Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - A Teasing History Of Burlesque

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Has Burlesque always meant the same thing? Where did it come from? And how has it changed?Kate is joined by Dr Marissa Vigneault, Associate Professor of Art History at Utah State University, to find out more about how burlesque has become the art form it is today.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, welcome back once again to Betwifix the Sheeds. Hello, how fabulous to see you. How have you been? But before we can go any further, I do have to tell you, and say it with me, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults, about adulty things,

an adult you're making, adult, too. Oh, and before we go any further together, I do have to say, we've had people emailing in, wanting to know where they can get hold of my new book, Flick the story of female pleasure. These are mostly people in countries where it hasn't been published yet. It is coming, but it's not quite there in America, Canada and other countries just yet. But if you go to Blackwells.com.com, UK, a British bookstore, they ship internationally at no extra cost. So if you just can't wait until it's published in your country, you can go to blackwills.com.

And search for it there. Right on with the show. It's 1910 and we are on the northeast corner of... 7th Avenue and 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan, and a steady stream of people are entering on the ground floor of a nondescript office block. Hmm, so why are we here? It wouldn't make you think twice if it was 9 a.m. on a Monday,

but it's not. It's evening. So why are people queuing up to go into an office? I think we should follow them. All of these people are here for a show, and despite the boring exterior, there is a brand new theatre in here, all elaborate plasterwork and ornamentation, red plush seating for almost one and a half thousand people and there's electric lighting. Oh, fancy. What is the show? Well, it's Belesk. So what

should we expect? Feather bowers, sparkly top hats and canes, corsets, fans and stockings, and of course a lot of nudity. But has that always been the case for Belesque? Has it always been about running around in sequins and in the nip. Hmm, well, sh, the curtain is going up, but I think we're about to find out. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Teasing, wit and satire. No, I'm not just talking about myself. I'm talking about the art form of Belesque.

Whether you've watched a Christina Aguilera film or you've been to a taster class, most people have got some kind of understanding of what Belesk is now. But where did Belesk come from? What different forms has it taken? And which boring sods have tried to ban it? Because there's always one, isn't there? Or in this case, several hundred, thousand. But they weren't successful.

Marissa Vigno is art historian at the Utah State University. And she is going to join us to tell us all about balesque. Feathers and leathers at the ready betwixters. Let's do it. Well, hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Marissa Vino. How are you doing? I'm doing lovely today. Thank you so much, Kate. It's such a pleasure to be here. Well, thank you for coming on because we've been doing this podcast for over three years now. We've never done an episode on The History of Bolesk.

Yeah. Yeah. It is about time, isn't it? That is about time. And you are the ideal person to be talking to us about this. But as a starter question, can you tell us? How did you get interested in studying the history of Belasque? I came to it by way of art history and specifically feminist body performance art in 1970s. I've been working on Hannah Wilkie, who's just like classic, feminist, amazing artist working 1960s up until her death in the early 1990s. And I was really fascinated by how she was citing popular culture. She was engaged in all these questions of the late 60s and 70s around women's liberation, the beginning of the feminist theory, but also just like lowbrow popular culture.

She's living in New York City. She's living in L.A. And she's thinking about what is the city of spectacle around me, which is a time period of, oh, like Times Square and all of the porn theater is in this idea of porno chic and the called the Golden Age of Pornon. And it's a city that's just kind of filled with this excess of performative, sexualized, female bodies. And she's responding to that. So I was working from a pretty historical or historical perspective. Then I read Jackie Wilson's book, The Happy Stripper, and she talks about this connection

between the feminist performance artists of the 70s and then what becomes neo-Berless and the strip tease. and that whole history in there. So I started to get a little bit more into a 1970s of present. And then when I was at the Met as a senior fellow back in 2019 to 2020, I dove into this history of what are called cigarette and tobacco cards from the late 1800s up through the early 1900s. And those early, early cards, which were trading cards are like prototypes of the baseball

trading cards that were put into like gum packets and stuff. the early versions of them were for less performers, vaudeville performers, actresses, and like 95% of them are women, right? These images of women. And so they were put onto these little cards that were put into loose-leaf tobacco as a kind of, I mean, they had a physical purpose to them, keep everything in place. But then they also, they use them to print something on it, and then men would trade them. And so they'd go into like their cafe saloon. and, you know, get their little packs of tobacco and be like, oh, I got this actress, and she's wearing some tights.

