The Sex Industry, from the Inside Out

Julia Query's "Live Nude Girl's Unite" was a very interesting look at the sex industry from the prospective not only of someone who is currently working in it, but also from that of someone raised to value women and their right to autonomy. In the film, Julia takes a job working at the Lusty Lady to pay the bills as she pursues her stand-up comedy career. When conditions get bad, she helps organize her co-workers to demand better working conditions and more rights. During this battle, Julia is also forced to tell her mother about her occupation, which she reveals through stand-up comedy routines, is harder than coming out to her mother as a lesbian.

The fact that the film is told from the perspective of a dancer gives it an interesting twist. Query, as A.O. Scott puts it in "Throw off the Yoke, but Keep the G-String", paints the women "without excessive political posturing, her film quietly dismantles stereotypes about women who work in the sex industry and makes its powerful feminist and pro-union argument with unpretentious good humor. The women who work at the Lusty Lady are diverse and, as their bosses (many of whom are women) soon discover, politically savvy." We see these women as comrades in the labor force, people who are working to support themselves and their families, and people we want to root for. They are not painted as people who need our sympathy, or as people we should be scared of, they are people looking for good working conditions. They are portrayed in this light because it is how the filmmaker sees them. She does not have a "save the prostitutes" attitude, nor does she have an anti-stripping political agenda.

Query was also able to obtain a lot of unprecedented access because the women were so conformable with her. While many of the ladies in the film were outraged by the fact that customers video taped them from behind the glass, they willingly took their clothes off in the dressing room as Query ran the camera. They also allowed her into the mirrored room of the peep show, having no problems with their bodies being shown. At one point, Query even interviews a subject as she is performing for a customer, blatantly illustrating the disconnect between the performance and the thoughts running through the performer's mind. She asks the woman what she is thinking about, and as she lays on her back making seductive faces, she reveals her thoughts are on wh

at she will do after work, or how much her back hurts, basically anything that is the opposite of sex. The intent behind the footage is what made their willingness to be on camera so different, but had it been a man or a stranger trying to get that footage, it is possible that their reactions would have been much different.

The fact that Query was the filmmaker as well as one of its dominant subjects does, however, make the film a bit less objective or honest. Many of the reviews for the film, including A.O. Scott's described a scene in which Julia told her mother about her career as "raw and painful". What they leave out is that fact that Julia tells the person filming the scene to get closer for dramatic effect. While this was meant for comic relief when the moment got too heavy to handle, it draws attention to the fact that she was never able to forget that the camera was in the room, and at times she was purposefully participating in situations and acting in a certain manner to make for a good film. It is arguable that the scene would have had to happen eventually, but it is the way in which it was filmed as well as the subjects in the scene that make it less genuine from the viewer's perspective.

Having Query behind the camera also made it impossible to get footage that would have added layers to the film. If an outsider had been running the camera and telling the story, they may have been able to get footage of the elusive meetings held by the management of the Lusty Lady. Meetings that, according to Miss Mary Ann in "Labor Organizing in the Skin Trade: Tales of a Peepshow Prole", were held to scare new employees away from the idea of the union by feeding them lies. The management may have been less skeptical of an objective camera person than they were of Query herself, who was purposefully not invited to the meetings.

Regardless of what footage Query got, and how she got, a majority of the subjects were honest and openminded about sharing their experiences. While many people would have thought of the sex industry in terms of if they "read the literature of radical feminists" which according to Bernadette Barton in "Dancing on the Mobius Strip: Challenging the Sex War Paradigm", assumed "that dancers are all victims of sexual and physical abuse whose employment in the sex industry perpetuates patriarchal disdain for women. In contrast, sex radical feminists will insist that dancers are empowered actors in charge of their own destinies, goddesses on raised stages accepting homage (and lucrative tips) from admiring men." After viewing the film, the audience members learn that, like A.O. Scott wrote in "Throw off the Yoke, but Keep the G-String", "some women insist that exotic dancing and other sex work is inherently degrading. Others find it a liberating expression of free choice and sexual independence. Ms. Query, after a while, just found it boring." There is no right or wrong way to think of dancing, and there is no clearly defined facts that can be applied to all dancers. Each person entered the industry and remains a part of it for their own reasons, and that is something that should be respected.

