Kwame Antoinette

Marie Antoinette and Kwame Kilpatrick: what could the Queen of France and the mayor of Detroit possibly have in common? Both had reputations for being frivolous despite hard economic times– Antoinette gambled and bought an extravagant country house, while Kilpatrick splurged on a luxurious Lincoln Navigator and took a Californian vacation. Both are the subjects of biting urban legends, with Antoinette supposedly uttering "Let them eat cake" when faced with the plight of the poor and Kilpatrick hosting a party with strippers at the Manoogian Mansion. And both were put on trial to be ousted.

Would the backlash against mayor Kwame Kilpatrick would be so bad if Detroit wasn't doing so poorly economically? Marie Antoinette was eventually executed at the hands of the Revolutionaries– and in a similar sense, to a certain extent at least, I feel Kilpatrick is being made a scapegoat by a struggling city and state.

So while we wait for the mayor to get ousted, here's an illustration of Kwame in French aristocratic garb awaiting his fate. The inspiration for the bright colors comes from Sofia Coppola's sympathy film Marie Antoinette, as do the blatant anachronisms like the cell phone (the movie's soundtrack had rock n' roll and a pair of Converse sneakers made an appearance as if to connect the story to our time).