Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Street satire in the 80's -- stumping for the unconceived consumer-citizens Among the opportunities for promoting the Ladies Against Women causes were stage performances at rallies and demonstrations, "guest disruptions" where we were invited to barge in and interrupt a conference or rally, street actions including those we called ourselves, benefit performances of our stage show for groups we liked, club bookings and self-produced runs of our stage show for our own support, and to get critical reviews, probably something else I can't remember, birthday parties and the like, and ... parades! My favorites off the top of my head were San Francisco Gay Freedom Day (before it became the tamer "Pride" parade), Doo-Dah in Pasadena, Saint Stupid's day, All Species Parade, and How Berkeley Can You Be. Parades are different in that the political message has to be very fast and fun, and there is no time to establish context. Marching in parades allowed us to make up good cheers we could use in other situations, and because parades are kind of boring, they are great for improving choreography. Parade steps we refined on the hoof included: Keep our nation on the track, one step forward, three steps back (with a little cha cha kind of action that could be done in place or moving forward) Push us back, push us back, waaaaay back (with backwards action) What do we want? NOTHING When do we want it? NOW and to go with the sperms rights image, Blow your whistle! (TWEET) Toot your horn! (TWEET) We love the people Until they're born! Less ladylike, but fitting for some situations: Your bosses, united, will never be unseated. If you go back to the first post and read forward you'll find other cheers, chants and tactics between my random fits of nostalgia. 10:00:03 PM     comment []

Sometimes the Ladies Against Women came in from the streets While we were a thriving ficticious mass movement with many active if erratic chapters, the group had been created by a performing group. So we continued to perform a series of shows that mutated and transformed based on the street feedback and the improv interludes each night. Twice we booked ourselves into NYC tours including club gigs and benefit shows or invited "guest disruptions" in larger halls, based on good theater press. We played large towns and small, and did hundreds of radio interviews tied to the touring. That media coverage did at least as much to get our word out as did coverage of any classic demonstrations. And the feedback in a club setting is all about listening to the kind of laugh as well as the timing. It's palpable, intimate, intelligent and fun. Then afterwards you can talk with audience members. It was intense, sometimes exhausting, but very rewarding. 8:29:36 AM     comment []

Street satire: we put out the call, and these ladies joined us in greeting Phyllis Schlafly Phyllis was the archetype for the anti-feminists we satirized, so she must have seen ad hoc Ladies Against Women groups outside her speaking engagements dozens or even hundreds of times. If we were the only notice she was getting I would have thought we should forget it and let her lapse into obscurity, but there were generally straight-ahead women's groups protesting, so any Ladies Against Women contingent was largely playing to the activists. But we knew Phyllis knew about us, because often costumed Ladies went into the speeches and debates, and fanned themselves, tsk-tsked use of words like "lesbian" or "work," and applauded randomly or on cue when she used the word "family". In August, 1985, an AP writer named Sharon L. Jones wrote an article about the group, and when she interviewed us she asked what Phyllis thought of these demontrations. We told her we didn't know, but her organization was the Eagle Forum in Illinois, and perhaps she'd be willing to say. So the reporter called her up, and got this quote: "They made idiots of themselves," Mrs. Schlafly said. "Nobody knew what they were trying to say. They dressed up foolishly and behaved in a childish way. If they had a point, no one got it." We were delighted, and used the quote on posters along with good press from theater critics for several years. The only unfortunate aspect was that people tended to think the quote was made up. Some things are just too good to be true. And now next time Schlafly googles herself, here she'll be. Maybe we'll get a new quote. 12:02:35 AM     comment []