You see a little bit of her knee on this one. And so this kind of history that comes from the development of lithography in the early part of the 1800s and advertising into the development of photography in the mid-19th century. And then how that becomes this economic of like traded bodies and specifically traded female bodies, right ones that are very like on display they are staged as things to be looked at and then that just amplifies with the development of early cinema which happens at the same time that vaudeville and then burlesque and then what becomes the striptease develops in the mid 20th century and so that is what connected me between these realms of what are usually artificially distinguished as high art and

low art, our high brow culture and lowbrow culture. And I love that kind of space in between. And I think burlesque lays with it in the most beautiful way. So that's how I got there. That's fascinating. And I'm really interested in the point that you started with there to say that you were looking at feminist artists and feminist performers. Because I think that Belasque and even the actual strip artist, the strip club, they've long occupied this slightly uneasy, in the fight of feminism, haven't they? Is that they can be, like, there are some people that view it only as exploitative and degrading and that you are playing into patriarchal stereotypes.

And then there are other people that are like, well, actually, this is my agency. I'm the one in charge of this. This is my body and I'm using it the way I want to. What's your thoughts on that? Which is a huge topic, by the way. Probably not a fair question for me to throw at you this early in the interview. Oh, it's going to say there's a lot to dive into there. and I'm sure we'll kind of keep wrapping back to it and also could be its own podcast episode.

It could be. It absolutely could be, couldn't it? And so that is something that is there from the beginning. This discussion of is this empowering? Is this something that I can take control of and I have the both right to my own body and the right to like display this and own my sexuality? Or is this a use of an exploitation? Is it vice? Is it the fallen woman? Right? So that kind of divide that it's always been there. It's the like Eve and Mary dichotomy. Like, yeah, you're the whore. You're the virgin. And so that staging, again, of those two positions right there. And we see it in the early censorship of what is like burlesque in the late 19th century, into the early 20th century. And usually, as it still is, it's couched in this idea of like we're saving women. We're keeping them from these horrible things

that have a falling, saving you from yourself here. And so that's what's used to kind of step in. But it continues. And there is still very much this idea of, no, like, this is empowering. And I own this. And I am making this choice, exactly as you said. There's like agency, the self-agency. And I think like that's where that power burlesque has always been. Theater, into burlesque, into the strip club, it's all into sex work, it's all intertwined there, is that I am making this decision

about what I want to do with my body there. And so that's the space that I like to exist in. I'm thinking about this, right? I don't think it's ever very, me personally, I never think it's very helpful to try and make something like strip teas or burlesque or even sex work,

like either be empowering or be horrendously exploitative. I like try and look at it through it like more of a capitalist lens of like we're everyone selling something to make their money that's kind of but but belesk is is kind of that's an even more interesting one because so much of that is like performance and now it's not even like something that you'd necessarily do for a career there's belesk clubs where people do it for fun they're just having a laugh it's taken on a life of its own hasn't it and and i think it exists in a variety like a spectrum in that way right And so we see this development, and this really comes from like the neo burlesque revival,

the 90s up to present, that there are, right, like we get fitness clubs that have burlesque or strip pole classes connected to them. Or there's just community classes. I mean, even here in Utah, where I am, you can go and take some classes for fun, right? And you can do that. But then there is also very, very much this professional, continuing circuit. I mean, there's a Burlesque Hall of Fame in Vegas. There's Burley Khan that happened.

I mean, there's a very, very kind of like continued professional professionalization traveling. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really interesting that I hadn't realized until your research, the research of other people like is. I'd always thought Belesk was the striptease. I'd always thought that like that's what it is because that's so immediately what your thought is. It's like, belesk, someone's going to be taken off their clothes.

That's what Belesk is. And it's like highly stylized and it has a kind of a vintagey vibe. But that's not actually where Belasque even came from. Completely. And there is, right? There is a connecting point between burlesque and the strip teas. And that's very much, especially the American kind of burlesque style. The idea of the teas is in there.

But the history of it really does kind of show how we've gotten to this point where we think about those as two different things, even though they're intertwined. And actually the amazing Joe Boobes Weldon, who's based in New York and was very, very, very, very much, like, responsible part of this neo-Berlask revival around New York City in the 90s to present. She's like, the strip, the burlesque, the sex work, it's always intertwined. They always exist. Like, you can't take them away from each other. And so it's kind of like that bend diagram, right? You might be a little bit more over here, but you're still citing what's here in the center point right here. And this idea of the citational, I think, is very like integral to the

idea of burlesque. But if we go back to that kind of beginning point of it, right? Berlask has its origins in Europe, and specifically in the London theaters, and then the Parisian theaters, and just the word itself. So burlesque, it's French, but that comes from the Italian, the root burla. And Berla means like comedy, to joke, to laugh, to parody. And it's meant to be something like fun and lighthearted, But it's also like a send-up, right? And so those early kind of forms of the burlesque always had the comedic element to it. But it was also a taking down of high culture. And it was meant to be a sort of like, I'm going to prick you in this idea of like,

ooh, opera and Shakespeare and the ballet as being upper class and fancy. Like, we're going to take you down quite a few notches with this. And so that early burlesque, if we think about, like, like early 1800s, the English theater, or the saloons or the backrooms of pubs and stuff, it had this class element to it as well that was very much an awareness of, we're more working class, we're more of that like economic middle ground tier. And so we're going to rib the upper class and their perceived fanciness of it. And so that early use of burlesque meant more something like theaters.

