The police escort led us to go the opposite direction in the other lane and approach the performance hall from the other side, while the rest of the traffic jam waited for the disturbance to clear. Finally, I parked and squeezed Vicki’s hand, and she smiled.
“Here we go,” she said. “Ready to see some nakedness?”
“Not this kind,” I mumbled.
We got out of the car and approached the steps to the Performing Arts Hall. If the scene down the block was bad, the scene on the steps was worse. There must have been close to a hundred protestors, which surprised me in a town like this.
“Geez,” I told Vicki, “I’m from here. We’re not like this.”
“Apparently we are now,” she said as she checked her phone. “AJ’s just now leaving.”
“Good for her,” I muttered. “Maybe she’ll miss all this.”
Two news vans pulled up and reporters rushed out carrying cameras and boom mics. Bystanders filled the sidewalks unapologetically filming on their phones and digital cameras.
We snaked through the filming crowds and neared the protest groups. I dodged a waving sign that said in large orange letters, Arizona’s Hot, But Hell is Hotter. The groups got louder once they saw the reporters.
From what I could tell, there were two groups. Lining one side of the steps were the verifiable religious nuts, from whom I gathered believed that Jesus didn’t believe in nakedness.
Even Adam and Eve Covered Their Nakedness read one sign, Sexual Deviants Will Have Their Place in the Lake of Fire, read another. “No, no, sinful art has got to go,” they chanted as a reporter set up shop in front of them.
On the other side, were the just-as-nutty feminists. I recognized the red faced woman that had almost attacked my car. She was decked out in a full cheetah ensemble, head to toe, cap, blouse, leggings and dress coat. All she was missing were costume ears.
She now yelled in a shrill voice, “Women, you deserve better than this!” Someone stuck a handheld recorder in her face, and she got more excited. “You don’t have to degrade yourself for the sake of art! Art comes from what’s between your ears, not what’s between your legs!”
I couldn’t escape the irony that she wanted to argue about women being dehumanized, yet she wanted to dress up like a jungle animal. Her camp had more signs of Porn Hurts Women, and You Are More than Your Body. They lined the steps on either side, so we had to walk the gauntlet between the two camps and listen to their yelling. In front of us were two middle aged men, and the angry cheetah lady stuck her phone in one of their faces.
“I’m filming you go into this den of whores,” she yelled. He shot her a middle finger and tried to push her phone out of his way, which only encouraged her. “What’s your name, sir, what’s your name? You don’t want to tell me your name? You don’t want to stand up for your choices, huh? Whatcha packing in there, big man, that you aren’t man enough to stand up for what you do and where you spend your leisure time? See this?”
He tried to walk on, but she followed him. “I’ve got this saved, and I’m posting it to social media so that everyone can see that you went inside this event to gawk at naked women. We’ll find out your name, too, and tag you in it. We’ll find out. Don’t you worry about that!”
“It’s art, you morons,” the guy muttered.
I shook my head. Don’t even try, dude, don’t even try.
“Oh, art, huh? This is what you call art?” the cheetah lady shrieked. “Degrading and objectifying women? Do you know that pornography is what feeds human trafficking? How do you know the actors in this show aren’t enslaved?”
“How do you know any of them are enslaved?” the guy stopped and turned to her in agitation.
His tirade effectively stopped foot traffic into the building, and created a crowd on the steps that flowed down onto the sidewalk below. Cell phone videos dotted the steps and sidewalk like digital votives at a funeral vigil.
I ducked as a news reporter turned his focus on the exchange between the two parties. Vicki and I stood in the crowd, sandwiched between the two groups, filmed at every angle.
“Isn’t the minimum wage fry cook at McDonald’s enslaved in a sense?” the guy continued. “I mean, really, aren’t we all slaves to capitalism? It’s just art, lady, don’t get your panties in a wad.”
Some people clapped at the insult, and there were a few cheers.
“Oh,” she yelled and shook a rigid finger in his face, “How dare you discuss my undergarments! You don’t have that right! You don’t have that right!”
“You flatter yourself,” he said. “No man in America wants to even think about what’s in your undergarments. Feminazi bush that hadn’t been trimmed since the eighties.”
The crowd erupted into a massive cheer, and the angry lady exploded and jumped over the railing to attack the man. The news camera man shoved his way through the crowd and crouched down to get a good shot.
The woman’s compatriots tried to restrain her, while one of the religious nuts yelled, “You know what another culture thought of as art? The Romans called art sacrificing enemies of state to lions and watching it as entertainment. Would you watch that?”
The guy laughed. “It was the Christians they sacrificed, and yes, I would watch if you were one of them. Pay per view, buddy. Pay per view.”
The religious nuts oohhed in fake compassion at the burn. “That’s okay, sir. That’s okay. You’ll find the truth one day. I just hope it’s not too late before you do.”
The cheetah lady had been restrained now, and was trying to regain her