Vocabulary: Rabblerouser

In The San Francisco Bay Guardian ad for "Live Nude Girls, Unite!" Query is described as "a local comedian and a rabblerouser by birthright".

"Rabblerouser" is described by dictionary.com as "a person who stirs up the passions or prejudices of the public, usually for his or her own interests"

After seeing the film, I would agree with this. Query was raised by an activist mother, told to never be ashamed of herself, and is an aspiring definition of a stand-up comedian, an occupation that by definition stirs up passions and prejudices.

Dangerous Waters

This week I had the pleasure of finally watching the original Hairspray. I, like everyone else I know, saw the newest film version a few years ago when it came out. Having seen the remake first, I was expecting the original to be just as energetic and overly peppy. I was expecting crowds of teens to burst out into song and dance and skip merrily towards the camera. Luckily, John Waters has a different style. That is not to say that he doesn't enjoy theatrical performances, he certainly does. But what makes him unique is his use of adult themes in seemingly innocent stories. The original was full of racial issues and sexual themes.

Racial equality, or the lack of it, was at the forefront of the film. African Americans were not allowed to dance on the regular Corny Collins Show, and segregation was present practically everywhere. Tracy Turnblad, the pleasantly plump teen with a big personality, secures a dancing role on the show and rallies for racial integration. The most interesting thing about the story of a racially divided television dancing show is that it was based on reality. The Corny Collins Show is based on The Buddy Deane Show, which had racial segregation and integration issues in the early 1960s. In 1963, the Buddy Deane Show was overrun with a group of teens, both black and white, who just wanted the chance to dance together. It was a prime example of the changing attitudes in the 60s, especially among the youth. According to Polar Levine in his article "Hairspray's Revolting History," America longed for order and predictability in the 50s after the chaos of WWII and the Great Depression. This "Pleasantville" era of naive attitudes was crushed in 1963 with the Kennedy assassination. People were shaken up, and unsure of what was to come. The newest teen generation started listening to The Beatles and Bob Dylan, expanding their minds with new dreams of a harmonious world. The traditions of the past, however, were hard to overcome.

The 1988 Hairspray was also full of sexual themes. This is common in Waters films, but this one was particularly tame compared to his other films. In fact, most receive an NC-17 rating. Hairspray was rated PG. This is probably because it is not outwardly explicit in sexuality, but rather it relies on implications about what the characters are doing behind closed doors. The only time we see anything visually sexual is the make-out scene in the alley. Tracy's best friend, Penny Pingleton, begins an interracial relationship with Seaweed and is declared a checkerboard girl. This shocks many in the film, as it was not common to have interracial relationships in the 60s, nor was it considered socially acceptable by many. Penny's mother serves as a humorous look at how ridiculously paranoid most adults were in the changing era of the 60s. John Waters even makes a cameo as a psychotherapist who attempts to break Penny of her radical ways. This, as absurd as it may seem, was used to illustrate what people would actually resort to when trying to break someone of a bad influence.

John Waters himself in an interesting filmmaker who is just as outrageous and entertaining as any of his characters. He grew up in Baltimore, the setting of each and every one of his movies. Not like other children, Waters had a curiously demented view on things. In the Varner article, Waters recalls watching The Wizard of Oz and rooting for the Wicked Witch. Waters even made money by staging puppet shows for neighborhood children. His natural personality came out in his puppet shows, resulting in "lurid scenarios" which frightened the children. Eventually, parents stopped bringing their children to watch. These childhood stories perfectly capture Waters' spirited personality. As an adult, he would go on to join marches for social justice and protest against the war in Vietnam. He would then transfer this energy to making films that displayed his personal opinions in an accessible way.

Hairspray was released in 1988, with moderate success at the box office. After being released to VHS it became a cult classic and received pleasing reviews. This would eventually lead to the Broadway musical adaptation and the 2007 film based on this musical. All versions, but especially Waters' original, lend a colorfully playful and humorous element to the serious issues dealt with. This technique of looking at everything in a light of parody is what makes John Waters' films so recognizable. As Waters says in an interview with Dennis Cooper, "...if you can't change something, you make fun of it and accept it. That's maturity." Waters adds to this idea in another interview with Greg Varner; "Use wit as terrorism. Humiliate your enemies through humor and make them look silly." I completely agree. This seems like a very smart way to keep yourself sane. You have to be able to take a step back and look at everything from the outside. Waters seems to have perfected this technique.