right and the theaters up for like the middle class kind of audience there and so that's a very strong influence and the other one comes out of like french traditions of the tableau v vons which has a german kind of connection to it as well but this staging of works of art classical works of art on stage but using body stockings or tights and things that were like beginning to show off the body more on stage. And that also corresponds with this shift that's happening in ballet at the time period as well, where we know, like ballet in its origins and beginnings it was men. And men were tights and heels and would show off these beautiful legs of theirs. But it was like in the early 1800s that that begins to shift to the female body. And so around the 1830s, we see the

first appearance of female ballerinas and prima ballerinas on stage with, the introduction of pink tight, which was meant to give this very, like, fleshy appearance. You get glimpses of my leg. You get a little glimpse of my hip or my pelvis as I move around the stage here. You forget how sexy the ballerinas are,

because now they're very, like, high-brow. And, like, as I'm going to the ballet to watch the ballet, I'm very high-brow cultured. They were a saucy bunch back in the day. Completely, right? And they are, especially when we're going to Paris, like, later in the 19th century. And you see that.

in all the art world as well. So like DaGas works, for example. Right? And so, like, he really shows that relationship between theater, ballet, prostitution, like all wrapped up into there as well. Makeup, oh, that becomes another, like, major signifier of things too. So you're wearing makeup, you're a theater actress or a prostitute, right?

Again, you're just that. That's it's the only options. I suppose that's all you can be. Dancers as well, it wasn't just the ballet dancers. You've got something like the Moulin Rouge with. Their dancers, their can-can dancers, again, that's very, there's a lot of slippage between dancing, acting, sex work. Yep. Oh, I love that.

Slipage. That is, like, so perfect to use in that space right there. Right? Because it's cheese. Like, it's a little bit of a like, I'm going to show you. I'm going to reveal it. But then I'm going to conceal it. I'm going to reveal or conceal.

And that's like a basic of burlesque as well. The teas. How much are you going to be able to actually see? And how much is going on your head about what you think you're seeing here? Were there always people, women, really, taking their clothes off as part of a Belesque act? Because I'm trying to get you, just like, you'd go and see a Belesque show, but would that be almost like a variety performance with like lots of people doing different things? And then one of the acts would be somebody taking their clothes off. Ooh, so the taking the clothes off doesn't happen until the early 20th century.

No. Right? So, yeah, that comes later. So really, what becomes the fundamental shift for the development of burlesque? and particularly a dear burlesque as American is in 1868, Lydia Thompson and her troop of British blondes who are escaping London and all these rules that have been put into place by Lord Chamberlain back in like the early 18th century around theater and censorship. And like the theater can only be things that are like completely morally correct.

to eat, right? They can't be deeply political and they can't be obscene. And there was another one put into, so early 1700s, again in the 1840s. And so Lydia Thompson, who was putting on these stage performances in London, was like, all right, I can't do anything here, right? These morality is around this are too much. I'm going to the states. And so this is right out of the Civil War in the U.S., like where the country is starting to rebuild. New York is, again, like just growing and growing. And so she and her like gorgeous British blondes arrive in New York and they've cut on the stage show that is like the dancing ladies. And they are a sensation. And it's kind of simultaneous with the rapid development of penny presses and newspapers that are publishing

multiple times a day like the New York Post and New York Herald. And they start to have sections that are about like what we'd call tabloid things today. Right? Like, of course. equivalent to the sun. And they just blew up in the newspaper, right? It was like, oh, my gosh, you have to go see these shows. These exotic British blondes are here and performing. And you're seeing like some leg, these leg shows. And so that idea comes. And they made so much money. It was one of just, I mean, to think again what you mentioned before about the economics of all of this, it was a way for women to be somewhat self-sustaining, right? That the theater was very largely controlled by Ben, right? And especially like stage directing and ownership and everything

else. But Lydia Thompson, like, she kind of had that control over it, right? Absolutely. Right. She was a maven and a just self-created, just, I'm going to make it on my own. And also share it with the women that are with me here. So it was a kind of distributive, like, economics there. So that's kind of what sets our beginning point of burlesque. But burlesque in its early, burlesque and vaudeville, there's a lot of, like, similarities going on there. So we get always a comedian, right? Because that idea of the burla, the laugh, the joke, it always has to be there. So we get comedy. We get acts of dancing. We get the tablovy v. Vaughn. All of the. that starts to come in at that moment. But it's meant to be a variety act, right? And so when you do see

