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Spectacles of Agency and Desire: Dance Histories and the Burlesque Stage

Lili St. Cyr & Mike Wallace Interview

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View On Career and Sexuality Lili St. Cyr was a controversial woman. She was performing during the 1940s-1970s, where burlesque and anything racy was censored and seen as a threat to the norm. The center of her career was during the 1950s, after World War II, where McCarthyism and the war on Communism was in affect. This mostly involved stict social and political conservatism, and Hollywood was under heavy scrutiny. This would have been where Lili found herself, as a celebrity. The 1940s and 1950s were also a time of traditional and clearly defined gender roles. The idea of the Nuclear Family was born and the feminism of the 1920s had all but disappeared.
St. Cyr was a study in contradictions. It’s difficult to puzzle out the truth of what St. Cyr wanted and liked, when she said one thing one day, and the opposite the next. St. Cyr said multiple times that she didn’t think burlesque was difficult, that she only did it because it was easier than other jobs, but her actions speak louder than her words. She put effort into her career, she designed her own sets, her own dances, and acts; she worked hard to come up with designs for lingerie and making her image her own. She was constantly exhausted from performing and working behind the scenes. St. Cyr said that she wished to leave burlesque behind, that she wanted to be a normal wife, that she wanted a husband, though not children. In an interview with Mike Wallace, she said that if she ever had the chance to do something else, that she might go into business. This idea came to fruition with her mail order lingerie and photo business, but this probably isn’t the business life she imagined. St. Cyr seemed to want to get out of the spotlight, to marry a well-off man who would support her and live a “normal life.” Her acts might suggest this as well, with scenes featuring St. Cyr getting dolled up in a lavish bedroom, then awaiting a handsome man who would whisk her off stage, perhaps on a dinner date or night on the town. St. Cyr had a reputation for constant marriages and divorces. It’s fair to speculate that she was seeking that man who would whisk her away from her current life and into a life of domestic bliss. Unfortunately, these marriages never lasted long, and most of the men complained that they wanted her to leave the business of burlesque, but that she never would and it put a strain on their marriages (DiNardo 191). It would seem that St. Cyr was offered what she said she wanted: a way out of burlesque, but she never took it. This begs the question of whether she actually wanted out, or whether this is just what she thought she should want. St. Cyr was a celebrity known nationwide, it may not be far off to say that she didn’t know how to be anything else, that maybe a domesticated life would bore her. In an interview with Mike Wallace in 1957, St. Cyr said she that she didn’t know how to do anything else, that dancing was all she was trained for. Wallace followed up by saying that she was married and that she could just stop performing and stay at home. St. Cyr countered by saying that she hadn’t always been married, and had had to support herself for quite a while. She possibly didn’t want to have to depend on a man. She certainly had conflicting interests. She did seem lost though, later, when Wallace asked her whether she had any interests, should she leave the business. She had no answer. Wallace asked St. Cyr if she felt that she was an artist, she vehemently denied the possibility, say that dancing burlesque was not an art form. She continued, saying that she was not proud of herself or her career.

In contrast, Dita Von Teese has owned her sexuality and her performance art. She has never felt ashamed of what she does for a living, and has worked toward turning herself into something more than a mode of entertainment. Dita seeks to inspire people to take control of their sexuality and own it. She is proud of who and what she is, and of her control over her persona.
The differences in the time periods in which these two performers have established their careers has had a large influence on how they perceive themselves and their work. The current time in which Dita is performing in a radical time of change in societies social norms and what we have come to accept as “normal” or acceptable. The 1970s-1990s saw a shift in equal rights and minority visibility and power, leading to our current era of acceptance and change. Leading the political and social game currently are feminism and LGBTQA rights. In both, Dita has been able to find a place where she can blossom and take hold of sexual freedom, and find a body of support.
When people think about Dita Von Teese now, I don’t think there is a bad taste in our mouths, just the concept of who she is and what she does, relatively free of judgment. Our social atmosphere has allowed us to accept sexual performances without thinking about them as lewd or morally unjust, for the most part. There are still communities of people who feel that anything overtly sexual is wrong, and that mainly stems from religious factions and less from the average person.
The atmosphere has allowed Dita to flourish in her career without feeling shame or condemnation for her choices. She inspires many people to feel confident in their own skin and to embrace sexuality in many forms, and to do it with style and grace.

Works Cited:
DiNardo, Kelly. Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique. New York: Back Stage, 2007. Print.
Lili St. Cyr. Interview with Mike Wallace. The Mike Wallace Interview (1957): Televison.