The movie Burlesque is a watered-down, weedy attempt to make stripping acceptable to women
In the film, Burlesque, Christina Aguilera plays a small-town girl with a dream. "I just wanna sing wearing slutty knickers!" Actually she doesn't say this, but she may as well have done.
The makers of Burlesque may have been trying for the ambience of Cabaret or Moulin Rouge, but the result is a daytime soap opera with a few crummy basques thrown in. Christina frugging like she's had too much Fanta at the school disco. Cher smouldering like a half-melted candle. More basques, pants, boas, leatherette, doffed sparkly bowler hats, and tapped canes. A queasy mix of Showgirls meets Seaside Special.
Shocking. But not in the way you'd think. Burlesque isn't a convention-defying movie about freedom, destiny, art; it is a boring movie about how nice your pants are.
The theme of "Cor, underwear!" was so strong I sat in the cinema feeling like a teenage boy furtively perusing the bra section of his mum's Kays catalogue. However, despite all the lingerie on display, Burlesque isn't a movie about burlesque. This is burlesque served up as weed-porn, pitched at the precise level of woeful sub-titillation even women are deemed able to cope with.
I once spoke to renowned burlesque star Dita Von Teese, a doll-like beauty with flashing intelligent eyes. She told me that, for all the artistry and tease, for all the effort she put into her routines, including her fabled bath in a giant martini glass, burlesque was just stripping, people who claimed otherwise were in denial.
This seems to be the true burlesque ? clever creative strippers who got so good at putting a twist on what they do they turned it into an art form.
Yet in recent years burlesque seems to have fallen into the wrong hands, become restyled as sex with the safety brakes on, watered-down erotica that even women, Stephen Fry's pathetic sex-hating fools, can handle.
On the plus side, this has led to much nicer "burlesque-style" underwear, even in M&S. On the minus, it led to the kind of stripping a guy can get away with watching with workmates because: "It's not stripping, it's burlesque innit?" Hey, its so sanitised they can even take the little lady along.
Never mind that so many new burlesque clubs have sprung up recently that in many cases there's probably precious real difference between the knackered pole dancer getting notes stuffed into her thong elastic, and the "burlesque artist" shuffling about miserably in her Jean Harlow hairpiece and Ann Summers basque.
Is this the real difference between stripping and burlesque ? stripping is more honest? Men can't usually con their women into accepting stripping as an evening's entertainment the way they can with burlesque.
However, men can't be blamed for this. The most offensive thing about the movie Burlesque was how obviously this tedious feeble sub-pornographic baloney was aimed straight at the "ladeez". I simply don't think men would lower themselves going to the cinema for a 12A-rated peek at Xtina grinding and hair tossing in the style of Miss Piggy on heat.
Men wouldn't waste their time. The ones who are into porn have always stuck to their guns on this issue ? they like the genuinely dirty stuff and that's that. You can't talk them out of it. It's not as if the internet has been getting any cleaner over the years.
Therefore the lukewarm weed-porn of something such as Burlesque must be aimed directly at women. And you wonder: how did women get so welded to this idea of sex as a fashion opportunity? How did they allow themselves to get conned?
The scratchy basques and tragic bowler hats of mainstream watered-down burlesque don't seem to be about female desire, or even male desire, rather female pleading and bartering for male desire. It makes Mr Fry look like he got it right.
Zara and Mike ? the really cool royal wedding
Is Zara Phillips scamming the British public? Wearing my Miss Marple bonnet, it seems suspicious that she's marrying England rugby player, Mike Tindall, a month or so after, you know, that other do.
It's almost as if the timing is on purpose because William and Kate will inevitably overshadow it, and they will have about 90% less royal wedding nonsense to deal with.
In normal circumstances Zara would not have been able to escape the crazed speculation about her dress, ring, venue, cake, bridesmaids, vows, what honeymoon sex they might like to have, and the rest.
This way, they could practically get away with her wearing a taffeta frock from Monsoon, and a scampi supper in a pub garden.
Zara does seem rather down to earth ? she didn't even get herself a manicure to show off her engagement ring to the media. There was a ticking off for that, but it was definitely half-hearted, unquestionably a sense of "bigger fish to fry". Genius.
The happy royal couple (mark II) clearly thought: "This is a good time to bury great news."
Zara and Mike, we salute you as the coolest royals ever.
Go on, George. Give us a twirl
Did George Osborne make a homophobic remark to gay Labour justice spokesman, Chris Bryant?
At Treasury questions, Bryant berated Osborne about the cuts, likening him to Cinderella's father, Baron Hardup, adding that he could maybe think about playing Prince Charming instead. Osborne responded by shouting: "At least I'm not the pantomime dame."
Cue politically correct tumbleweed bouncing across parliament. Osborne insisted it was a Christmas joke, while Bryant tweeted: "So George Osborne clearly does not know how to be charming with his jibe at me as 'pantomime dame'. Homophobic or just nasty?" Bryant later announced to a newspaper: "I will survive," a phrase so evocative of Gloria Gaynor disco balls, I laughed so hard I ended up feeling slightly homophobic myself.
Personally, I think the accusation of homophobia its stretching it a bit. Did I say a bit? I meant a lot. This was seasonal banter that went wrong. In part, Ed Miliband's fault, after he scored that big hit with his "back end of a pantomime horse" attack on Nick Clegg. Now everyone thinks they can pull off panto banter, which requires a modicum of wit and timing, which George, in all honesty, has never publicly pretended to possess.
Even Bryant must admit that it's unlikely that Osborne is a raging homophobe, when he's one of the campest-looking men in British politics. Its George's mesmerising androgyny that drives the ladies wild. That porcelain skin, those pouty lips. Imagine him made up as a 1980s Boy George. It works, doesn't it?
There lies the irony ? Bryant would make a very poor Widow Twanky, but Osborne could dress up as a pantomime dame and no one would notice. They'd think he was a Tory hottie.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/25/barabara-ellen-pornography
John Edwards Dianne Feinstein Bill Frist Newt Gingrich Rudolph Giuliani
No comments:
Post a Comment