Transgression: Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes
We can identify early burlesque as a platform for transgression by acknowledging the social climate as Thompson and her troupe moved into the New York theatrical scene, specifically shortly after the troupe began a run of productions at Niblo’s Garden in February of 1869. Robert Allen defines a “hysterical anti-burlesque discourse,” that emerged in which “burlesque came to be characterized as a cultural epidemic of indecency, impudence, and suggestive sexual display” (Allen, 16). Burlesque showcased the “unruly woman” and her sexuality, a persona that had not yet existed in the public eye.
Lydia Thompson herself became a large influence on the formation of her public image, and subsequently her discursive representation. Instead of silently accepting or recoiling from the spotlight in response to critical attacks on her stage persona and her supposed threat to the ideology of “True Womanhood,” Thompson attempted to establish herself as a public figure. She spoke in public, responded to the press with public letters, and eventually largely contributed to her own biography. In her dissertation, Performing Prostitution: Agency and Discourse, Actresses and Whores, Doctor Kristen Wynne Pullen explains how the public understood Thompson to be “her own voice” (102), and how because she “flaunted her unconventional behavior” by portraying and participating in promiscuity and spreading her own gossip, the “public eagerly seized on her as a signifier of both low theatre and transgressive sexuality in the late Victorian America” (107).
Thompson’s horsewhipping scandal of 1870 presents the most extreme example of how she influenced her own public image. In February of 1870, editor Wilbur Storey and The Chicago Times published many anti-burlesque and specifically anti-Thompson editorials, even going so far to link burlesque with prostitution (Pullen 155). On February 24th, Thompson, along with Alexander Henderson, (her current spouse), Archie Gordon, (publicist), and troupe member Pauline Markham, assaulted Mr. Storey outside of his home, Thompson herself whipping him with a “rawhide.” This event caused a huge scandal, and although, as Dr. Pullen argues, there were apparent public efforts to remove Thompson from the narrative (the press record completely ignored Thompson’s role and places the blame on Henderson), Thompson clearly asserted herself by publically taking blame for her actions. Days after the attack, she incorporated references to the attack in one of her lyrics (Pullen 161), and in a published statement, Thompson declares, “I certainly did not act as I should like to act, but there are some provocations under which a woman who has not sunk into the slough of indifference can be neither proud nor cautious” (The Times of India). Thompson’s actions and publicizing of her actions signify her role in shaping how the public viewed her: as a transgressive female figure, therefore exemplifying how early burlesque provided a platform for this transgression.