Winnipeg Burlesque
So… as I tweeted earlier… the Government of Manitoba had a documentary made about the Burlesque scene in Winnipeg named… waiiit for it… “Winnipeg Burlesque.” As it turns out, it’s really just about this one woman named Gladys who acted as the sole agent for all of the “dancers” for the longest time.
Here’s the trailer for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1P6118ZbA
We had a family (whereby family I mean… extended family, aunts, uncles, grandkids, grandparents) viewing of Winnipeg Burlesque tonight at the annual Fillion Christmas. Granted, Christmas might not be the BEST time for this, but it was relevant to the family: my uncle’s partner was the primary source for the documentary, and is included in it, as he’s more or less taken over her old business.
When they proposed we watch this, I knew it was going to be awkward. But that’s about par for the course for one of those family reunions. God forbid one go off without a hitch.
So we watched it. My objective opinion of it was that it seemed a little low budget, and there seemed to be missing a few key pieces of information that I had to ask my uncle’s partner about later. It was really interesting though. Being about burlesque… yeah, there were scantily clad women (and a man). But nothing like full frontal or anything… it was always in context and acted out, not real footage or anything. Remember, this was commissioned by the Government, which isn’t known for their x-rated material.
This side of the family is a little (ok a lot) more conservative than the other side of my family. They’re mostly religious, young earth believin folk. My parents and siblings being some of the more conservatives of the bunch. During the whole damn thing, I could hear my sister and mother talking about how it was smut and that we definitely shouldn’t be watching this.
This really pissed me off. But it follows their pattern of “if i don’t agree with it, I’ll just stick my head in the sand, and that way I don’t have to acknowledge it.”
I know fairly little about that uncle, never mind his partner. The fact that their relationship has lasted longer than most of his sibling’s more “legitimate” ones is quite interesting. They never came to family functions until I was 13 or so, maybe older. I remember more than one phone call that my mom made to him, when I was young, for no purpose other than to call him a sinner, and living a “shameful” lifestyle. Having caught “the gay” was pretty bad… but “forcing women to take their clothes off for money”… that was crossing the line. Just guessing… dude probably didn’t feel all that comfortable coming to gatherings.
That documentary filled in some gaps, and explained how it is that they’ve come to be who they are today, business-wise. It’s an interesting story. Almost sounds made up, something you’d see in a movie.
I’m not a fan of strip clubs, personally. I find them mind-numbingly boring. I’m also not a huge fan of watching scantily clad actresses portray strippers in a family setting. But calling it “smut”… shut up.
