Recently, at a bar in Melbourne, at a purported promotional event,
a shirtless/top-hatted/bar-top dwarf was photographed decanting
Jägermeister directly into bargoers’ gaping maws. The bar refused
to comment. Jägermeister promised to investigate. Australian
authorities got mad. The bar’s patrons took up the defense: “It’s
just a bit of fun. Why politicise it?” said one in the Port
Phillip Leader.
The dwarf liquor-promotion concept is responsible for the single
most depressing Bar Exam experience in (OH MY GOD) nearly 150
examinations of bars over (I’M SORRY, LIVER) three years: Cinco de
Mayo girl-on-girl Jell-O wrestling at Tiki Bob’s. Due to space
limitations and PTSD, I didn’t write about it at the time.
On the night in question, I was laboring under the impression that a
team of dwarfs wearing sombreros and ponchos might be doing a liquor
promotion at Tiki Bob’s in Pioneer Square. This was not the case: There
were “Corona girls” in short skirts, an exhortative KISW DJ, a blind
Native American guy drinking Budweiser whom the DJ referred to
repeatedly as “Crazy Horse,” tequila shots, and, eventually, Jell-O
wrestling, but no dwarfs.
The idea of people in swimsuits wrestling in a pool of Jell-O
contains, incontrovertibly, pure joy. That it always has to be women is
demoralizing, but in no way as demoralizing as the actual event at Tiki
Bob’s. No one appeared to enjoy it. At all.
Lights swirled, classic rock played, the DJ exhorted, the crowd
gathered around a low inflatable pool filled with strawberry Jell-O for
the “Rojo Rumble.” The Jell-O was in a liquid state, but
onward.
Two women emerged, both preternaturally buxom and toned, wearing
matching bikinis: ringers, clearly. (The DJ never exhorted anyone to
sign up.) The audience gave a pallid welcome, the Jell-O was entered,
and the “wrestling” began. The women tried not to get their hair
Jell-O-y
while daintily Going Wild: showily, lightly,
dispassionately spanking each other and likewise dry-humping. The
audience looked on passively and silently, as if watching a computer
screen. Some guys robotically snapped camera-phone photos. The DJ
called the wrestlers “babygirls,” made jokes about breast implants, and
(belying his youthful-from-a-distance appearance) exclaimed “Heavens to
Murgatroyd!”
No audience anywhere has ever responded more tepidly to anything. At
the end, four women had wrestled in Jell-O for the purported greater
entertainment good, and no one could be bothered to clap. A
winner was arbitrarily selected, the sham of a sham drew to a close,
and I was unable to stay to talk to any of the participants due to
suicidal/omnicidal ideation.
The American pageant of objectification has reached its natural
conclusion. In Melbourne, at least they’d cheer.