New Terminology:

Coprophagous- the eating of feces or dung

Zaftig- having a full, rounded figure

Dadaism- an early 20th century international movement in art, literature, music, and film, repudiating and mocking artistic conventions and emphasizing the illogical and absurd

This last term seems to have been made for Waters.

The Global Fight for Sex Worker Rights: The surrounding circumstances and historical precedent of the union activism of "Live Nude Girls Unite!"

I have become very interested in union history and current activism, and so I was very happy to see the documentary Live Nude Girls Unite. Live Nude Girls Unite tells the story of how workers at the Lusty Lady Peep Show sex shop to organized themselves into a union in order to seek there rights. One of the things that kept being noted in the film was that they were the first sex worker union in the United States. Having been aware of sex worker organizing in other countries, I started to wonder about the history of sex worker rights in global context. This blog is the result of my research.


In 1996, sex workers in New South Wales, Australia founded, or at least registered, the world's first sex workers union.

In a world first, sex workers have formed their own union, registered with the ACTU. About 100 years after Australia's first unions were formed, the struggle for sex workers has only just begun. ...Operating under the umbrella of the Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union (LHMU) sex workers are busy negotiating their demands. As well as fighting unfair dismissals and mistreatment, union officials are pushing for an award wage, holiday, sickness, annual and maternity leave occupational health and safety provisions, overtime, superannuation and meal breaks. Work conditions union officials say all Australians take for granted.MORE

But sex workers had been organizing and protesting and collectivizing a hell of a long time before that. The ever-useful Wikipedia comments that:

The sex workers’ right movement emerged in the 1970s as the prostitutes' rights movement. A key event occurred in 1975 when 150 prostitutes took over the main church in Lyons, France, to protest about the unsolved murders of local prostitutes, exorbitant police fines and multiple arrests. The movement spread to other parts of France as prostitutes joined the strike and took over other churches. In Paris prostitutes demanded their full rights as citizens and called for the introduction of a non-punitive tax system that would provide them with the right to pension and welfare benefits like “every other French woman”. They also demanded to be nationalised as civil servants of sex. The prostitutes challenged the notion that those who sold sex were deviant and claimed that sexual commerce was a “job determined by the sexual needs of one part of society” – the client who always went unpunished. The strike lasted seven days and ended with the police invading the churches. The strike drew worldwide attention to the conditions under which prostitutes worked and spurred the creation of the French Collective of Prostitutes and the sex workers’ rights movement in France. Similar groups subsequently formed in many parts of the world, including early on in Latin America and India,^[3] as well as England, Australia, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Canada and in major US cities.^[2]MORE

Spread Magazine, a publication for sex workers by sex workers in the USA and Canada, give a USA and Canada based timeline here:

We have largely focused in on the U.S. and Canada because of our experience-base and that of our readership. We have, however, taken the opportunity to emphasize the very real impact of a globalized movement on the U.S. and Canada, with entries on the Netherlands, India, South Africa, Mexico and Taiwan, to name a few.

They start their timeline from the year 1966:

August 1966—A group of transwomen, hustlers and street queens, many of whom were sex workers, effected a riot in the Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin when a police officer known for assaulting transwomen initiated an arrest.

Feb. 4, 1967—42 bunnies of the New York Playboy Club launch the Bunny Strike of 1967 in the midst of a blizzard. The Bunnies staged a walkout on a busy Saturday, after the breakdown of union contract negotiations.


...

1975—The English Collective of Prostitutes came together under the International Wages for Housework Campaign. In 1979, a sister organization begins in the U.S. PROS, coming out of the New York Prostitute’s Collective (NYP), a group of black sex workers and black women supporters.

