League of Exotique Dancers
G-strings, pasties, rhinestones, swirls, twirls, kicks and fan dances. As well as gin, liquor and jazz – that’s burlesque. Director Rama Rau invites women from the halcyon days of buxom dance culture out of pensioner retirement villages back onto the silver screen with all their sequinned pearls and awesome silky lingerie, corsets and frills.
League of Exotique Dancers is not just redolent of the pioneers of burlesque, but these women come back in the flesh, with wrinkles, beauty and prowess. As they rehearse for a comeback performance at the Legends of Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, the film makes an extraordinary statement about age. About not just how, to recoin Wilde, that youth is wasted on the young, but how women in their golden age, given the opportunity, can be sensual, sexy and seductive. And wow, they can still dance!
But on the serious side, these divas in their day endured whorephobia (negative stereotypes because they flaunted their booty and made money), and also had to deal with racism and sexism. They still found strength through resilience in their work as they were spectacular on stage. Featuring brilliant shows, past and present, League of Exotique Dancers is a tribute to a trailblazing and inspirational group of women.
Director Rama Rau interviews nine women who worked as burlesque dancers during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the golden age of Hollywood glamour who are now in their 60’s, 70’s and beyond.
The women of League of Exotique Dancers were straight-forward and unapologetic about their work. “You’re not a dancer,” Holiday O’Hara said. “You’re a stripper. You’re supposed to be turning the men on.” Marina Amazon says, straight up, “It was a sex industry.” As Kitten Natividad says, “that’s how we became stars: we sold sex.”
Although many of the women featured struggled with pills as well as pasties, the liquor and live performance lifestyle brought many rewards, most notably a good income and an alternative to marriage, motherhood and domestic labour.
“I felt I was using my power…which was my pussy,” Kitten Natividad said, unashamedly. Some post-feminists talk about the evils of the male gaze and damage from sexual objectification, but these featured women were workers and using all they had to forge an independence from men as husbands, even though they flaunted their assets on stage. One woman says that at least she didn’t have to sell her soul for life in marriage.
O’Hara talks about the way in which burlesque helped her feel beautiful and for this the work was transformative for a BBW (big, beautiful woman). O’Hara was delighted at the opportunity to celebrate her voluptuous form.
The golden era of burlesque concluded with the beginning of pornographic peep show theatres and nude dancing in the seventies on one hand in USA, and the birth of a movement by feminists that were all about overalls, power in boardrooms and taking yourself very seriously, at odds with the fluff and feathers of live peep. The women of this time were looked down on by both society and feminists because they were sex workers. This film reframes their unconventional lives.
This film should be mandatory as a 101 class to pole dancers, burlesque performers, striptease artists and all exotic entertainers. The current burlesque movement has pockets of liberty but the Australian stripper clubs can be very controlling in a commercial sense and clubs with names like Only Platinum and Messy Minx, only allow women who are blonde and petite and young to dance there. Talent has many incarnations and size and age should not limit opportunity. And Dita Von Teese, despite her fabulous curves and great range of merchandise, did not invent burlesque.
The current neo-burlesque movements, with its narcissism and sub-cultural snobbery, could follow this example and create platforms for people of all ages to reclaim their bohemian, burlesque liberty. Rather than gym junkie celebrities shaming the obese and the public having to endure shows like the Biggest Loser on TV, jazz and burlesque classes should be taught around the country and would in itself be inspirational.
This film was a treat and goes to show that the original generation of dancers have much to give the world and should be treasured, as these producers showed. (BK)
BY BARBARA KARPINSKI
For more info: www.exotiquedancers.com
