My interests in the neo-burlesque subculture...

First, I need to apologize for the delay in updating my blog… I had to take my mind off of the glittery neo-burlesque world for a while, in order to prepare and participate in an « ethnographic raid » about the alien and UFO « culture » in Roswell… Intriguingly, I couldn’t help but denote resemblance with burlesque but just don’t get me started on that…

I’d like to thank you all for your comments and questions, since they are really helping me define how to best tackle this cyber ethnographic research project… In the following blog postings, I will try to answer your questions as best as I can…

First, what is my interest with the topic?

I came in contact with the neo-burlesque subculture a few years ago and somehow, what interested me at first was the fact that women from different sizes and body shapes could appropriate themselves the performance of striptease, regardless of the social prescription vis-à-vis their appearance… You know: « you shouldn’t wear that », « this is too revealing for a person your size », « you should wear black, it’s more flattering »… Yet, these girls on stage seem to take irreverent pleasure in doing exactly the opposite, in front of an enthusiastic crown of men and women. I have to admit I really got impressed…

Being a student in interpretative consumer research, as well as sensitive about the consequences of normative images on girl’s self-esteem, I have long been interested in alternative ways of representing women in advertising… Somehow, I thought neo-burlesque could prove the appeal of portraying different types of women, while still being highly inspirational in a marketing perspective.

Over a year ago, I started my research project and participated in 2 levels of neo-burlesque classes for over 4 months. I conducted interviews with students, as well as artists, attended several shows in Montreal (and still doing so), and followed a troupe in a mini road-trip to an out of province festival. I am now immersing myself in the online aspect of the community, as well as preparing my fieldwork as a helping volunteer in the organization of a burlesque festival out of province.
At first, my project (which is in the strand of consumer culture theory or CCT (Arnould and Thompson, 2005)) was mostly focussing on how, through burlesque, women were challenging feminine physical norms perpetuated by the market, as well as negotiating their rightful place within the definition of beauty, sensuality, glamorousness and sexual allure.

As time went-by, I got more familiar with the scene… In certain instances, I was deceived (and even discomforted) by performances that I would have then judged as rather naïve uses of the burlesque aesthetic, and as gratuitous displays of bodies that could otherwise fit within the contemporary strip club standards It’s only while discussing with performers and familiarizing with the work of post-structuralist feminist writers and researchers that I realized burlesque was going beyond solely challenging the physical norms perpetuated by the market.

Not to say that all performances are subversive in any way, but I realized lots of them are an opportunity for artists to reclaim their oppressed sexuality and body (not just in term of its physical appearance but mostly in term of its experience) : a form of « écriture féminine » (Cixous) that entitle women to become sexual subjects by displaying their own, different, « erotic universe » rather than the sexualized objects they are often portrayed as in advertising (for instance), based on the realm of masculine fantasies. Like mentioned by Jacki Willson in her book « The Happy Stripper », it is worrying to see that young women define their sexuality through the sexual attraction they suscitate, rather than the desire they are likely to experience (and should acknowledge) as human beings. The irreverent attitude and immodesty of certain neo-burlesque artists towards sexuality is one of the aspects that now interest me the most in this whole subculture. With their wit and humour - and whether they are conscious about it or not - they are often contributing to the redefinition of sexuality in a feminine perspective (but, as well as sometimes, consolidating the statue quo in terms of female representation).

In a sense, this perspective is loaded with implications about the way we envision women representation in advertising.