Race + Burlesque: Dita Von Teese Dons Yellowface

The show program says of the act:  ‘The Opium Den act is …inspired by her longtime fascination with the epic Chinese films of director Yimou Zhang. …the Opium Den show was created with her desire to build a timeless burlesque act of mysterious and fetishistic exoticism’.

CHC: I don’t think you’ll be hearing back via written communique. You may have some interesting conversations at Burlesque Hall of Fame [this weekend] as Dita is a board member.

SP: [Here are some of the reactions to those attending the show]–

One performer said, “I have read comments from other Chinese performers who were also offended. It was definitely a two-dimensional portrayal, and I was personally shocked when watching it because of the music she used, which is based on the most cliche Chinese’ melody that has been used in a lot of openly racist scenes in movies.”

Candy Apples commented:

‘My sister and mom were stunned as well. The first thing that came to my mind was the fact that I was surrounded by a very large group of Chinese exchange students, who all had their mouths open and were just as stunned as I was. The girl next to me leaned over and said, “We don’t smoke opium and dress like that! Is that what you think we do?!” and they all began whispering amongst themselves.

I understand her concept behind the piece and I highly doubt she meant to offend. But she did offend. She offended not only three Romani women, but she offended an entire group of young people who just came from the country that she was stereotyping.

To me that was just as offensive as if she had came out onstage dressed as a gypsy and began to read fortunes, cast spells or curses, and steal.

This is just my opinion, though.’

AP: Either one of you can comment on this: as a burlesquer of color stated on burlesque cohort (and the R’s other fave burlesque expert) Creatrix Tiara’s Facebook forum for burlesquers of color/those striving to be anti-oppressive burly-q-ers  that  “being in burlesque ‘community’  is very much about waiting for the ignorance to happen.” It does feels like, to me, we’re holding our collective breath and waiting for the fuckery to happen. Thoughts?

CHC: It does weighs on me, you know it’s coming, some kind of way onstage or off. There are so many factors at play. Though the economics of rank and file burlesque are humble the competitive energy is olympiad, people use whatever they got or feel they need to advance their ambitions.

SP: I can’t say that I ever ‘held my breath waiting for the fuckery to happen.’ But I do know that being human, living in the society we live in, with the media that we have–we are all going to step in it at one point or another. We have to learn to talk about it constructively.

AP: Chicava, I want to bring you into this because of your work as creative director of Brown Girls Burlesque. You all don’t seem to be holding your breath. In fact, BGB seems to be a pushback against this constant fuckery…

Brown Girls Burlesque. Courtesy: Time Out NYC

CHC: Honestly BGB isn’t as aggressive as a pushback, we just do us. Now we did get pushback when we first began from folks on the NYC scene. There was a lack of understanding as to why we felt isolated to such an extent that we needed to start a troupe devoted to showcasing brown women. But what in fact happened in the think tank that began BGB was a specific approach to shows that isn’t about ethnicity.  It just happens that our subject matter may be ethnically specific or expressive–

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