It's "Burlesque"

Tonight the Xtina movie star vehicle and Cher's big screen return, "Burlesque" hits cineplex screens. I've been hearing about the film for the last couple years as info leaked out and the burlesque community began fretting about a multi-million dollar misrepresentation of the modern burlesque scene. From early reviews, it is as bad as they worried it would be, but I'm proud and happy to see that despite that, the community seems to be making lemonade out of this lemon.

• Boston staged a Burlesque Marathon- 8 hours of burlesque to give folks a taste of the real burlesque community on the eve of the movie opening.
• The brilliant San Francisco Los Angeles performer and producer Sparkly Devil Penny Starr Jr [whoops, Sparkly just reposted it- Penny thunk it up!] suggested using the Twitter hash-tag #Burlesque on the day of the movie premiere, to post about our shows, people in the community etc. so when folks look up burlesque on Twitter, they'll find us.
• Lots of folks are planning on flyering movie attendees to let them know that burlesque exists in their community, not just on the movie screen.

I'll be attending tonight with a few fellow performers and friends tonight mostly so I can complain about it in an informed manner. :) If anyone wants to join us, we're heading to the movie at the Denver Pavilions at 10:15 pm.

It is important to note that despite the filmmakers claims that they shied away from the nudity so they wouldn't get an R rating, it is very possible to correctly represent burlesque and not offend the censors, even on television. This season of Castle had a great burlesque episode with accurate costumes and dancing, the only innacuracy was the spacious gorgeous New York burlesque club. Though maybe we'll be getting that next year with the reopening of the Slipper Room?