Forum: 

263 Images from the Sin City military theme party and a note about some of the costumes

Atratus's picture
Submitted by Atratus on
[ view image in gallery ]
Sin City
Military Theme
Club 23 West
2010-11-27
Two hundred sixty three photos from the Sin City military theme party. [ click image to view ] And a note about some of the costumes...
Fascist forms are recurring theme when it comes to military fetish wear. While I can understand that I remain conflicted and uncomfortable with it. World War II is not remote for me. I have known people who were in Nazi concentration camps and both my parents experienced the Nazis first hand: my father as a teenager that lied about his age and fought the Nazis in Africa, the Italian fascists in Italy, and survived Dieppe; and my mother as a pre-teen/teenager in Nazi occupied Belgium who lived through things like having most of her friends killed by V-bombs and smuggling food from Holland. Their experiences shaped how I was raised. One the other hand, I can understand the appeal of the uniforms - they were very consciously designed to be dashing, intimidating, and even sexy - and even through it isn't my thing, I see how they function as a fetish device to symbolize authority. I can also understand and even condone the comedic use of fascist imagery - nothing undermines fascist authority better than mocking it and making it ridiculous. It's heinous to make light of the victims of totalitarian and fascist regimes, but when it comes to the perpetrators far better, in my opinion, to find them sort of thing to mock, make absurd, and laugh at than something to take seriously. So, yes, there are a few swastikas in the gallery this time but only as costume divorced from the political meaning. If I had thought that any of them were being worn with the political meaning even slightly intact I wouldn't have let the person stay in the club, let alone take their picture and post it here.

I agree also. My family was also deeply affected by WWII. My Dutch grandfather told me about grass soup and the covert operations of chiseling the asphalt pathways in the parks so they could burn the tar in it for heat/light. My Mother (who was born in 1949 in Germany) told me that already as a young child they were forced to watch the horrid film documentation of how concentration camp victims were processed and disposed of. She was brought up to feel bad because she was born German. Even growing up here in Canada there was a lot of prejudism directed at me and my family because of my/our german heritage. So long story short, seeing a swastika makes my stomache curdle, but like you, I accept the fact that most people are wearing them simply as a costume without political meaning...