June 1975 – More than 100 working ladies of the French city of Lyon occupy the Church of Saint-Nizier for over a week in protest of their prostitution convictions. The occupation triggers multiple protests, occupations and strikes throughout France, with hundreds turning out in Paris, Marseilles, Grenoble, Montpelier, the Riviera, Cannes and Nice.MORE

Researcher Laura Agustin whose magnificent The Naked Anthropologist blog I have been following for a while, gives the following history lesson in her furious rebuttal to a anti-prostitution campaigner Note to anti-prostitutionists: Sex worker movements are nothing to sneer at

Eurocentrically, Ekman focusses on a few countries near Sweden, but this rights movement has roots all over the world: Empower was founded in Bangkok in 1985, AMEPU in 1986 in Uruguay, the New Zealand Collective of Prostitutes in 1987, Rede Brasileira de Prostitutas in 1987, among numerous examples. Many of these groups were set up before the Internet made it easy to ‘network’, advertise or disseminate information on problems and principles. DMSC, founded in Kolkata in 1995, now has 65 000 sexworker members from the most disadvantaged social classes. AMMAR has been part of national labour union CTA in Argentina since 1996.

MORE

And kickass activism is by no means slowing down. Turkey's sex workers are working to establish a union In 2007, some Indian sex workers launched the magazine Red Light Dispatch in English and Hindi, that chronicles life in some of India's biggest brothels.

Launched six months ago, the magazine is a platform for the collective memories, nostalgia and dreams of the sex worker community and an attempt to wean their children away from the profession, said editor Anurag Chaturvedi.

In addition to that, the sex worker organization SANGRAM is fighting to secure equal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support as well as claiming broader rights on a whole:

Based in a rural community in Indias Maharashtra State, SANGRAM works to ensure equal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support: Over 6,000 women in rural India have participated in HIV testing as a result of these efforts. Drawing on 15 years of work to empower marginalized communities to claim their rights, SANGRAM is becoming an increasingly strong advocate nationally, and globally for health policies and programs that are responsive to the real-life needs of local communities.

On a recent trip to India, International Women's Health Coalition staff collaborated with SANGRAM and local sex worker advocates to produce IWHCs first short documentary:

SANGRAM: Sex Worker Organizing in India

Another way in which sex workers raise awareness for their movement is through the yearly International Sex Worker Rights Day on March 3.

The day originated in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a sex worker festival. The organizers, Dubar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta based group whose membership consists of somewhere upwards of 50,000 sex workers and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (2002): “We felt strongly that we should have a day what need to be observed by the sex workers community globally. Keeping in view the large mobilization of all types of global sex workers [Female,Male, Transgender] , we proposed to observe 3rd March as THE SEX WORKERS RIGHTS DAY.”

The Honest Courtesan adds a little more info

March 3rd, on the other hand, originated in India in 2001 as a festival organized by the sex worker rights organization Dubar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, and attended by 25,000 sex workers despite efforts from prohibitionist groups who tried to prevent it by pressuring the government to revoke their permit. In celebration of their victory over those who wish to criminalize and marginalize sex workers, DMSC proposed it as an annual, international event the following year:

We felt strongly that that we should have a day what need to be observed by the sex workers community globally. Keeping in view the large mobilization of all types of global sexworkers (Female, Male, Transgender), we proposed to observe 3rd March as THE SEX WORKERS RIGHTS DAY. Knowing the usual response of international bodies and views of academicians and intellectuals of the 1st world (many of them consider that sex workers of third world are different from 1st world and can’t take their decision) a call coming from a third world country would be more appropriate at this juncture, we believe. It will be a great pleasure to us if all of you observe the day in your own countries too…We need your inspiration and support to turn our dreams into reality.

MORE

The DMSC now has over 65000 members comprising male, female and transgender sex workers, and performs activism around areas of concern to their membership including education, health care, culture, anti-trafficking, research and training and sports and other things.



The Commerical Sex Information Service has way more info on many other groups that have been formed by sex workers across the world.

So what else, one wonders, are sex workers fighting for?

I started out by mentioning the Australian workers union demands of better wages and other compensation in the first paragraph of this blogpost. In my wide randing search I came upon these points:


1.Yes on Prop K, Sadie Lune, Artist and Sex Worker at the Museum of Modern Art



2.Laura Agustin again:

According to local cultures and needs, arguments for rights as sex workers are couched differently. Sometimes the argument revolves around sexual rights, as with the South American project Ciudadanía Sexual. Sometimes, human rights are the basis of demands, as with Cambodian activists’ protests against police that force people into compulsory rehabilitation programmes.MORE

3. SANGRAM and others around the world fight for proper health care, against violence by brothel and other sex business employers,clients and members of society; as well as governmental harrassment and police violence, and to have sex workers respected and recognized as workers, and whose voices should be listened to.

