This is RT, Putin’s rag, so take that into account, but I can’t find other news sources reporting on it yet:
Long but compelling headline, do admit. If that doesn’t encourage kids to read more books I don’t know what will.
Officials in London’s Redbridge borough were left red-faced after a library event designed to promote reading among kids featured a monkey character in a costume that included dangling fake genitalia and exposed buttocks.
The costume and the actor wearing it came from Mandinga Arts, a troupe of street performers based in Clapham South that has “a distinctive style bringing together live music, carnival, street costume, puppetry and dance, drawing on diverse influences from Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa,” according to its website. The well-endowed monkey was part of one of the group’s walkabout acts.
“bringing together live music, carnival, street costume, puppetry and dance“…and dildos and bare bums. Why so shy about the star attraction?
Redbridge Libraries acknowledged the lapse in judgement and apologized for hosting the performance, but shifted the blame onto the charity Vision. It was they, rather than the borough council, who were responsible for organizing the event, the statement said.
The mischievous rainbow-coloured creature was promoting the Summer Reading Challenge, a campaign encouraging literacy and reading during the summer holidays among children aged between four and 11 years.
The mischievous rainbow-coloured creature with the flapping dildo and naked bum. “Mischief” is one word for it I guess.
Comments
8 responses to “Left red-faced”
More than just Monkey is questionable in his behaviour. Here’s a description of another of their “walkabout” costume characters:
Link to site:
https://www.mandingaarts.co.uk/walkabouts.html
The design of the bird costumes is very phallic. More than is necessary, I believe. There are other ways of constructing a character like that that would have resulted in something more bird-like, and less like a big dick longing for a “gentle stroke.”
Hang about. The website has changed since last night! There was a “gallery” link, tons of photos. I remember the second or third photo was a group shot, with something phallic looking at the back which I half noticed, but then forgot about because I was focused on finding the monkey.
YNNB, I don’t know if the text you quoted is supposed to be from the page you linked to – it’s not there now – but are the “Love birds” those costumes where the performer is the “body” and the “head and neck” literally come from his crotch? Or is this a third atrocity? First photo from Rain or Shine Festival.
https://www.mandingaarts.co.uk/recent-work.html
Yes, my text was quoted from e “Golden Lovebirds” part of a page that now indicates 404 Error. The whole site is now coming up 404. I guess somebody hit the panic button, and is having a bit of a rethink, having discovered that “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” is not true after all.
My original link went to a page that had this picture (amongst others, the other images being somewhat less blatantly dickish looking):
https://twitter.com/ThoughtsAbStuff/status/1414199971235213313
not Bruce, it doesn’t get much more blatant than that…unless you actually wear a giant phallus costume.
I wonder what the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse and Co-Prophet of the End Times would think about this group of “artists”? He’s the grandfatherly Catholic loon who found phalluses everywhere at the new Denver International Airport.
http://www.jnordstrom.ca/blog-ideas-and-updates/bill-tapley-third-eagle-of-the-apocalypse-and-co-prophet-of-the-end-times
Ah, yes. That’s marketing. “Come and stroke my giant bird-shaped penis, little girl”.
While I do think that kids need to understand a bit about sex, gradually more as their capacity for understanding grows, I don’t think that this part is really anything that they should see. Explain the horses in the pasture when they ask what is going on, and even explain how the bees cross pollinate flowers and trees. But, now, these kinds of costumes spell “grooming” and take it beyond even what furries do in the dark.
Michael:
Yes, it’s about eroding boundaries. Some boundaries need to be eroded because they’re unfair. Others exist to guard against predators. Conflating and/or confusing the two is what grooming is