Live Nude Girls Unite!

I can only assume that the current low rating of this film, despite generally positive comments, is a result of a bunch of idiotic guys renting this thinking it'll be some nice T&A and then being p***ed off because not only are they being asked to THINK, but they're also being asked to show sex industry workers some RESPECT. Looking at the gender breakdown of the votes only further supports this theory. This fact only goes to show why the actions taken by the women of the Lusty Lady are SO important. My fiancee is a stripper, not because she finds it to be fun work, but because it's a decent paying job for a freelance artist between jobs. The funny thing is, people want to believe that those girls are there because they have some sexual compulsion to; hence girls are often asked, "So what do you do for a living?" Any guy reading this who has ever asked a stripper this question, please go jump off the nearest bridge. We don't need morons like you in the gene pool.

Anyway, this mentality, that strippers aren't workers (and try dancing in 8 inch platform heels for 8 hours and tell me it's not hard work), but are sex crazed exhibitionists, fuels the concept that they can be mistreated in the workplace. This movie shows how these women stood up to a negative cultural perception of them to take control of their workplace and fight for the same rights afforded to other workers. It's an inspiring story, and I'd like to think that if more people saw it, and were presented with stories like this more often, maybe we could finally change the public perception of these women.

In this documentary, a group of strippers attempt to unionize against their employers at a peep-show theater in San Francisco. The friend that accompanied me to the screening disliked the fact that it was shot with a Super-8 type camera, but I didn't mind. The poor quality seemed appropriately intimate; like a home movie. This documentary displayed not only the plight of the girls to fight for basic employee benefits, but also the struggle of the narrator (Julia Query) in admitting to her mother that she delivers peep shows for money. The well-educated and extremely clever Julia is the daughter of a renowned New York doctor who has devoted a solid chunk of her life to aiding prostitutes. My major complaint with the movie was that it was very short. At 75 minutes, it was shorter than most animated features. Otherwise, it was an interesting and provocative look into the mentality of strippers and THEIR feelings about their occupation. It's something that people spend little time considering, and it was nice to see something un-cliché for once. Live Nude Girls Unite goes highly recommended.

The title might suggest this movie is exploitative or pornographic or something, but actually it is a generally light hearted look at a serious topic. The movie spends some time on the background of the 'star' of the film, whose mother is a famous NY doctor, but is mainly concerned with the serious topic of work conditions of sex workers. The idea is that just because a person works in the sex industry(here a peep show, but her mom deals with prostitutes), s/he still deserves to have their rights as a worker and person upheld. The movie works as much as a labor documentary (good in this era of decreasing unionization) as anything else. It has some work related scenes of an explicit nature, but overall it is not explicitly sexual at all.

btw I do think the scene where she tells her mother what that she works in the sex industry works. The movie is in part an autobiography and the scene is powerful on its own and as an important event in her life.

This film relates the efforts of "exotic dancers" at a San Francisco establishment called The Lusty Lady to organize a labor union and improve their working conditions.

The narrator and central character is Julia Query, a feminist, Jewish, lesbian, stand-up comic, who turned to stripping to make ends meet. The film relates the conditions the strippers worked under, how they decided to organize the union and negotiated their first contract. The club apparently engaged in arbitrary and discriminatory practices, for example, classifying the dancers by race, hair color and other physical attributes.

Negotiating the first contract took many months and the film shows the agony of making decisions on what was and was not negotiable.

On the one hand the dancers do have legitimate grievances, on the other the work they do is sleazy and some would say antisocial and not to be encouraged. While their working conditions are not ideal, they are not coal miners or migrant workers. Compared to some other jobs, strippers have it pretty easy.

Another plot line of the film is Julia's relationship with her mother. Her mother is a physician in New York, who as it happens, works with prostitutes. Julia has not told her mother what she does for a living. When Julia is asked to speak at a conference on the "sex industry" she discovers her mother will also be at the conference and she can no longer put off revealing her occupation to her mother. Needless to say, her mother is not at all pleased and the two become estranged for some months.

The film has moments of humor and drama. The production values are amateurish, in some scenes the color is off (although that could have been due to the poor quality of the print). The film contain adult language and nudity.

I taped this like any good Australian male seeing something advertised with Nudity on SBS (Special Broadcasting Service, world channel). Having been used to getting such great films as the Weather Girl and Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, how could I go wrong with Live Nude Girls Unite!?

I did. The titillation factor went clear out the window when I started getting really ticked at how these beautiful (in all ways), intelligent women were being handled like a commodity. I started rooting (ahem) for them, wishing their union on, wanting to start my own strip club so I can run it properly!

Such is the skill of a good documentary. Yes I'll admit the film quality isn't going to put Dreamworks out of business, but the girls struggles to have decent work ethics is astonishing.

See it, not for titillation, but to watch the underdog struggle. It's good watching the oppressed win, and this has it in truckloads.