Limbo

Are we overdue for a dose of Bryan Ferry’s signature glamour? Always. Ferry delivers that languorous yet hot under the collar romantic longing he’s so known for. The video is pure elegant, sexy glamour circa 1987, if you can ignore that it’s also kind of vaguely racist. I get that he’s trying to celebrate the style of Parisian cabaret, the Crazy Horse and Moulin Rouge scene so famous for its rhinestones and feathers and decadence. There’s even an homage to Josephine Baker, one of the patron saints of all things cabaret. We all know that those shows, that culture, was all about eroticizing racial stereotypes, hence lithe young women of color clad in revealing ‘tribal’ outfits. Although it should be said that  for African-Americans like Baker, who came to Paris to escape the overwhelming racism faced in the United States, playing into the sexy banana-skirt stereotypes was preferable to the roles of scullery maid, slave or Mammy that were all Hollywood had to offer. At least in Paris an uninhibited dance like Baker was celebrated as a sex symbol and fashion icon, although still distinctly exotic and ‘othered’  by stereotype. But all that was in the 1920’s. Still celebrating and reusing those images well into the 80’s is questionable judgement at best. Heck, we’re still referencing Josephine Baker today, sometimes respectfully, usually in the tone-deaf racial-fetish way we always have. The point is, this video is racist, although in an old fashioned style that probably passed for harmless at the time.