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Home Cinema Striptease for me, baby

Striptease for me, baby

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Written by April Yorke   
Tuesday, 01 July 2008 19:00

As Jacob would be quick to tell you in his fantastic Gossip Girl recaps, much about the way we move in society is burlesque. We’re in constant motion, creating false impressions, removing something here, covering something there. As difficult as it is to build a desired reputation, those reputations can, in turn, be destroyed in a whisper. Of course, some are a little more resistant to being stripped of their glory than others. When the person you set out to destroy is fully engaged in the art of burlesque, you may find you’ll never be able to bring them down.

WARNING: Major spoilers for really old movies ahead!

Striptease for me: Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), Election

 Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is ostensibly the protagonist of Alexander Payne’s hilarious high school/political satire. He might even be the hero. But there’s really no stopping the wildly overachieving Tracy Flick. McAllister convinces a dim but popular jock, Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against Tracy in the high school’s presidential election in a bid to get back at Tracy for getting his best friend fired (a teacher with whom Tracy had an affair the year prior), but it’s still not enough. McAllister tries to use the affair to damage Tracy’s credibility, and, when that doesn’t work, commits election fraud to put Paul over the top in votes. When the fraud is revealed, McAllister ends up run out of town on a rail. Tracy, being the psychotically dedicated Type-A that she is, ends up accepted to her first choice university and, eventually, in the back of a congressman’s limo. Knowing there’s just no way he could have beaten her, McAllister petulantly throws a milkshake at her car.

Striptease for me: Brenda Cushman (Bette Midler), Elise Elliot (Goldie Hawn), and Annie Paradis (Diane Keaton), The First Wives Club

ay2Sure, it seems frothy, but, in the grand scheme of “spurned lover gets even,” Hugh Wilson’s 1996 feature is actually kind of brilliant. After three college friends are thrown over by their successful husbands for younger women (the fourth of their quartet having just committed suicide for that same reason), Brenda, Elise, and Annie hatch a plan to get even. Brenda finds proof that Morty (Dan Hedaya)’s chain of electronics stores started with help from the mafia, Elisa uncovers that Bill (Victor Garber)’s new lover is underage, and Annie buys out Aaron (Stephen Collins)’s partners in his advertising firm. Simple revenge isn’t enough for these ladies, though, so they bilk their exes out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to establish a centre for abused and neglected women. Between the centre and Elise’s new hit play, the ladies end up the toast of the town.

Striptease for me: Senator Jay Bulworth (Warren Beatty), Bulworth

ay3In a bout of self-loathing, Bulworth orders a hit on his own life. Shortly thereafter he regrets his choice and, while stumping in California, spends much of his trip trying to avoid being killed. He also spends a lot of it high, and these two factors combine to free Bulworth up to be honest about the inherent racism of the political process, the need for socialized medicine, and a host of other issues plaguing federal politics. Despite his profane language and deranged public appearances, his candour makes him more popular than ever. (Alright, so he ends up shot and the movie ends ambiguously, but it was nice while it lasted, wasn’t it? You don’t know! Maybe he started a revolution. Sigh.)

Striptease for me: Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), Zoolander

ay4First he’s edged out by Hansel (Owen Wilson) as male model of the year. Then his roommates die in a freak gasoline fight accident. Derek finally lands a show with Mugatu (Will Ferrell), a hot designer who had repeatedly snubbed him in the past, but it’s all a ruse: Mugatu wants Derek to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia, who is threatening to put an end to the child labour that keeps the cost of manufacturing Mugatu’s line low. Though it takes a while, Derek ends up saving the prime minister, revealing his new look, and turning left. Establishing the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too is gravy.

Striptease for me: Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Glenn Close), Dangerous Liaisons


ay5The Marquise de Merteuil was born for burlesque. Realizing early on that society would forever condemn her to submission, she learned to turn that which society wanted her to do (“keep quiet and do what I was told”) against it (“listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest to me, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide.”) She spends her time collecting the secrets of others and using them to ruin the lives of decent people for sport. The Marquis seems to have found a worthy partner in crime in the Viscount de Valmont (John Malkovich), but their most perfect plan to date goes awry when the Viscount has the temerity to fall for the very woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) he’s trying to seduce and ruin. Still, it takes the entire movie and the Viscount’s death to expose the Marquise for who she really is. Even then, it isn’t until her final moments alone in front of the mirror that the Marquise lets it show that any of the preceding events had any effect on her. If the book had a sequel, it would no doubt show the Marquise taking every bitch down and regaining her rightful place. After all, no one else is as invested in the burlesque needed to pull it off.

McAllister is new to trying to take people down a peg or two, but Tracy’s committed to the burlesque of being Tracy Flick full time, so he fails. Morty, Bill, and Aaron think that divorce will finally separate them from Brenda, Elise, and Annie, but the women turn the tables and use the separation to climb back on top. Senator Bulworth’s impending demise frees him up the gain the ground support he never could have gotten as a stuffed shirt. Derek’s initial fall brings him back to the top of the modelling world. The Marquise goes on knowing that she will someday have another chance. Though we think we’re forcing them to strip, they find a way to cover up, to negotiate their way into an even better place than the one in which they started. No matter how many times we sweetly ask them to striptease for us, baby, they never really will. Somehow, we’re the ones who end up exposed.

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© 2008 April Yorke; licensee (Cult)ure Magazine.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Author of this article: April Yorke

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