the women performing on stage, it is more dancing. And the scandalous part of it is that they're wearing tights or that you see like a little bit of reveal of, say, a collarbone or something like that. But there's not full on stripping going on. No. And what begins to happen, especially in the late 19th century and early 20th century is that there's a separation that really like the gap begins to be more noticeable between vaudeville and what gets named as burlesque and that term that term actually arrives with Lydia Thompson and our British blonde so it's the first time it's used in the American press and it gets connected with this idea of like female performance and the female body on stage and the spectacle with that as well so vaudeville it really oriented

itself towards middle class but respectable middle class, right? A place where middle class women could go and be in the audience and they could enjoy some good, clean, fun where there's no smoking and there's no drinking and there's no rowdiness, right? Like, it's just all good for you. And we'll have a good old sing song. Exactly, right? Like everyone's just having a good time. And then there's what burlesque starts to become, which is to separate itself out. It remains very like oriented towards the working class and so that stays in place but it just becomes much more about this male audience and this idea of shows that are now bodier and the jokes are a little raunchier so that divide right there right like that's what begins to put us on this pathway

towards what will develop as the strip tees in the early part of the 20th century as we're like moving away from the 19th century and into the early 20th century. My immediate thought is for performers like Josephine Baker and the Fully Berger. Would you say that that was Bolesca or were they doing something else with that? Oh, yeah. And Josephine Baker totally comes out of that burlesque influence because she leaves the states and goes over to Paris in the 1920s, right? And a lot of that is because of the segregation.

I mean, the United States, this deep history of colonialism and racism and racism and racial segregation and misogyny, that that's what she's experienced. experiencing here. And so it's like, all right, I'm going over to Paris. And, you know, she gets picked up on the stage of the Foli Berger. And she does perform a kind of exoticism famously, the banana skirt as she is doing her dance there, right? But she is billed as like American burlesque. And so what she takes over to Paris is the idea of the minstrel shows that were specifically an American kind of addition, the idea of the vaudeville, the comedic, because she's also very much, she's very funny, right? So, so keeping that aspect of burlesque. Whereas, I think what

really differs with the Parisian tradition of, say, a Foli Berger's, is that it was never about the, initially, the teas or about the strip teas, more than that. It's about glamour and this like fashion and showcasing and the costumes are so extraordinary and the presence of this like aestheticism of this body here that's paramount in the French tradition whereas the American it's it gets that low brow it gets a more subversive thing in there and I was just thinking then like humor does seem to be a real central part of this mean you can still go and see videos of Josephine Baker dancing and you'd be hard pressed to say that the dance is self is sexy.

Like, you know, she's like crossing her eyes and she's rolling them and she's making funny faces and she's dancing away. And then I thought I learned recently about another slightly later act, an American one called Carrie Fennell who she had really struck pectoral muscles and could move her boobs independently of one another. That's a funny act as well. Like, you know, like moving your boobs in different directions and she made loads of money doing that.

Oh, so much money. I mean, and again, to bring back the economics of, all right, it's a labor of the body. And so you're using it and you're benefiting from that. Yeah. So, Anne Corio, who is just another, like, fundamental major of aesthetic or classic burlesque, she referred to Fidel as, she said when she would walk across the stage, she looked like a twin engine bomber because she could make those tassels move like propellers. which is such a beautiful image.

But, you know, that that type period, it corresponds with there are all these censorship rules that get developed. And that starts in the 1870s, if we're, you know, focusing on the United States, in New York City around Anthony Comstock, but like notorious Comstock, right? An unfortunate name for such a prude. You're like, you're not coming anywhere. And so in 1872, he forms this New York society for the suppression of vice. And he starts to go after everything.

Amy Warbell has a fantastic book that just covers all of this history. He's a vicious, vicious man. He would like brag that he'd driven people to suicide. Like, fuck you, dick, ed. Completely, right? He's like, you deserve to, oh, yeah, not that my fault. You made your choices. I mean, one of those kind of guys, right?

Yeah, yeah. And so he goes after everything and everyone. And I mean, he classifies pretty much everything as like a vice, right? And so one of the things he goes after are the tableau vivants. And this idea of, yep, and the burlesque performances and everything else. And so there are these rules that are put into place that if there's an annuity on stage, and that includes like body stockings that you cannot move, right? And so that's why part of the, the.

benefit of the tablobe va vaunt was that you were supposed to remain perfectly still on stage so that people could see what you're performing but you also couldn't move for the 90 seconds to two minutes that you were in place and if you did then you could be arrested right immediately you're obscene so you could go from being this like high art performance as long as you're saying still as long as you're moving to a second you move like oh nope now you're obscene now you're biased now you can be arrested Now you're awful. Yeah. I'll be back with Marissa after this short break.

