Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture

Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture

Allen, Robert
Trachtenberg, Alan

Paperback

Series: Cultural Studies of the United States

General DramaGeneral World History

ISBN10: 0807843164
ISBN13: 9780807843161
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: May 27 1991
Pages: 370
Weight: 1.25
Height: 0.95 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
Robert Allen's compelling book examines burlesque not only as popular entertainment but also as a complex and transforming cultural phenomenon. When Lydia Thompson and her controversial female troupe of British Blondes brought modern burlesque to the United States in 1868, the result was electric. Their impertinent humor, streetwise manner, and provocative parodies of masculinity brought them enormous popular success -- and the condemnation of critics, cultural commentators, and even women's rights campaigners.
Burlesque was a cultural threat, Allen argues, because it inverted the normal world of middle-class social relations and transgressed norms of proper feminine behavior and appearance. Initially playing to respectable middle-class audiences, burlesque was quickly relegated to the shadow-world of working-class male leisure. In this process the burlesque performer lost her voice, as burlesque increasingly revolved around the display of her body.
Locating burlesque within the context of both the social transformation of American theater and its patterns of gender representation, Allen concludes that burlesque represents a fascinating example of the potential transgressiveness of popular entertainment forms, as well as the strategies by which they have been contained and their threats defused.

Also from

Allen, Robert

View All

Also in

General Drama

View All