Moulin Rouge Las Vegas
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Night as Commons: Minor Architecture and Dayfaring Citizens NIGHT: INSURGENCIES (Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2000). 59 See Gilbert Simondon, “The Genesis of the Individual,” in Incorporations, ed. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Moulin Rouge Kwinter (New York: Zone Books, 1992), 297–319. 60 See Keller Easterling’s analysis of François Jullien’s The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy Las Vegas: Nightlife in China (New York: Zone Books, 1995), in Cognitive Architecture: From Bio–Politics to Noo–politics, ed. Deborah Hauptmann and Warren Neidich (Rotterdam: 010 Architecture and Publishers, 2010), 250–265. 61 See Easterling, IIRS, where she notes that “text and code are not the only mediums of information. Information is immanent in the relative the Struggle positions and potentials of heavy, material spatial arrangements—in the physical matter, whether or not it is digitally enhanced.” for Civil Rights Kurt Kraler In 1951, world-renowned American- born, Paris-based performer Josephine Baker The Moulin Rouge hotel and casino in Las defied American segregation laws at the Vegas significantly advanced the struggle El Rancho Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip by for civil rights for Black Americans, building demanding that Black patrons be permitted upon a liberal optimism that had attracted into the casino’s theatre to watch her show. several Black American artists and performers Baker remained on stage, refusing to perform, to Paris decades earlier. The Jazz Age in until all Black ticket-holders had been granted Paris and the Harlem Renaissance in New entrance to the theatre and seated amongst York during the interwar years marked a their white counterparts. At a time when period of emancipation for Black entertainers discriminatory Jim Crow laws dominated much amid festering racist resentment in the of American public life, Baker’s contract boldly United States. In order to understand the stipulated that she would only perform for crucial role nightlife architecture played in integrated audiences, a seemingly impossible facilitating social change during the civil feat, particularly in Las Vegas, described by rights movement, we will first examine the Sarann Knight-Preddy (the first Black casino- increased social mobility gained by African- owner) as the “Mississippi of the West.” A American women in Paris as a precursor to the large share of the population in Las Vegas history of Black people accessing education, was comprised of poor southern whites who gainful employment, and adequate housing had moved to the region for well-paying in Las Vegas. Several key events defined the construction jobs at the nearby Hoover Dam, struggle for civil rights, leading to the end of bringing with them entrenched racist views. segregation in the region, in which the now- Prior to her performance at the El demolished Moulin Rouge building played a Rancho, Baker had achieved widespread large role. success in Paris. She arrived in France with 70 SCAPEGOAT 10 71 Moulin Rouge Las Vegas ... NIGHT: INSURGENCIES a New York performance troupe, and had control that they would not have been of French and American traditions, the and tranquility through “some sort of class a highly anticipated debut at the all-Black afforded had they remained in America. Simply Black community in Paris has suggested compromise between capital and labour” musical La revue nègre at the Théâtre des put, Paris was “seductive with its lack of racial the possibility of communal practices following World War II.8 Stemming from Champs-Élysées in 1925. As the show’s animus” and offered “freedom, opportunity, emphasizing cultural affinities but not Roosevelt’s New Deal, which granted increased breakout star, Baker captured the French and acceptance”—despite the problematic based upon racial exclusion.6 power to labour unions and generated a variety erotic imagination and reveled in the sexual exploitation of Black bodies.4 of welfare systems, regulatory constraints liberation that had not yet occurred in In addition, a vital support network The thriving community of expatriates and were implemented on market processes to America. In 1927, Baker memorably starred in formed within the growing community of general acceptance Baker had enjoyed in Paris ensure widespread benefit. This system initially Folies du jour, in which she donned a banana Black female expatriates, largely centred were largely absent in the United States upon yielded high-rates of economic growth in belt in a “danse sauvage.” She later reminisced around nightclub-owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith. her return in 1951. Several other prominent the years after 1945, and was responsible for that freedom in Paris was “creative, social, and Proprietor of several popular nightspots Black entertainers, including Eartha Kitt, Lena producing a large and prosperous middle class sexual,” whereas “[i]n America, black women in Paris’s Montmartre district in the early Horne, and Sammy Davis Jr., also encountered in the United States9. However, a large number were corseted, policed—and policed one twentieth century, Bricktop facilitated an blatant discrimination in Las Vegas well into of these opportunities and protections were another and themselves.”1 informal community hub that she described the 1950s. Even though they were permitted disproportionately distributed to white people, After a string of shows across Europe as a “combination maildrop, bank, rehearsal to perform on the Strip, they were barred as people of colour were largely excluded and a series of films, Baker returned to the hall, clubhouse—even a neighbourhood bar.”5 from staying at the very hotels they performed from positions of power. Segregation laws U.S. for a tour in 1951. She encountered Bricktop was also instrumental in accom- in. Black entertainers were forced to stay in maintained the hierarchies of power that had an America that was steeped in Jim Crow modating Josephine Baker in Paris, playing rooming houses in the city’s predominantly been established in the United States since segregation laws, a stark contrast to the close friend and mentor to the young African-American neighbourhood of Westside, its early settlement. Initially enforced only in life she had built in France. Tracy Denean performer, connecting her to an established located north of the Strip close to the historic schools and public transportation, segregation Sharpley-Whiting describes the difference in network of cultural creators, thus ensuring downtown. This changed in 1955, when the laws later dominated other public spaces discrimination that Baker would have likely the continued success of her career. Historian Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino opened its like parks, pools, cemeteries, theatres, and encountered at the time: “Racism American- Tyler Stovall emphasizes the importance of this doors, introducing hotel accommodations restaurants. style was different, pitiless, uncivilized, nakedly community for African Americans in Paris: and spectacular stage shows for integrated As geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore abusive; its bare-knuckled methods lacked [T]he experience of community was audiences. notes, racism is the outcome of the “fatal in rhetoric and practice the paternalism of la fundamental to the history of Black By then Nevada had already garnered coupling” of power and difference, with mission civilisatrice, which, from the French Americans in the French capital. Blacks a reputation for looser social mores and a the imposition of difference by a ruling perspective, possessed a surfeit of goodwill did not come to Paris as isolated tendency for hedonism, with the legalization master class following racial lines.10 With and intentions.”2 But the success Baker individuals but generally with the of convenient “quickie” divorces along oppression occurring through alienation, the enjoyed in Europe was predicated upon the encouragement and assistance of with a widespread loosening of societal imposition of racial difference would maintain fetishization of the black female body at a African Americans already there. Once taboos surrounding gambling. During this established hierarchies of power during a time when non-Western forms of art had in Paris they were able to participate period, religious institutions ceased to label time of tremendous social upheaval following gained increasing prominence. Becoming the in a rich community life with its own gambling a sin, often resorting to bingo and the Second World War. Segregation laws and muse of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, institutions, traditions, and rituals. lottery fundraisers in order to compensate discriminatory urban policy inscribed this racist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Christian Dior, she Moreover, the creation of an expatriate for declining congregation attendance.7 differentiation into physical space, becoming was the subject of the white male gaze in Black community played a vital role in Additionally, the popularity of unaffiliated particularly evident with the confinement of an “enabling violation” which granted her easing the pangs of exile. Many blacks wedding chapels along the Strip from the African Americans to the Westside. This was increased social mobility within Parisian in Paris rejoiced in their escape from 1940s onward offered a particular freedom further reinforced by white residents who society. This notion of an “enabling violation,” the United States but at the same from restrictive traditions imposed by religious added restrictive covenants to property deeds, introduced by post-colonial scholar Gayatri