfast at the local stadium. This photo of Virginia Cholesterol and Mrs. T. Bill Banks was taken by one of the people we contacted and connected with in Dallas, "Rev. Ivan Stang" of the church of the subgenius. We attemped to sell dingdongs to the conservatives for $7 billion or more each, and some of them smiled until we told them the prices. We repeatedly sprayed the twinkies with lysol "to ensure shelf-life." (Later in our stage show we took to making twinkies "from scratch" out of coolwhip and packaged sponge cake, and so the lysol became emblematic of artifciality and additives. Interesting to see that we included it even when we bought our twinkies and hoho's pre-fab.) Even with "Ban the Poor" signs, thrift store clothes and pink Ladyfesto handouts, some of them needed to hear a series of our gags before they realized we were not on their side. It was a bizarre performance context, with an audience of two reporters, trying not to laugh, and taping the interactions, with dozens of unwitting conservative delegates as extras in the scene. Looking at events like that as protest or theater, I have to honestly admit that without the coverage -- the witness by our pal with the camera and the several reporters who happened upon us -- it would have been self-indulgent ritual. Perhaps satisfying to my fellow lady in the scene and to myself in a surreal way, but not political, satirical, though-provoking or useful. Satire has to have an audience with an awareness of irony, outrage and absurdity. My long-considered theory is that without that, with only the performer (or author) knowing it is meant to be humorous, it's only a practical joke, not anything that can inform or illuminate. We were very lucky to strike a chord with many media people who passed along our best quips, and to be able to perform our stage shows for audiences who got the jokes. I think those two contexts made it the street, stage and media performances worth it. I also think that traditional media is in many ways unable to cover demonstations as they once could. From the Dallas Morning News, 8-24-1984, not online: The ladies... have been in Dallas since Saturday, staging elaborate put-ons to counter Republican events. On Monday, they held a "Real Republican Fashion Show" on the sidewalk in front of the Fairmont Hotel, where, inside, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum was doing the same. On Tuesday, they held a "Platform Pep Rally," saying they agree wholeheatedly with the GOP's stand against the Equal Rights Amendment ("Suffering, not suffrage"). 12:49:16 AM     comment []