The happy stripper : pleasures and politics of the new burlesque PDF
Preview The happy stripper : pleasures and politics of the new burlesque
The H S appy tripper The H S appy tripper Pleasures and Politics of the New Burlesque Jacki Willson Published in 2008 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Jacki Willson, 2008 The right of Jacki Willson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior writ- ten permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84511 318 6 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Chaparral Pro by Sara Millington, Editorial and Design Services Printed and bound in the Czech Republic by FINIDR, s.r.o. Supported by The AHRC funds postgraduate training and research in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. The quality and range of research supported not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please see our website www.ahrc.ac.uk. Acknowledgements I thank my editor Susan Lawson for her enthusiasm, rigour and in- sights, as well as Dr Marsha Meskimmon for her advice, suggestions and wholehearted encouragement. I need also to express my warm thanks to the contemporary ar- tistes and artists – Ursula Martinez, Jenny Saville and Immodesty Blaize and her efficient assistant Minnie – who kindly allowed me to include the striking and appropriate images in this book. Thanks also to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their support. Most of all I must lovingly thank George and Mathilde for their support and patience throughout this project. Contents List of Illustrations viii Introduction: Show Off 1 Empowering, Disempowering, Overpowering 1 Feminism and Post(-)Feminism 8 1. Burlesque 17 What is Burlesque? 17 Crossing into the mainstream 17 Democratic excesses 25 ‘Stars’ and ‘Queens’ 33 The unruly woman 33 Menacing vamp 40 2. Body as Spectacle 49 The Nude 49 Pornography and erotica 49 Histories of female performance 56 The Female Body in Performance 63 Carolee Schneemann 63 Hannah Wilke 70 Contents 3. The ‘Leg Business’ 79 Money 79 The man’s world of business 79 Ruthless tycoons 87 Sex 95 The unholy trinity (strippers, hookers and porn stars) 95 The courtesan 101 4. Powers of Seduction 111 Painted Ladies 111 Artifice 111 Glamour 119 Veiling and Nakedness 126 Democracy 126 Freedom 133 5. Guerrilla Theatre 143 The Freak 143 Subversive submission 143 The freak show 150 Knowingness 157 Gossip 157 Networking 165 Conclusion: Showdown 173 Feminist Fluidity 173 Virus 180 Notes 189 Bibliography 211 Index 224 vii Illustrations Lydia Thompson as the ‘Girl of the Period’ (J. Gurney Studios, c.1868). Courtesy of Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Library for the Performing Arts, Astor Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. 16 Plan, 1993, by Jenny Saville. Oil on canvas. 108 × 84 in. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery. 48 Gypsy Rose Lee. Courtesy of Culver Pictures. 78 West End bill poster advertising Immodesty Blaize and Walter’s Burlesque, 2005. Courtesy of Immodesty Blaize, © Immodesty Blaize. 110 Ursula Martinez in Show Off, 2001. Courtesy of Ursula Martinez. 142 Introduction: Show Off Empowering, Disempowering, Overpowering I n 2001 I went to see a performance artist called Ursula Martinez. The performance – Show Off – began with Ur- sula, clothed sexily in a black dress and stilettos, seductively stripping to music. For three long minutes I sat in a mixed audience and watched, feeling a mixture of pleasure, anger and embarrassment. Winking and smiling, she took off every scrap of clothing and then dis- appeared behind the curtain. She then reappeared to tell us that that was it, the show was over, and we were now going to have a question- and-answer session. I left the theatre with many, many questions. That experience was the catalyst for this book. After the performance the striptease continued to bother me. Why did it bother me? This woman was comfortable with her body, and sexy in her confidence and charisma. Funny. Gutsy. Intelligent. Con- trolled. Why, therefore, did it continue to bother me? For a start I had voluntarily paid to enter the theatre, so with that payment came an element of trust. I assumed that what I would be seeing would be art. That same exchange of money created a very different situation when I was confronted with striptease, however. I was then thrust into The Happy Stripper another relationship: that of a voyeur, a sex show client – that of ille- gitimacy, of side streets, stale smoke, exploitation and cheap thrills. How did stripping differ in my perceptions when it was advertised as art and housed within an art establishment, rather than a sleazy joint where I imagined men in shifty raincoats filling the room with unrequited lust, dirty secrets and shame? My pleasure and anger came from suddenly feeling immersed in this tense, intense inter- play between legitimacy and illegitimacy, danger and safety, pleasure and anger, liberation and vulnerability. I felt exposed and trapped, resentful of being lured there yet completely relishing the experience – shrinking into my seat yet urging Martinez on. Did she also feel these polarized emotions? As a feminist, were you meant to be feeling offended and uncomfortable with this ac- tion? Or were you meant to be cheering her on in affectionate post- feminist support and camaraderie? Was the fact of her being a les- bian (a fact I discovered after the strip) supposed to alter any sense of uneasiness on my part – was it fine to strip as long as you were gay and doing it with a sense of irony? Post-feminists and antifeminists seem to be saying that it’s fine to strip nowadays; we can do what we want, when we want. Where does that leave strippers as artistes? Have we got to the point in feminist progression where these women should now be viewed as empowered workers rather than disempowered, exploited and somehow damaged victims? Should we differentiate at all between a fully sentient performance by an artist like Martinez and a seeming- ly politically naive performance by an artiste such as, for instance, Dita Von Teese? Taking that further, what about that bad egg the prostitute – is she now our contemporary ‘all-woman’ heroine? Does any of this matter anymore? Some young women now feel that these issues are old hat, tired, wearing thin and long overdue for retirement. Does this undermine my own feminist ideals and 1980s ‘Alexis Carrington’ teenage years? For those not of my generation, Dynasty’s acerbic but sexy Alexis Carrington, played by the indomi- table Joan Collins, was iconic for her sex appeal, power-dressing, 2
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