I was going to start the day off by getting down to some of my freelance work first, then blogging later, but something I read in the New York Post this morning has gotten me all worked up.

The new movie The Notorious Bettie Page is about to open in town on April 14th. Veteran readers of this blog might remember that I saw it at a screening at the Museum of Modern Art last September and reviewed it in my post, "Gretchen Mol: New Pin-up Queen of the Universe!" Anyway, it's a good movie and Miss Mol is terrific in the part of the legendary pin-up model of the 1950s. I've been praising this movie to my friends in the memorabilia and collector world for the last six months, telling devoted Bettie fans to see it.

Today in the Post, writer Danica Lo has an article called "Risque Business" about Dita Von Teese, who is the current "queen of burlesque" on today's retro striptease and fashion scene. Dita has a new coffeetable book out about burlesque and fetish fashion called Burlesque and the Art of the Teese, which I've bought because it has some terrific photos of Dita in both classic ecdysiast costumes and modern fetish gear. It also looks as if it has some interesting info about vintage burlesque. I just got the volume and haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm looking forward to its pages.

Miss Lo's article also talks about Gretchen Mol in the new Bettie Page movie.

But here is my problem. Lo quotes Missy Suicide, who is the founder of SuicideGirls.com, a fantastically successful website featuring modern-style pin-up girls in everything from Goth, rockabilly, or rock modes, as saying, "If you look back through traditional modeling pictures, the girls are always coy and never looked into the camera lens...Bettie Page looked into the camera and let you know she was the one in control." Similarly, in an interview with Gretchen Mol in the new BUST magazine, discussing the actress's interpretation of Bettie Page, the film's director Mary Harron says, "Before we made the movie, my friend sent me a book of '50s pin-ups, including Bettie. My husband said that all the other women seemed to be feeling bad about what they were doing, and that as a man, that made him feel bad looking at them. But Bettie just makes you feel great...She gives you permission to look at her. She gives girls permission to dress up and men permission to look, and it makes everybody feel better."

What permission? We need permission to look? The model has to be "in control" so it's "okay" if we look at her dressed in almost nothing? Do Missy and Mary realize the gobbledeegook they're spouting? Do these women realize that the PHOTOGRAPHERS were in control, they PAID the models, the models WORKED FOR A LIVING, and that the photographs were designed to ENTERTAIN MEN? To get MEN through their lonely hours...to help MEN adorn their lonely walls...to inspire MEN as they risked their lives in combat!

This need to justify the activities of models from fifty years ago, to put their job into a feminist construct of "being in control" is utter nonsense and a complete distortion of what the scene was all about. Women posed for these pictures so they COULD PAY THEIR RENT...have a nice dinner once in awhile...and maybe get nightclub or movie jobs.

Here's another thing I don't understand. The interpretations of other models' attitudes quoted above are TOTALLY INCORRECT. Don't tell me that everybody is entitled to their subjective opinion. That's another way of saying anybody can express a view about something they clearly know nothing about. What I mean is, ANYBODY who has a love for vintage pin-ups and has looked at them extensively will KNOW that lots of the models clearly look as if they are enjoying what they are doing. This idea that Bettie Page is the only one who looked "happy" is COMPLETE NONSENSE. Has Missy Suicide ever actually looked at old-fashioned pin-up magazines? If she has, how could make her statement? What "book of '50s pin-ups" did Mary Harron give her husband? Was it some piece of crap from a low-level publisher, or the beautiful work of Bunny Yeager, Andre De Dienes, or Peter Gowland? As an enthusiastic collector, I have a huge pile of vintage pin-up magazines and books, and I can say with authority that lots of the models are equally as memorable as Bettie Page, some are more beautiful, and plenty look as if they are digging their job.

Why do the memories of these other hardworking models have to be sullied in order to prop up the legend of Bettie Page? Who is arguing that Bettie Page was not a great model? She and Marilyn Monroe are probably the greatest glamour models of the 20th century. But there were many other gorgeous models as well.

This ignorance of history is APPALLING. It's a mental disorder that infects our populace on so many different levels, from not knowing the past history of our country to not knowing that Bettie Page was not the only good pin-up model!

I remember being horrified about thirty years ago when I met somebody who didn't know what side the Japanese fought on in World War Two. Little did I know that this type of ignorance was a harbinger of the future!

But let's get back to pin-up models. What about Betty Brosmer? Jackie Miller? Ruth Anderson? Mara Corday? Maria Stinger? Barbara Osterman? Cleo Moore? Jayne Mansfield? What about strippers who also did great photos, like Tempest Storm, Blaze Starr, Julie Gibson, Evelyn West, Jennie Lee, Dixie Evans, Penny Page, Paula Page, Rita Grable, Lily St. Cyr, and my most beloved favorite stripper of the 50s, PATTI WAGGIN??

Many of the above could have gone one-on-one with Bettie Page in a Pin-Up Duel and come out even, and maybe even Number One on occasion!

I defy ANYONE to say that Patti Waggin was not the equal of Bettie Page in presenting a joyous sexy persona along with a killer body! Check her out in Something Weird Video's Roadshow Shorts Vol. 3 in the striptease featurette "Ohmigosh!" and you will know what I mean.

So enough with the BALONEY! Let's honor Bettie Page but not dishonor the memories of all the other beautiful models and strippers who posed and danced at the same time! Go see Gretchen Mol in The Notorious Bettie Page--she is a pin-up dream! And check out Dita Von Teese's book--she's a fine model! I hope to one day see her actually perform her burlesque acts too, and then I'll have something to say about them. Maybe if Dita performed at regular stripclubs like a real stripper would, instead of these arty venues, I might already be an expert on her shows. And man, I really wish there was some old-style peeler pizzazz going on in the joints I frequent--meaning, not just g-strings and lapdancing, but some costumes, some feather boas, some theme acts, and some music other than rock or rap!

But hey, I don't blame Dita for the career route she's taken. Going the high road, she gets better money, mainstream attention, book deals, marriage to a celebrity (Marilyn Manson), and is superbly photographed by the best lensfolk.

Still...I have seen a good number of these "retro" or "neo-burlesque" acts of the type that Dita does. I can't say that I've found them especially memorable or interesting. They often seem curiously sexless, like a lot of fetish fashion is, too--drained of their arousal component. But what is striptease supposed to be about but DISPLAYING THE BODY FOR THE PURPOSE OF TEASING? The word "burlesque" is the euphemism...STRIPTEASE is what it really is, or really oughta be.

If they performed in stripclubs rather than too-cool-for-school spots, these neo-burlesque babes would probably be sexier, and fulfill their peeler potential.

I remember one neo-burlesque act where a girl got into a bubble, and another where a girl dressed up in a gorilla costume, and another involving a magician, but that's about it. I find most neo-burlesque dancers to be too self-conscious and self-admiring to qualify as the equals of the fun entertainers in old burlesque movies such as the ones released by Something Weird. In my opinion, real strippers strip for their supper...in other words, the true descendants of the strippers of the past are the girls who do their stagework and lapdances in regular stripclubs today in order to MAKE THE RENT, TO PAY FOR SCHOOL, TO SUPPORT THEIR BABIES, rather than strut around for the satisfaction of post-feminist egos in the revues presented at downtown hipster bars. The stripclubs of today are the authentic heirs of the burlesque theaters of yesteryear. My current favorites will always be from the local jiggle joints. Give me Lily, Angela, Nicole, Margie, or Misty--all the dancers that I've written about in this blog. And if I want to see truly classic burlesque, I will watch "Best of Burlesque" or "Hollywood Burlesque" on DVD from Something Weird Video.