How did Belisk manage to survive that period of American history? Because it was so suppressive and so censorious. But it was absolutely insane. And it's not, you know, he said that he was banning obscene things. But, I mean, it was really anything to do with sex at all, including, you know, information about birth control as well. How did Belesk survive that? Oh, I think that it,

is the cat and mouse game, right? It's the constant. And they existed in the cycle of the more that we get attacked as being like inappropriate or full of vice, and you shouldn't go see this ever, the more people are going to want to see it. And so they use it for publicity purposes, right? They would just keep towing the line. So the very, very big name that emerges in New York in the early 20th century that gets just, it's synonymous with burlesque is Minsk's. And the Minski brothers, they set up these theaters. They started the lower east side, kind of southern part of Manhattan, which was more gringy and dirty. And definitely was this large swath of immigrants who are coming into the U.S. in this area of Manhattan. Like, it was catering to these middle to upper, lower kind of class crowds here.

But again, it was associated with the idea of the body, a little bit dirty, all those kind of things in there. But there was also this desire to make it a little bit more, like, upscale, right? Not up, but like a little bit more than the lower. And so Minsky starts using the words like folies to reference the folie boucher or, you know, the French performers. And the lovey actress slash performers take on French names, you know, as stage names and things like that to use. Ever we want to feel sophisticated, we pretend we're French. It's been such a go-to for years and years, hasn't it? I just embraced my last name. Yes, just pure to you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

His vigno is stage name. Is that what you're doing there? I was going to say, right? It should be. It should be. It's very good. That would be, but your name is a fantastic. ballesque name just all by itself i could be like vene yo yes right don't they say they're like your stripper name is the name of your first pet and your mother's maiden name oh mother i always got like your uh the street you grew up on and something go on so what's yours then the street that you're street you grew up on and then what is it your mother's maiden name lamber with now oh that's good i could have been a british blonde you could have been i think mine is bessie baker which sounds a bit like a 19th century dominatrix, don't you think?

Oh, a Bessie Baker. A Bessie Baker would have been rolling in it. She would have been. Absolutely. Was there ever a golden age of Bolesk? Because clearly it survives. It survives Comstock and his obsessive lunacy. But was there a golden age of Bolesk? Oh, yes, absolutely. And also it survives Minsky's. It survives the raids that happened there. So in that idea of like what happened over those years from say 1870 up through the 1940s 50s is that it was it was a back and forth. It was there were undercover kind of vice operatives that would be sent into these theaters. And the second that they saw something wrong going on, right?

Like up, okay, raid, arrest, you know, this and that. And then things would like calm down again. and then it would like slowly build back up. So that wave kind of cycle, right? So this culminated in the 1930s and specifically 1937. So New York has this mayor, Fiorella LaGuardia. And LaGuardia, he kind of continues the calm stockish, you know, believes. And he just hates the burlesque clubs for many reasons.

Like he thinks that they're full of ice. He thinks that they're full of mobsters. You'd think in the 1930s it'd have bigger things to be worrying about quite frankly. You would think, right? Like, we're like, well, post-cressure. A little bit of a depression, a little bit between the wars, things happening. But no, for less.

That's the thing we have to go after, right? Well, I mean, yeah, what are we looking at right now in politics? We do the same thing constantly, right? Who are the scapegoats? Yeah. Who's using whose toilet? And we'll just ignore the fact that the world is on fire and fascism is on the rise. There we go. That's the most important part.

Like, who's playing in sports? Yeah. So, Firo LaGuardia. It's like, oh, we got to shut these things. These are awful. They're a stain on the city. They're just bringing her all down. So he used that continued tactic.

The Sends and undercover cops who, you know, I'm sure they hated all there were. Oh, but they detested that. But there were no volunteers for that job. So they sit in the front rows. They got little notebooks. They are just keeping these intricate kind of notes about like, well, this performer, I could see her G string or I could see this and that. Because there are, again, are these rules around if you are topless on stage in New York, you have to have Pacey's on.

And you always have to be wearing a G string, right? So this is the weird thing, too. The states has all the states have these different rules and laws and continue to have all these different rules and laws about how much nudity you can display on a stage, right? And so New York continues to have the, you have to have Paises and a G string. If you're doing, you're stripping, right? Whereas, say, Oregon, all-off, doesn't matter, right? You could be completely nude on stage. Other places, it's around alcohol.

Oh, that's always been a thing to you, right? Right. You got them like, what's the relationship going on here? So if a performer, you know, there are notes on this, she's dancing and she's not wearing her g-string, right? Note taken, name, arrest, raids. Can I just say these sound like terrible undercover cups, sat in the front row taking notes. It's just like that's, that is a rubbish undercover police officer, just with a t-shirt on saying normal civilian, nothing to see here. Definitely not boot patrol going on.

