A Leeds drag queen dressed up as Hitler last night

A drag queen performing at Mission 2 caused uproar last night when she turned up dressed as Hitler.

The event was a special “German Takeover” edition of HOMO, described as having a “cheeky German Market feel”.

However Iva Bouquet posted a photo in full Hitler costume, with the caption “Totally got theme wrong for tonight, I thought German takeover not German market haha”.

The picture was posted in Leeds Uni LGBTQ and Feminist Society pages, where many criticised her costume choice as being distasteful and making light of WWII atrocities.

While some believed that it was clearly satire – drawing parallels between this costume and the song “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers – others felt that satire should only “punch up”.

They argued that although this costume may have been taking the piss out of Hitler, the fact is that Hitler is dead whereas Jews, gay people, disabled people, travellers, etc. still experience huge oppression for their identities.

With others drawing similarities between Nazi propaganda about Jewish people to the current media discourse surrounding Islam which they felt made this an inappropriate costume choice.

Iva Bouquet did change costumes later that night, removing the moustache and Nazi costume, saying that this was due to “small-minded people”.

She defended her actions claiming that “I was as a drag queen, making light of bad situation and trying to make people laugh.”

This morning she went on to say: “I meant absolutely no offence by my look this evening, I only meant a bit of humour. More people found it funny than took offence.”

She added: “More importantly, if you’re easily offended, delete yourself from my Facebook because over the next few weeks there will be more looks that will offend people and I won’t be getting changed.”

This incident has raised question about how far drag can go, and whether certain subjects should be off-limits in such a subversive art form.

Drag has a history of mocking those in power, for example Jake Johnstone who attended the UKIP conference in drag as Petunia Harris MP for Bitter End, or the highly acclaimed act Maggie Thatcher: Queen of Soho.

However many claim that parodying someone who caused the deaths of millions of people is still too far.

Second Year Romy Greenstein, who is a member of JSoc, said: “It’s offensive, anti-Semitic and insensitive. How fucking stupid could you be?”