It's summer and television has taken a backseat to vacations, barbeques and other fun in the sun. The networks have packed their schedules with a lot of filler - especially of the reality show variety - in the meantime.
It was on one of these very filler reality shows that burlesque history got made last summer. On the competitive talent show, "America's Got Talent," Miss Exotic World 2005, Michelle L'Amour performed burlesque striptease not once, but twice, for a prime time, network television viewing audience. While it may not have been the ideal way to educate the American public about burlesque, it certainly reached a record number of them in their homes, spilled over to the Internet via message boards and fan websites and even got mentions on entertainment news shows like The Soup on E!
Here is Michelle's first round performance, complete with judge Brandy's bitchface:
Here is her semi-final performance, with KITT the car:
Michelle certainly did the best she could to represent, as it were, given the parameters of the show she was competing on.
So let's say, hypothetically speaking, you've been tapped by the networks to represent the burlesque community in prime time. It doesn't matter if you're a performer, superfan, producer, historian, etc. You're going to be an "ambassador" of burlesque in some manner, you get to dictate what that means. You can pick the show you're appearing on, so long as it's during the prime time block (and you're not suddenly inventing a new genre of television show that currently doesn't exist). What would you do?
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3 comments:
"The Real World". That way the audience could see all the rehearsal time and work that goes into a show. And they could see me when I'm both a glamorous hottie and a sweaty beast.
The Glamazons are on this season's show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x_Kht-kEuI
Hmm..Well, I would love to pick Laugh-In or the Lawrence Welk show!
But since they certainly don't exist now in the prime time block I guess I would choose Saturday Night Live to keep it current. I would want to appear in some skits and then do my singing burlesque as the musical number..(As long as we're making it up, I might as well dream big!)
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