4. Moreover, legalization of and decriminalization of prostitution are also on the long list of demands by sex worker activists.

5. And a very informative and, dare I say, pretty comprehensive booklet produced by the Global Network of Sex Make sex Work Projects entitled, Make Sex Work Safe: Sex Work Safe: A Practical Guide for Programme Managers, Policy-Makers and Field Workers originally written in 1996, covers everything from Information Sharing, Ideas for setting up Safe Commercial Sex and a thorough analysis of laws and other means by which sex workers would be able to be less exposed to danger as they work.

6. And whatever issue gets left out in the "Make Sex Work Safe Project" is probably covered in the World Charter for Prostitutes Rights adopted in 1985 and 1986 at the two World Whores Congresses in Amsterdam and Brussels respectively, by the International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights.



All in all, the global sex worker organizing phenomenon is in a healthy and vigorous state, and is making social progress all the time. I hope to see more documentaries by them, about them in near future.


Words I learned: 1. Exotic Dancers Alliance - a San Francisco sex worker advocacy group.

2. National Labour Relations Board - Independent Federal Agency with the authority to protect employees rights to organize and to deal with unfair labour practices committed by employers.

3. Peepshows - An exhibition of people and things or pictures viewed through a hole or a magnifying glass.

Mousse

YouTube Video of the Buddy Dean show (Inspired the Cornie Collin's show)

The film we viewed and analyzed this week was Hairspray. No we did not hear Christopher Walken adorably serenading John Travolta (who was dressed in drag). We watched the original 1988 version of Hairspray directed by John Waters. This film paid tribute to real events, hit on the issue of segregation, and used fads to make his point

SUCCINCTLY SUMMARIZE THE MAJOR ARGUMENT/S IN THE READING W/ ORIGINAL ANALYSIS

Parts of this film were based on true events:

Wikipedia tells is that John Waters wrote the screenplay of which Hairspray was made titling it White Lipstick. I don't really know why he chose the name. I looked up "White Lipstick" and didn't find anything helpful.

Wikipedia goes further into history informing us that John Waters based the Corny Collins show off of a show that truly aired called the Buddy Dean Show. Apparently the film's climax is based on an actual event that took place on that show in the summer of 1963 (Wikipedia). What event was that? The fact that the show was bravely claimed to be integrated or the bomb in Amber's mother's hair. I really hope only the first option.

John Waters:

This film was one of John Waters most tame. Wikipedia says "Hairspray's PG is the mildest rating a Waters film has received. Most of his previous films were rated X by the MPAA."

A few of the articles in the packet we were given actually interviewed John Waters. From these articles I was able to get a better understanding of who this man was.

Dennis Cooper says that "[John Waters] is easily the world's most famous icon of cultural outrage and transgression." To prove his impish personality Dennis Cooper brings up Water's choice of Christmas gifts that year. "This year, you sent out this amazing transparent Christmas tree ornament with fake dead roach inside."

From the reading I figured that JW used this film as a way to make fun of a social issue to further bring attention to it in order to induce social change. Renee Curry says that Waters "recognizes the power of film to manipulate time. His image of history as film spectacle licenses him to portray an ultimate story, the one he wanted rather than the one that has taken our culture these past twenty years to stagger through."

Wow, this chick was super analytical:

I was really interested by The Revolutionary Way to Restructure and Hold Your History essay by Renee R. Curry. I felt pretty shallow when I watched the movie thinking about the entertainment factor and then saw how deep she got into it. There were some awesome interpretations she came up with! The two I saw most analyzed were hair and dance, "Waters deploys dance and hair as revolutionary communication vehicles."

Dance:

"The dance sequences alternate between typical "white" and "black." [...] The white dances generally require memorization of steps, twists and turns, whereas, the black dances often require planted feet, slow methodic ody gyrations, and individual nuances."

What does this mean? Are whites more likely to follow everyone else and expected to conform to the policies of society? What does that mean about the blacks. Interestingly enough, it might mean that blacks are more free, but what about their feet staying planted? They are forced to stay in one spot, but make the most out of their freedom as they can?