Absolutely not boot patrol. But it does make you wonder too then how visible they are. You know that the stage director is the owner, like they're all aware of it. And they all also know that they're playing this cat and mouse game. And so there's like this teasing going on that exists. that level as well, right? And so who's in the know, who's not in the know, how is the cycle going to continue? But there were these series of raids in the late 30s, and that just effectively kind of shut down the theaters. And so what LaGuardia put in place was that no theater could operate with the

word burlesque, no theater could operate with the word Minsky, because they had become so synonymous there and a lot of them try and survive continue by using the word folies in their title instead or extravaganzas or spectacle and it continued the raids continue they shut down did you watch the marvelous mrs mazel yes yeah there's a yeah like when when she's doing her and actually that's like i love that she's playing the comedic introlude in between the burlesque acts but there's still the police rates that are going on, right, and everything else. And so that's pretty indicative what's happening around the city in the 1940s into 1950s. But what really happens is that Burlese kind of is out of New York and to Vegas, right? And so Vegas in the 1950s and 1960s,

that's when it explodes, right? It is before that time period, it's in the middle of a desert, right? this kind of in the middle nowhere. It has a Mormon history to it. It has a history of like the government testing bombs. But post-war, the casinos start to move in. And all those mobsters in New York that had kind of been like getting some kickbacks on their clubs and whatnot. And now we're getting shut down. They're moving out to L.A. Right? You're away from the kind of surveillance. I've seen a casino. Yes. Yes. Right. And so what happens in Vegas is this kind of combination of that, but high aesthetic, beautiful costuming performance of Paris, mixed with the history of burlesque and the comedians and everything else that becomes the variety shows.

And that's like a Foley Berger that emerges in Vegas or the Jubilee, like extravaganza there as well. And so if we're going to think about like a golden age of burlesque, it really gets connected with what's happening in New York around Minsky's of the 20s and 30s and then what really emerges around Vegas and all is those amazing burlesque performers there. But it really starts to take on then also a stage performance of its own. And it connects to the ideas of the pin-up models that become so ubiquitous, especially around World War II. And this idea of you know, the photographs and the models and then the film industry.

And it sort of just gets involved into all of these other forms of media as well. Do you know, for the longest time, I didn't think that Gypsy Rosalie was a real person. I thought that she was made up. She was like a fictional character, like noddy or Mickey Mouse. But she was a real person. Yeah. And in a way, like that's her stage name. Yes, of course.

Right. And so there is a like performative creation of who she is. And I love that movie, like Gypsy that was made. Natalie Wood is in that and based on her selective memoirs and memories of her own childhood, right? But she's connected, comes out of like that vaudeville circuit of the early 20th century and like emerges out of it as a huge burlesque performer. But what is so fantastic about Gypsy Rose Lee, like she's always hilarious. Like she's got an amazing sense of humor. And like you had mentioned before about Josephine Baker, her shows, they're sexy, they're teasing,

they're like really meant to turn on, but they are also so self-aware. This idea of a self-aware is just, she knows she has control over that audience and like where they're looking and how she's directing them. And then she adds in that comedic element as well that is like so, so very much always a part of burlesque. My favorite vintage balesque star, I think, is Tempest Storm. Like, she's just such a powerhouse. If people don't know who she is, go and look at her.

Go and Google that name and see who this woman was. Didn't she, like, get her boobs insured for like $5,000 or something crazy like that? Or maybe that was just a publicity stunt. Actually, it was Carrie Fennell who also had her legs insured. Her manager had her legs insured by Lloyds of London for $100,000, which is close to like $2 million today. So, yes, right. But Tempest Storm, Blaze Star, I mean, and they are like the mid-century va-va-voom. Like the comedic element is starting to fall away with these kind of like 1950s, 1960s performers now.

Now it's kind of like sexy, sexy now. Yes. Well, you know, the other thing that happens is that we've got the development of radio shows, right, early 20th century up through the 40s, and then television. And so all of those performers who are doing comedic acts, variety shows, are being sort of cleaned up. And that's what becomes the basis of the sitcom show. And, you know, people like Abbot and Costello get their star on the list stages and then sort of like move into radio shows, clean it up. But there's this steady then separation of who's still on the stage and what becomes visible there and the female body especially. to be looked at, and then what's seen as, I think, probably like the continuation of

more vaudeville. The thing that was meant for that middle-class audience, like, it's not vulgar, it's clean fun over here. I'll be about with Marissa after this short break. Do you think then, the modern strip club, the strip artist, the midnight ballerina, as I've heard them calling themselves on TikTok, which I love that. I mean, it's, you know, like, if you think that, like, strip teases belest, like, go to a strip club. Go to a strip club and, like, look at what they're doing and that's not burlesque.

