Cirque de soleil's sexy show in Vegas fails to be progressive

*the portrayal of a black man in Zumanity -

hyper-sexualized and reduced to an animal.

A few weeks ago, I watched the cirque de soleil show ‘Zumanity’ in Las Vegas.

Zumanity is the sexy show of the troupe’s repertoire. It was naughty, racy and bared skin – in a playful tasteful way. It deserves credit for trying to be open and inclusive of sexual diversity – there was homosexual references, dressing out of narrow prescriptions for appropriate male/ female attire, and ambiguously sexed figures.

Yet despite its seemingly liberal appeal, Zumanity is still stuck in deep- rooted conventional ideas.

For one, the homosexual scenes in the show do not actually support being positive about homosexuality; they are a narrow and sexist representation of homosexuality. The show only depicts lesbian behaviour which seems to cater to the heterosexual male's pleasure.

This reflects the current situation in mainstream society where images of 'lesbian behaviour' is much more prevalent than that of male homosexuality in society.

Women and girls express intimacy with each other much more freely than men or boys do. For example, it is not uncommon to see females hold hands but when males do the same, there is much more public discomfort. In mainstream media and pornography these days, it is not unusual to see images of beautiful women being sexual with each other. It is very rare to see male homosexual images if one does not go looking for them.

I suggest that the reason why mainstream society ‘accepts’ female homosexuality more than male homosexuality is that depictions of female-female sexuality does not really imply homosexuality, and it provides for male pleasure.

Female-female sexuality is trivialised and ‘simplified’ to not being ‘really’ homosexual – it is simply girls having fun. This is seen in the acts that we see these girls engaging in – it is hardly more ‘serious’ than kissing. This unrealistic portrayal of lesbian sexuality is mild enough to be sexually entertaining for men - perhaps a man may like to see two beautiful women kiss but watching them have sex may not be as arousing since in “full- on” or "real" lesbian scenarios, he is not involved in the picture at all - real lesbian women will not be attracted to him.

This realistic “full – on” lesbian images may not be appealing to men also especially if one or both of the two women is ‘butch’ or (conventionally) unattractive. Therefore we see that in society the images of female homosexuality features the media's idea (and hence conventional idea) of the feminine sexy women – the women are always beautiful in a way that feeds the desire of the (mainstream) heterosexual men. Having two ultra feminine gorgeous women kiss and play around entertains the heterosexual man perhaps because it suggests that he gets to have sex with two sexual beautiful women – women who show their sexuality with each other but eventually still need him for the ‘main action’.

That depictions of female- female sexuality at present is mainly for the heterosexual male explains why there are no male homosexual mainstream images – It is not really homosexuality that the media is ‘supporting’. Ironically, it upholds the heterosexual norm, and a rather sexist one at that, because female sexuality is not depicted realistically, and is not seen as being accepted on its own but having to exist with a man, and catering to men as well.

It is apparent that Zumanity still abides by the mainstream societal conventions in this way – beautiful women frolick with each other in the show, but there was not even one scene of two men that suggests male-male sexuality – not even ‘mild’ behaviours like embracing.

Another way in which Zumanity fails in being liberal from conservative/ mainstream expectations is the portrayal of the coloured people. There were two coloured people in the show; the lady fit the stereotype of the uncivilised ‘closer to nature’ black tribal person, and the man was fully depicted as being more animal than human. The lady was wearing ‘tribal clothing’, had her body and face painted, and her dance was wild and raw. The man was reduced completely to an animal. He had horns and a tail, he was on a leash the whole show, always on his knees crawling, and he was the pet of a white person. The show even went as far as to make direct references to him being an animal a few times. For example, when the black man pounced and snarled, a performer said, “ooo… even I have not tried bestiality”.

There exists a widely held idea in society that black people are more sexual, aggressive and less able to control their urges and impulses. Often black people are hyper-sexualised by media. One way in which this is done is the playing up of the sexual appetite and penis size of black men. Implications can be severe. For example, black girls who are raped are less likely to be helped by the law enforcement personnel because officials may consciously or sub-consciously have the mindset that the black girls were promiscuous and hence were ‘asking for it’ (Of course another problem in that is that people do not want girls to be sexually liberal and such girls are deemed ‘promiscuous’ and hence deserve to be raped).

Zumanity failed to step out of this narrow-minded unjust stereotype of black people in their show. It was in fact highly played up, which shocked and disappointed me. I expected more of an internationally acclaimed progressive group.

Watching Zumanity that night was a sobering reminder that society still has a long way to being fair and accepting to homosexuals and black people, as well as being that much less sexist.