Hair:

"The hair in Hairspray also articulates a rebellion[...] Tracy Turnblad begins the film with a coyly teased flip in imitation of Jackie Kennedy: then as she transforms into Corny Collins Show star and politically aware mouthpiece for desegregation of the show, she courts and ever-heightening half-blond, half brunette do, which on the television screen appears black and white and displays a vivid transitional symbol. By the end of the film, she wears an ironed, straight black look, initiated by a beatnik woman's insistence that she could not in fact "overcome" racism with an outdated teased hairdo."

Truthfully, I just noticed the changing styles, I didn't even consider dissecting the meaning behind it. It makes complete sense though! Tracy starts out following the latest fashions, cleverly imitating a historic figure of the time, Jackie Kennedy. Then, when she realizes the unfairness of segregation and wishes to "mix" she changes her hair color so it is black and white on screen. I'm not so sure about the black do in the end, but like Renee said, maybe she was working to or felt she had "overcome" racism.

One more analysis I want to pay attention to. Renee R. Curry's evaluation of the actual product of hairspray.

"Hairspray, the substance variously made of SD alcohol 40, isobutane, vinyl acetate, crotonic acid, propane, aminemetyl propanol, as well as that all-important ingredient- fragrance-holds together, while it's flammable ingredients threaten to explode [...] hairspray serves as the hilarious namesake for the title of a film that depicts the precarious nature of restructuring a history."

Wow. How do you even think that up? It makes soooo much sense! Did she come up with that on her own, or did JW ever reveal that as his intention. This product, that both helps 'hold' the new fad of an up-do as well as being explosive. This film is about Tracy, who tries to follow the trends, and then works to break the system of segregation, causing considerable chaos. Fantastic.

John Waters has an opinion on the NC-17 rating system as well:

I'm glad we watched the film This Film is Not Yet Rated. Why, you ask? IT KEEPS POPPING UP EVERYWHERE! I used it to extend one of my blogs as well as referenced it in my case study on Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm. Now I find that good ol' JW made a few statements within the articles about the rating.

From what I've read, John Waters seems to be a pretty 'out there' guy. He's not afraid to see the line and catapult over it. This causes his films to be harshly rated. In John Waters: The Finger on the Pulse by Greg Varner he goes into detail on this fact.

"GV: Are you afraid, for commercial reasons, of the NC-17 rating?

JW: No, not afraid. [...] People don't even know what NC-17 means! [...] I think when it hits is with the ideo and DVD and all that. That's where people in mid-America see movies, and there are some big chains that won't carry [movies with an NC-17 rating]. That's what I'm mad at the Motion Picture Association about [...] That they don't go there, with their power, and make those stores change that policy.

[...] There isn't anything the matter with NC-17- but then why does everybody in the press say "slapped with"? [...] They don't say "rated with." [...] So now it's sending the message that you can't even talk about sex unless you are over eighteen.

Amen to that, John Waters. If people don't want to see adult things, don't watch NC-17, but don't "brand" the films and allow distributors to attempt to manipulate artists, just because they show a few pubes.

RAISE USEFUL QUESTIONS

• Did this film effect the ideas of segregation at the time?
• Was this film original in the way it produced it's theme?
• Why did John Water's decide to do this film?
• How accurately were the the scenes based on true events?
• Out of the three versions (1988 version, Broadway musical, or 2007 version), which was the most effective?
• Why do these articles peg Waters for having 'bad taste?'
• Have directors been inspired by Waters to push boundaries?
• Was the film supposed to be analyzed?

SUGGEST POSSIBLE ISSUES FOR CLASS DISCUSSION

• Basing films on true events
• John Waters style (going overboard, making fun of serious situations)
• Symbolism within Hairspray (The hair, the dancing, characters)
• Was this film effective?
• Did this film hold true to the past?
• Compare and contrast the original film to the broadway show and 2007 version.

MY OWN COMPARISON

New Hairspray vs. Old Hairspray:

I first heard about the film, Hairspray probably when a lot of people my generation heard of it. I heard about it through a remake. It was summer and I was doing my annual job of working at the pool. One of my managers ran in from the weekend absolutely thrilled. He apparently saw the film, fell in love, and proceeded to watch it 2 more times within a few days. Thus, the rest of the week when he was in charge our facility was soundtracked by the scores of the 2007 film Hairspray.

