The council leader has come out and condemned this performance as well he might as it has brought forth condemnation not just from ordinary Britons and by the leader of Redbridge’s Conservatives, but also from the Muslim community which is a very important voting demographic for Labour.Ī Muslim parents group, which has been active in trying to counter what they see is inappropriate lessons on relationships and sex in Redbridge’s schools has decided to exploit the disgust felt by many at the ‘dildo arse monkey’ performance. This is quite possible as councillors, even high level ones, may not be aware of the minutiae of details of what individual departments such as libraries are up to. The leader of the Labour council of Redbridge appears to have been unaware of the activities of this dance troupe until after the public furore started.
It would be interesting to know how and why this was commissioned especially as Redbridge Libraries allegedly had had their fingers burned previously over the issue of Drag Queen Story Time, an event listed on the Libraries Connected site, which caused such an outcry that Redbridge Libraries removed the video of the event from You Tube.
Now I’m not accusing Redbridge Libraries of being corrupt in this way but I do wonder whether there were less checks than were needed on the content of the Redbridge dancer’s performance or whether they were chosen in the first place, because low to mid level council officers were their mates? More may come out about this aspect of this furore as time goes on. There was lots of mutual backscratching by artists and arts groups and grants allegedly being given by councils to art providers not because of the quality of the artists, but by what contacts in the publicly funded arts field the artists had. At this point I’d like to add that as someone who worked in a small capacity for public arts groups in the late 1990’s in East London I observed that the arts scene in the area was particularly incestuous. However it could equally be the case that staff at Redbridge Libraries naively thought that the ‘dildo arse monkey’ costume might have been judged differently by the public from how it was. This may well be correct and this could be a case of the library management not doing proper checks of who and what they were hiring. The council officers at Redbridge libraries who hired the dancers claim that they had no idea that the costumes that would be worn would feature fake phalluses and fake bare bum cheeks. Unfortunately by displaying dancers dressed in such costumes in the street and in public libraries, the element of informed consent is removed, people and their children end up seeing stuff that they did not consent to see. In a temple or a theatre or a club, there is an element of informed consent on the part of those who view what is put in front of them, people have made a conscious decision to be in an environment where they might see people dressed in costumes that might not be acceptable elsewhere. The dancers in these costumes were not confined to either the temple or the home as the images of the above-mentioned deities are, but were out on the streets and in the public libraries of Redbridge. Now I admit that such costumes might be acceptable in some cultures and indeed it’s well known that some cultures, such as the Hindus and the Japanese have deities that have been depicted with large and prominent phalluses, but these ‘rainbow butt monkey’ costumes are less acceptable in the UK and especially around children. If you want more information about the ‘rainbow butt monkey’ incident and about how many people are angry about the use of costumes unacceptable in the presence of children, then may I suggest that you take a look at the posts by Ambush Predator and The Quartering as they are both very enlightening.
The hiring of this dance troupe, which appears to have been done by council officers rather than councillors themselves, has caused an absolute shitstorm and in my view rightly so.
Now I have nothing against costumes like this being used in an adult setting such as a club or a theatre, this would be an acceptable use of such costumes, but it strikes me as it has struck others, that such outfits were not suitable for any environment where children were present or likely to be present. One of the dancers was dressed as a rainbow monkey but with very prominent and very visible false male genitalia and a false bare bottom. These costumed characters were present in both libraries and on the street in the London Borough of Redbridge. The main criticisms of this dance troupe were that they were clad in costumes that many of us believe were inappropriate. Many readers by now will have become aware of the recent incident in Redbridge where the use of a dance troupe to encourage children to read has caused a massive furore.
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