That's, it's not. But do you think that, like, that was born out of this belesque history and tradition? And when do we start to get the separation between what we would now see? That's a strip artist. That's who that is. Like, I don't know if it's the inclusion of a poll or if it's, like, being completely naked. I don't know what it is. But when do we get that distinction made?

Belasque and strip teeth. Kind of early in the 1900s, there's a connecting point there, right? Strip tease comes out of burlesque. And so there's this notorious, somewhat apocryphal story about a performer in, I think it's around 1917, 18. And it was a really hot summer night theater in New York. And as she's exiting the stage after a true performance, she begins to take off like the cuffs of her costume and the collar of her costume, but she's still visible to the audience.

And so all of a sudden you are like all these whistles and hoots and cheers. And so she picks up on it. She sort of meanders back onto the more visible for the stage and does a little like, let me take my top of my bustier, like unbutton this and getting all of the like, whoo, you know, response to it. And then again, leaves the stage. So this was one of the Minsky, one of the Brothers theaters. And he sees that. He's like, all right, that's our new stage act every night. Like, this is how we're going to bring it in. But it's really, really tame at the beginning. Because, you know, the first introduction of the thing is usually like, it can be scandalous at its very basic levels. And, you know, we have a, there's a long, long, long history in female

performances of the body that hint at or even go into strip teases. I mean, a lot of these burlesque performers are like, this goes back to Cleopatra and her. dances that she would do as well, right? Like, we've got these. But how it sort of like then emerges and comes into the 1920s and 30s is that there's a little bit more that's revealed, a little bit more. And then that's why we get those laws around. Well, if you're going to take your top off, you have to have something covering your nipples. And so we get the pasties that get developed there. Well, if you're going to take your skirt off, then you have to have something covering your crotch. And so that's where we get the G string kind of invented there as well. So,

That kind of progresses, progresses. After Minsky shuts down and burlesque gets kind of put into the backstages, what we start to lose are the big productions. You lose the big sets. You lose the orchestra. You lose the comics. You lose the costumes. And what becomes cheaper for club owners or theater owners is to, like, just play a record and have people strip. And have women strip.

And just take your clothes off on that stage. for four minutes, three minutes, to the song as playing, and that's all we have to do is pay you for that right there. And so that's one way that it kind of begins to segregate out into these separate performances where the spotlight is just on this one singular performance of the woman stripping and taking off her clothes. And so the other thing that happens is like Times Square, it gets seedier and seedier and seedier. So it's, of LaGuardia's intention in the 30s was to like clean it all up, the opposite happens, of course. Like all that happens that the theaters are abandoned, these beautiful, gorgeous old theaters

that were built around Broadway, because this is where the Minsky's were able to bring all their things up to Broadway, that they get abandoned or they get turned into grind house theaters, which are just, you know, playing B-movies 24-7. Those then eventually by the 70s, come porn theaters. You know, you've seen those images around the deuce of the 1970s. It's dirty. It's seedy. There's prostitutes working on the streets. Like all those marquees that in the 1920s and 30s would have burlesque and performers are beautiful, like big grand movie theater houses, now have porn movies on them. And there are peep shows that emerge around there. And, you know, we call it the Golden Asia

pornography, or it's the New York Times that comes up with that term porno chic in the 70s to kind of refer to this moment of films like Debbie does Dallas, deep throat. Debbie does deep throat behind the green door that there were like sophisticated crowds of mixed gender that are going into these theaters

to watch it together and talk about it at dinner parties, right, that it gets connected with that. But it doesn't get cleaned up until the 90s. Here's a name, Rudy Giuliani as mayor. Oh, I've heard of him. Right? Yeah. So I'm like, oh, yeah.

So you're shutting those down the 90s, but you're letting everything else hopping now. So that's the like Disneyification of Times Square that we're still like a little bit used to. But it's got this amazing history of that. So, you know, there's still strip clubs that are kind of a little bit more up the I was just thinking like modern day strip clubs and strippers of many, we have many listening. I know that we do.

It's like, I don't even know if they still actually strip on stage, like an actual strip club. If there's still like a performative dance that they do where they get on dress. And like I think a lot of them like go on pretty much naked and just do their thing. And they're dancers now more than people, you know, take an outfit off on stage. And I think that again, at least in the States, it depends on where you're performing. There's loads of people emailing in now going, Kate, that's absolutely crap. I'm a stripper and I regularly do this. Oh, completely.

