And now for something completely different . . .
. 
Of all of the strange, low-budget theater I’ve attended, the Orange County Underground Burlesque Society will always have a special place in my heart. Hidden in a warehouse beside a storage unit behind a massage parlor in a strip shopping center in Fullerton, California, (down the street from Cal State Fullerton,) {take that, Trap Door Theatre!} the OCUBS (or Oh, Cubs as they fancy themselves) is the nexus several things. Is it art? Is it theater? Is it pornography? Is it the upper-middle-class girl’s fantasy of the working-class life? No one really knows.
All we know for sure is that it’s several perfectly ordinary women in their twenties doing what amounts to a relatively chaste striptease with a wink and a nod and an historical reference. The performance sort of floats in the (heretofore undefined) interstitial space between, say Caffeine Theatre and The Lodge (who knew?) Here you have girls disrobing that truly enjoy it.
There are all sorts of issues brought up here. Is it pro-feminist or anti-feminist? How, exactly, does one react to this kind of show? While heavily tongue-in-cheek, there is a certain amount of attention-seeking legitimacy here in the motives. To the jaded bachelor the whole thing becomes an exercise in “what I’d like my wife to fantasize about.” (And if the the redhead ever wants to marry . . . . . . ) One wonders how much of the whole experience is “meta” something-or-other. It’s refreshing to see absolutely normal women held out as sex objects – and also somehow rational as why they usually aren’t.
But don’t take my word for it, see it yourselves.
All we know for sure is that it’s several perfectly ordinary women in their twenties doing what amounts to a relatively chaste striptease with a wink and a nod and an historical reference. The performance sort of floats in the (heretofore undefined) interstitial space between, say Caffeine Theatre and The Lodge (who knew?) Here you have girls disrobing that truly enjoy it.
There are all sorts of issues brought up here. Is it pro-feminist or anti-feminist? How, exactly, does one react to this kind of show? While heavily tongue-in-cheek, there is a certain amount of attention-seeking legitimacy here in the motives. To the jaded bachelor the whole thing becomes an exercise in “what I’d like my wife to fantasize about.” (And if the the redhead ever wants to marry . . . . . . ) One wonders how much of the whole experience is “meta” something-or-other. It’s refreshing to see absolutely normal women held out as sex objects – and also somehow rational as why they usually aren’t.
But don’t take my word for it, see it yourselves.
posted by KP | 22.4.07
2 Comments:
An excellent writ-eup from the only known Ken Pope blog in cyberspace...
There seems to be a lot of debate in feminist circles as to whether this sort of thing is good or bad. In one sense, it's good to see women owning their own sexuality and good to see people enjoying a female form that resembles what you might see on the street (rather than an airbrushed magazine girl or something). On the other hand, some feminists view it as still reinforcing the idea that women's sexuality is there for male pleasure and a thing that should be on display.
Personally, I don't much like the idea that women can't express themselves sexually without it being viewed as supporting the patriarchy. I kind of tend to the view that if you don't feel exploited, you probably aren't.
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