page 15
Drag show
continued from cover
The Mock Trial Band were typically skilled,
and they deserve our compliments, even if Mike
Sheps spent a significant portion of the night
asking people to touch his chest. Nonetheless,
MTB was not involved in all of the night’s performances. Sileny Chamorro threw down a remix of
a timeless Sir Mix-a-Lot track entitled “Baby Got
(Respect) Back”. Better than the original, judging from the reaction of the audience. In my experience, it is an easy thing to make an unfiltered
political statement, but its effectiveness fades. On
the other hand, through some unfathomable quirk
of human perception, subtly placing your statement behind the veneer of satire somehow gives it
longevity and, ironically, makes it seem more true.
Sileny was not the only one to embrace this phenomenon at this year’s drag show. For the second
time this year, Justin D’Aloisio donned a costume
and a funny voice, this time in a send up of Trinity
Western University’s proposed law school.
Here’s a newsf lash to law students across
Canada advocating against TWU’s proposal: your
message is stale. Public communications isn’t about
who’s right or wrong; it’s about getting people to
listen. That may not be fair, but it’s the truth. The
legalistic and academic rhetoric that has characterized the campaign against TWU to date is
directed at – you guessed it – lawyers and academics. If you want to convince British Columbians and
Canadians that this proposal is a farce, you have to
stop trying to make people afraid of TWU’s law
school, and start trying to make people think it’s
funny. Funny beats fear, and Justin D’Aloisio in a
wig beats an op-ed any day of the week. Buy that
man a drink.
On another serious note, this year’s program
included a screening of a CBC feature on Wendy
Babcock, a few words from Osgoode alumni who
knew her, and a slide show of pictures from her
time at Osgoode. Obviously, not everyone takes
away the same inspiration from Wendy’s story,
and I can’t speak to what anyone else learned from
her. But I can say that, as far as I can tell, one
truly tragic thing about Wendy’s passing is that
she wasn’t able to continue working as an advocate. The fact that she derived a great deal of her
own happiness from working to benefit others in
myriad ways is the hallmark of a good and satisfied
lawyer. Hers was a loss for the entire profession.
This seems like an appropriate time to mention
and thank Louise Lafleur. She worked tirelessly
from two continents for months to put the show
together, and I must say that she deserves a great
deal of credit for the quality of the show. Sometimes it’s disappointing when people gradu