You know, I have a lovely friend who's actually the co-author or, you know, co-editor of the Sex on Stage book here. And she performs. She performs in a strip club in England. And it is part of her. She very much is informed by, she has a PhD in art. She has an MFA. And she thinks about her work as performance, informed by performance art,

informed by a history of actresses and and theater goers and what it means to put on a spectacle and a stage and also to reclaim a gaze to think about like the empowerment that comes from that. And so I think that also brings us back to something that you brought up in the beginning to this duality and notion of is it empowerment, is it exploitation, right? And trying to make this into a binary, but it's just not at all. And I think as well, there's now quite a clear distinction between ballesque and between strip artists. To the point where I've heard some belesque performers. And I also see them getting rightly shouted up for saying this is where they try and distance themselves from people working in strip clothes.

As if like, you know, like, oh, God. Yeah, but we're not strippers. And it's like, but why kind of make that distinction so harsh? It's like, you know, like, you might be in a different seat, but we're all on the same bus, you know, kind of going the same way here. Oh, right? Yeah. And I think that like now there's quite a visible distinction between beless. which is very stylized and we recognize it when we see it like Dita Vantis and, you know, feathers and nipple tassels and sparkly thongs.

And again, it's got that performance to it. And like the strippers who work in the strip club. And I wonder if that distinction is again about wrestling with this performance about is it feminism or is it not feminism. Because Belasque now has an association with it of that it's, that it is empowering. I've heard many people talk about like that, whereas strip clubs still not probably viewed that way. And I think it also comes back to this notion around sex and what's for sale. And the ergonomics. Right. What's for sale.

And this assumption that, you know, and again, we can trace this all the way back to the origins of burlesque in the States, that a lot of theaters were right next to brothels. There we go. And a lot of that fear around the performance and especially the performance owning one's sexuality. of the female body, the fear was also around prostitution and the fear was also around uncontrollable, unruly bodies in the way that we've always thought about feminine sexuality, that it is something to be controlled. And so, yeah, and to be ashamed of it, right?

Because if you're ashamed of it, then you're going to hide it away. And that's what the intention is. So this idea around like, oh, but I'm a less performer. like I don't engage in sex because there's something dirty about that or there's something like unwarranted illegal like anything else creates again absolutely that false distinction and that divide between where these where these are so interconnected to each other you know yep same seats on the same bus or they're they're connected again by that bend diagram in the middle point like the stripper the peeler like these are burlesque terms like it absolutely comes from that so

where we're going to get a little bit of a difference like in a contemporary is around this idea of a neo-birdlesque, right? So the neo-burlesque kind of emerges in the mid-90s, simultaneous of each other. In New York, in L.A., we get this kind of, I think it comes in large part because of the influence of punk aesthetics, the riot girls, right? So the riot girls the early to mid-90s that a lot of like Kathleen and Hannah, the goddess Kathleen Hannah is like performing in strip clubs in D.C. Because she's like, yeah, I'm going to take their money. Like this is, yeah, sure, fine.

Like, this is my body. I perform on stage. I sing on stage. This is mine. Give me the money. Your money you've done that. Like, yeah, I'm going to take that. So there's this like riot girl aesthetic going on there.

But then there's also like LBGTQ, AIA Plus expansion. This incorporation of, right? Like that, like, that, like, reclamation of what I'd call, like, classical aesthetic kind of burlesque. But now merged with the political burlesque. And the thing is, like, again, it's always been there. It's always been an undercurrent of burlesque, the political, right? That early send-up of the upper class. The idea of the comedic, the parodic, the satire.

Like, these are all elements that have been there. And, too, the idea of what's called travesty. And so travesty is like the same relationship to transvestitism, the idea of like gender bending. And early on in these performances, Isaacs Mencken in New York, like she is notorious, would go on stage and she'd perform in male character roles, wearing her tights that were meant to be a signifier of like masculinity but subversive femininity. So like playing with gender and gender performativity that has been there from the beginning, like hallmark of neo burlesque as well. Body positivity, like you get all the tattoo culture, but you get the pinup culture, you get the rockability culture, the swing culture. It's just, it's nostalgic and it's present and it's future looking. And so it just, it exists in this like beautiful mixture of all of those things there.

Marissa, you have been incredible to talk to. I knew that you would be. Thank you so much. Thank you. I love this. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? Oh, let's see. So I am Professor Mvigno on Instagram, try and post on there. And my Utah State University, where I teach, I have information posted on there. I buy LinkedIn. Well, you've been wonderful. Thank you so much for dropping by. Oh, thank you. Kate, I love this so much. And so we should do. it again. Thanks for listening and thank you so much to Marissa for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like with you and follow along whatever it is. You get your podcasts. Coming up, we will be heading to World War I to meet the alleged spy and rumoured

super slut matter harry. And then we're off to Hollywood to get up close and personal with the fabulous Marlene Daitrick. And if you'd like a true explorer subject, if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again, Betwixt the History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.