Saturday, February 9, 2008

O'reilly Factor's Laura Ingraham Hosts SWAS Organizer

The O'reilly Factor, with Laura Ingraham subbing for Bill O'reilly, did a short segment on the Sex Workers Art Show involving SWAS organizer Annie Oakley. Ingraham capably pointed out the absurdity of the show, but regrettably glossed over the astounding hypocrisy of having this event at Duke. As expected, Oakley managed to dig herself into some holes, and even lied about her own show claiming four of the eight performers did nothing but read from literature they had written. Only two did.

It sounds as though Oakley also said "it's not a transvestite" in reference to the last performer who held a lit sparkler in his bottom, as depicted in a previous post. We're simply not sure what to make of that claim.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, Annie Oakley was correct; four people did read their stories--while only two people obviously read pieces from paper (Lorelei Lee and Chris Kraus), The World Famous BOB and Kirk Read also told their own stories in addition to a more physical performance (Bob's piece about her past prefacing a short dance, while Kirk's story about CJ was occasionally illustrated by a new pair of underwear). In fact, the personal stories of the sex workers underlined most of the acts--Erin Markey told her story about how she became a stripper and Keva Lee told a story about how she becomes a fetish object to the men she dominates.

Ingram only managed to talk over her opponent "capably," preventing any sort of real understanding of the show's intentions--she focused on the outward form of the performance without allowing any sort of talk of its meaning, which obviously was against her own agenda. If she wanted to argue against it, fine; but she should have allowed Annie to explain the show's intention and then tried to attack that, instead of dehumanizing the performers by focusing on their actions (ignoring their words) and turning them into "just more strippers."

Ethical Duke said...

Oakley was not correct. She stated "four of the eight performers did nothing but read pieces that they had written." As you can see from the video, that is simply incorrect.

As for the rest, you are entitled to your opinion. Naturally we would have preferred a debate or contrasting opinions shown by having our President, Ken Larrey, on the show as well, instead of Ingraham talking over Oakley as you said.

Jim in San Diego said...

If the Duke faculty can put on a sex show with paid strippers in the name of cultural diversity with the approval of the administration, why can't athletes?

Just asking.

Jim Peterson

Anonymous said...

Give me my diploma so I can get the hell out of Duke.