It wasn't until I saw the film that my mother told me that this wasn't the first time the story was told. It was an adaption of a film made in 1988. Even with this knowledge I didn't see the original until today.

Obviously the new version had bursts of song, different actors, and John Travolta dressed in drag. It seemed a bit more light than the 1988 version though. In 1988, the hood was a little more run down. There were rats and even a drunk on the street. Though JW made his movie silly, there were some serious things going on.

Amber's mom brought a BOMB to the competition? How wacko is that? I'm pretty sure that action would go just a little too far for the sugar coated updated version. Don't get me wrong, I love the new version, it just didn't seem to make quite as big of a statement as the original. I have not seen the broadway version, so I can't really comment on the matter:)

NEW TERMINOLOGY RESEARCH

1) Coprophagous: The dictionary app on the mac computer I'm using says this word means "The eating of feces or dung." Ooookay...

Well, the context this word said by Richard Corliss is "Walters has made all eleven of his pictures, from the COPROPHAGOUS comedy Pink Flamingos to the all-stinking Polyester, in his hometown.

I guess I'll have to watch Pink Flamingos to understand... I'll look it up.

I googled "Pink Flamingos," clicked IMDB, and AHA! The first sight I see is the lovely face of Divine. Oh, John Waters, I love your muse.

The IMDB synopsis is

"Notorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against Connie & Raymond Marble, a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as "The Filthiest Person Alive"."

"The Filthiest Person Alive" kind of goes with the poo word. Sounds pretty interesting.

*Side note*

I'm writing while reading and i just went to the Greg Varner article and found he had already written about Pink Flamingos. Oh well, he didn't provide a pic of divine so I'm glad I looked it up.

2) Wow, this Richard Corliss character likes to use some zaney vocabulary. Zaftig. Ahhh, perfect! The mac dictionary has helped me again. This word makes sense!

Zaftig- (of a woman) having a full, rounded figure; plump.

Oh! Apparently it comes from the german word 'saftig' meaning 'juicy.' I was wondering why this word looked so familiar! I took three and a half years of german so I'm always quite please when the language pops up in my life.

Das ist toll, ja? Spater! Aufwiedersehen!

Violence Interrupted

     This film was fresh on the brain since I saw it earlier today at T/F. I was so impressed with this film. I understand why Polina made it a requirement for the class. It represents everything involving social change through film. I have seen Steve James' previous epic Hoop Dreams. I see many parallel's from that film to this one. Obviously not in the sense that the setting is completely different but the economic and social struggles the characters went through are similar to the struggles in The Interrupters. 
      I immensely enjoyed the film. I thought the characters were very striking and their pasts helped them in ways that other social workers could not. They related on a level with these teenagers in a way the police could not. They understood exactly what they were going through and were in a sense trying not to have these kids make the same mistakes they have. They did not want these kids to have similar regrets at their age.
     It was amazing to see the characters in the film along with the filmmakers at the Q&A. It was moving to stand up and show them that their work is meaningful. It is making a difference. I thought their answers were very insightful and it is great to know that Ceasefire is expanding to other major cities to neutralize the violence. I think their organization needed to be highlighted in this way to show attention to what they risk their lives in order to stop violence.
   One of the more striking scenes was when they showed the video of the killing. I believe they showed it three times. I felt that the point was made during the first showing of the killing. It was difficult to watch.
   I cannot believe what these filmmakers put themselves through to make this film. It was truly incredible. It showed how effective the program was by showing people who have made mistakes and are trying to do good where they have done wrong. It was a great screening and experience.

The Interrupters!

