"Striptease" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL June 29, 1996 I have to write a paper later this summer about images of the U.S. woman in Hollywood films of the 1990s, and in order to do that I figure I'll have to start going to more mainstream Hollywood films than I usually do. You know, the big budget, big star, big ad campaign stuff. Last night I figured I might as well get started on this project since one such film, "Striptease" was opening everywhere. Ordinarily, based on the title and the pre release publicity that it's about a woman who works as an "exotic dancer" to support her kid, I probably would have stayed away. Not because I'm a prudish "Victorian" (as feminists have been labelled in the local press recently) and not because the social and economic pressures that make women take such work aren't of interest to me as a women's studies professor. But because it seemed to me that there's virtually no chance that an obviously "commercial" film like this is going to have anything useful to say on the subject. Clearly, its marketing campaign is completely based on getting people into the theater to see Demi Moore strip, not to commiserate with her character's plight. But "Striptease" surprised me. If you read the fine print in the ads you'll see that it's a comedy and it really is. On top of that, its viewpoint on the sex industry is predictably schizzy, relying blatantly, as it does, on the appeal of voyeruistic and fetishistic representations of women to get the audience into the theater, and then taking basically both a positive stand toward the dancers ("it's honest work and nothing to be ashamed of") and a negative stand toward the club owners, the customers, and performers (at other clubs) who are not just dancers but prostitutes as well. This is, in effect, not that different a stance from that taken in the feminist anti porn documentary "Not A Love Story," that makes a distinction between the woman who does a kind of comedy stip act and the real hard core porn industry that promotes more degrading and violent forms of pornography. She eventually comes to see the difficulty of drawing such a distinction and, presumably, finds other work. As does Erin Grant (Demi Moore's character) in this film, especially when she thinks of the future effects it's going to have on her little daughter who sneaks out one night and watches her mother's routine. In Probably not so much because she sees the connections between them and how both do harm to women, but, more likely, because in the logic of Hollywood's moral universe, you still can't be sexy and a good mother r at the same time, at least not for very long. (And in this film Erin is the object of lots of sexual desires but never has any of her own!) What was really suprising, however, was what a good comedy this is. At one point, when one of the comic characters turns up where you'd least expect him, to wreak havoc and, inadvertantly, to save the day, I had this flash that the thing is scripted like one of Shakespeare's goofier comedies. And Floridians, most of all, will truly appreciate Burt Reynolds's really funny, spot-on portrayal of a hypocritical, sleazy, kinky, dumb, alcoholic Florida Congressman (who one minute is slathering himself with Vaseline and tromping around in boots getting off on a "very intimate" item retrieved by his Congressional aide from Erin's laundromat, and the next moment is flashing his megawatt Congressman's smile, giving still greasy handshakes, and launching into a heartfelt speech on family values to a group of radical right Christians, all the while complicit in the murderous power plays of some very unsavory big sugar moguls). It's a brilliant stroke of casting to pick "Mr. Florida" himself to play this part; he's no doubt had a chance to do personal research into virtually every aspect of the role! So, despite the gratuitous objectification of women to titillate the theater audience (including one topless routine it has Erin doing in her own home without even the justification of an on-screen audience), even a feminist could conceivably find this an entertaining film. I and the woman sitting behind me both let out a whoop of spontaneous feminist laughter when Erin tells the club owner what the dancers think about the logo of his club, "The Eager Beaver" (though we seemed to be the only two in the theater to appreciate the joke). I won't tell you that this is a "must see" women and film flick, but it's far less offensive than I expected and it has some quite enjoyable comedic moments. For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film. Copyright 1996. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or reproduce this review without permission of the author: mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.