Thank god for the Swedes (and for Max Martin in particular)

I don't even know where to begin. There's no way I can do justice to the glory that was last night.

So every Sunday, there's a "black-blanc-beur" gay dance party at Le Redlight, a club under the Montparnasse Tower. The name of the party comes from an urban slang revalorization of the old "bleu-blanc-rouge" of the French flag, but to reflect the "white-arab-black" make-up of French society. The term BBB itself reached the height of popularity in 1998 when the ethnically diverse French soccer team won the world cup and everyone here thought it was the dawning of a new area of openness to diversity in French society. Too bad things didn't turn out quite as planned, particularly when the dream team of soccer failed to get past the first round in 2002 and Le Pen made it to the second round of the presidential elections. But all that aside: as Niamh observed, she's never seen so many gorgeous men in one place in her life. haha. Here's a poster of the event, to give you an idea:


I've been meaning to get to it for weeks, but the timing hasn't been right. Finally, when Mehammed told me that this week's theme was Britney, I knew it had to happen. And I knew Bryan had to be there. As Bryan said, "I'm home!"

Bryan and I got there before the others:


Then we were joined by Mehammed, who introduced us to his friend Nabil. This picture is so hot I can't stand it:
There were two highlights of the evening. The first is the line dance they do every week, which is SUPER complicated. This is not your macarena or electric slide. There's in fact very little repetition, so it's not like you just learn 10 steps or whatever and are done. Oh no, this is like a good 10 minutes of choreography, I'm not kidding. It's set to a Brazilian type of music, and it's nothing short of amazing. Particularly when you've got the drag queens gettin' down too:


As Bryan said, "Gay line dancing, could my life GET any better?"

As if that weren't enough, there's also a show near the end. After a few fairly routine (but impressive) dance numbers, we got to the moment that quite literally took my breath away with its sheer political incorrectness. I mean, I've seen some pretty staggering moments of political incorrectness in this country, and I never know what to make of it. Part of me is aware of the fact that I'm an overly sensitive American who has been indoctrinated by anglo-saxon society that there are certain things you just don't say. And I realize that it's not always the most productive attitude. However, the fact remains that there are indeed things you JUST DON'T SAY. Or DO, in this case.

Like, for example, having the black guy do the dance to "I'm a slave 4U" while dressed in bondage. Yeah, you read that right. And to prove it I even have a picture:


Can you imagine??? Bryan and I literally had our hands covering our mouths, as our jaws were on the floor. And the crowd LOVED it. I'd like to give the whole organization credit for doing it ironically (in the sense of recuperating the stereotype and manipulating it in their own ways), but I'm honestly not sure that was the case. There's a clear subversion going on, it's not like it was for an audience of primarily white people or anything. So it's perhaps not as bad as it could seem. You certainly have to give them credit for pushing the right buttons. In a way I was impressed. But still. Let's get back to the fact that it was a black guy, dancing in bondage, to Britney's slave song. It was a serious show, they were getting down to the moves. I couldn't quite find the humor in it, which left me wondering whether they were just doing it because that's the kind of thing they can get away with here, or whether they were doing it because they were in on the joke. I think it would have perhaps been different if the tone were lighter or something, but yeah, it wasn't made all that clear that this was a subversive reclaiming or anything. Wow. My mind is still blown.

In any case, that was basically the best night of my life in Paris. I haven't had a voice for a week, and I clearly just destroyed it for another week, with all the singing we did. Yesterday I attended my research seminar and had to make a brief presentation. I had a bit of trouble with my voice for the big presentation last Monday, and my voice was decidedly worse yesterday. Cnce I finished, the prof was like, "man, that's some cold you have come down with!" I was sitting there like, "indeed...or some dance party I attended last night!" hahahaha. Didn't think that was worth sharing with the rest of the group, for the sake of my credibility :-)

In any case, certainly no regrets!