So at True False I made it to a screening of The Interrupters. This movie was extremely intense. The film documented the efforts of a Chicago based organization that tries to stop violence among the most intense Chicago Gangs. The group is called The Violence Interrupters, and they also work along side a group called 'cease fire,' which also tries to save lives from gang related violence. I think this group is really interesting and innovative because they realize, being ex gang members themselves, that there is no way to really get rid of gangs. They focus more on simply trying to mediate, and teach these young people how to deal with anger and confrontation in alternative ways other than violence.
This group realizes that violence is a learned behavior, and most of these kids have been raised by parents who would beat them/slap them for anything that they did wrong while they were growing up. This has caused them to immediately go to violence to teach a lesson, because the effects are immediate. Unfortunately, this often causes much more violence in retaliation, and these miniature urban wars are started.
I was really inspired by one of the main characters, Ameena. She is such a strong person, and she comes from a rough background herself. It is really amazing that she came from a background where her father was a famous gang leader, and was raised by her mother where she was physically, emotionally and sexually abused. She went through a lot and got into a lot of trouble herself, eventually being a leader in a gang in Chicago. Despite all of this, she now uses all of her knowledge to help people in similar positions that she once was in. She knows how to talk to the kids in a way that they can understand and take seriously. She is a very persuasive speaker and she does a great job of calming people down to avoid violence. I really respect that she doesn't use her past as an excuse. She has bettered herself rather than sitting and complaining about the cards that fate dealt her. One character in this documentary, Caprysha, was a girl in a very bad situation. She basically had to start raising her younger siblings when she was 10 years old. She never really got a childhood, and now she is having a hard time living a normal successful life, because she is fighting with drug addictions. I really hope that she ends up really learning from her past, and uses it to empower herself, rather than using it as a crutch like she seemed to do through out this film.
One part of the film that really opened my eyes to an issue that I was pretty much completely ignorant to, was the video of the young man who was killed in front of his high school. I had never heard of this incident, and in general just unaware of this crazy urban war going on in Chicago. This video really shook me up. And Ameena pointed out the fact that was going through my head when I saw it, which was "I hope his mom didn't have to see this." It seems insane that there it took a video like that to convince the government to help out with all the violence. I guess it takes something really extreme to get peoples' attention these days though, with all the other awful things that seem to be going on in the world.
Overall, I was really impressed with this doc (not that I was expecting anything less after seeing Hoop Dreams), because it really made me think about this issue in depth, and it really taught me something that is going on in America that I didn't really know anything about. I think that this film will help open more peoples' eyes to this issue and maybe cause something to be done to help support these mediators, and think of new ways to stop the violence in the future.

Does Mommy always know best?

“Live Nude Girls Unite!” delves into a group of female strippers who struggle to organize a union. They work at a San Francisco peep-show called “Lusty Lady,” where clients can pay a quarter to watch the strippers dance behind a glass “aquarium” for 15 seconds. Our protagonist and filmmaker, Julia Query, must also overcome the challenge of telling her mother what she does to make a living.

Unfortunately, her mom, Dr. Joyce Wallace, does not take the information with a passive heart. Dr. Wallace has invested a goodly portion of her efforts toward supporting and protecting street-working prostitutes.

In the film, we she her drive a van around Manhattan with Barbara Walters, handing out free condoms to any prostitutes they encounter. However, she is not supportive of the fact that her daughter is caught up in a similar career. In fact, she tells her daughter, “I'm not proud of you.”

What factor differentiates her acceptance from the career of these women to that of her own daughter? I can only assume it's empathy. Perhaps she feels that these women did not have better opportunities awaiting them, nor the means to do so, thus she reaches out to them. However, because she had the advantage of raising her daughter and guiding her to become a successful woman, she feels as if her only child has sold herself short or lost her sense of self-respect.

The thing is: her daughter is a successful woman. However, her line of work is not traditionally viewed as such. It has a built-in reputation of being “a last resort” career path, as opposed to one that an individual willingly chooses.

Forming a union was not only one step closer to protecting these women's rights as workers, but toward being taken seriously as an actual job. Roger Ebert puts it quite eloquently:

“There is a curious notion that
strippers and prostitutes do what they do
because they enjoy it...It is possible to take
pleasure in making a ham sandwich, but you
might not want to work behind the counter when
the customer always leaves with the sandwiches.”

Ebert is saying that these women aren't doing this on their own time because they find it thrilling. They are doing it because they want to make money, and it has potential to be a lucrative business (if conducted fairly). This is precisely the reason the strippers and “Lusty Lady” want to form a union. They don't want to be exploited for the work they are doing. They want to be treated like professionals.

Words of Interest:

iconoclastic- a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions; a destroyer of images used in religious worship, in particular

ardently- enthusiastic or passionately