Sock Hop

Saturday, April 26, 1986
The Concert Hall

GCDC posters were designed intentionally and often carry various meanings and interpretations. The poster for Sock Hop features a side view of a blue and black tiger wearing socks.

"Sock hop" dances, popular during the mid-twentieth century, were primarily held within high schools, in which teenage attendees removed their shoes and danced in socks. Afrah Idrees, an RA on this project who recently earned her BTech in Graphic Communications Management, has been analyzing these posters to better understand the work they did in the 1980s. She argues that the choice to present a tiger, an animal thought to be ferocious, in socks, could suggest that the queer community populating the GCDC dances is not threatening to mainstream society, despite society’s homophobic assumptions and fears. In closely surveilling its surroundings, the tiger’s side-eye suggests that GCDC gatherings are still under the watchful eyes of people who are unsupportive of the queer community—a reading that recalls participants’ memories of undercover police attending GCDC events, looking for code violations as grounds to shut the dance down. The title is created with a unique typeface, reminiscent of the Pac-man game created in 1980. Like GCDC dances, Pac-man was intended to appeal to women as well as men.