12-07-07 18.00 – World Fashion (#3)
Whether one views burlesque as an abnormal repercussion of emo or a serious style derived from flapper values it is nevertheless a fashion discipline in its own right. Somehow I don’t think the suffragettes had this in mind… There are some truly superb examples of burlesque fashion online and in this article I’ll be taking you through a handful of the very best. Is burlesque fashion in any way related to cybergoth? This article seems to imply that it is. Combining flat shoes with skulls on them and a gaggle of purple dreads? This picture from that site shows a fat woman trying to look sexy. Indeed there are often links between obesity and alternative culture. Burlesque stars are certainly not known to be translucent waifs. Here is Dita von Teese with Jonathan Ross.
Burlesque is decribed by Seattle Pi in the following manner:
Burlesque, a spinoff of vaudeville that was mostly geared toward working-class, male audiences, was popular entertainment in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. Back then, burlesque was racy and cutting edge. Today, it’s sometimes tamer than what children watch on MTV or prime-time television.
In reality burlesque dates back much further. From this juncture it can be seen that burlesque is based on parody, but crucially it is also specialised. The binary opposition is apparent as we study the roots of the atittude. We witness how ‘the serious is treated lightly and the frivolous seriously; genuine emotion is sentimentalized, and trivial emotions are elevated to a dignified plane.’ Of course this is classic bourgeoisie behaviour.
From here we can paraphrase the entire era as mocking of bourgeoisie values by the working class, which led onto various outbreaks of burlesque behaviour over Europe before turning into a bawdy commerical enterprise in the 20th Century. There was a switching of values made by the people in that time. If you watched that Dita von Teese video you may have seen that she did nothing for feminism as is the myth. This is not ‘proper’ feminism like Sheila Jeffreys. I see a huge chasm between burlesque and ‘women suffering pain in pursuit of beauty’ being a ‘form of submission to patriarchal sadism’. In reality burlesque is another symptom of this disease. It is a paradoxical empowerment through subservience. An ambition to mock the rich through financial gain.
