Live Nude Girls Unite!

The exotic dancers who work at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco are all hot and bothered, but not for that guy behind the one-way glass. Nope, these sex workers are champing at the bit over sexy-sounding things like job security, paid vacation, sick leave, and an end to racial discrimination. Live Nude Girls Unite! documents the struggle of these sex workers to unionize their ranks and gain some legitimacy for the exotic dancing and stripping industry. Query and Funari were there to tape the months-long discussions between the workers and management. Along the way, we’re introduced to some of the Lusty Lady’s employees – every last one of them smart, well spoken, earthy, and charming. Too bad the woman (and co-worker) who’s telling their story is the dullest of the lot. Query uses the fight for unionization as the reference point for her own struggles: as a comedian, a lesbian, and as the daughter of Dr. Joyce Wallace, medical expert and renowned prostitution rights advocate. See, the kicker is, Mom doesn’t know about her daughter’s day job (a fact in itself that strips Query of much of her credibility). We’re forced to watch her (badly filmed) ruminations on how she got to be involved in the industry and what it all had to do with her childhood. Bad enough are clips of her comedy routines (self-indulgent and painfully unfunny, especially when she launches into her pat Jewish mother shtick). Even worse is the point when Query finally lets the cat out of the bag, or rather, the stripper out of the closet. She acts easily half her age, her lifestyle choice coming off less as a statement of female empowerment and more just an adolescent attempt to piss off Mom (“You want me to clean my room? Yeah, well, I’m a professional dominatrix!” Please.) It’s a real shame Query is the unofficial mouthpiece for the sex worker masses, because I’m certain any one of the other Lusty Ladies would have proven a vastly more fascinating, articulate, and sympathetic subject. But Query never delves too deeply into the lives of anyone else; the film suffers from an aggravating one-sidedness. We get the union’s perspective, but never management’s; Query’s point of view but never her mother’s; and Query’s outlook on the sex industry, but rarely her co-workers’. Query presents one definition of the stripper – one fueled by enlightenment, empowerment, and an admirable ballsiness. She acts as if each of these women is stripping to make a point. But how about the single mom who strips because there are doctors’ bills and rent to be paid? Is she stripping for the sake of the sisterhood too? Questions like these are ignored, which is damned frustrating considering how absorbing the material could be. Occasionally titillating, frequently inspiring in its rabble-rousing good humor, Live Nude Girls Unite! is a breezy, neon-lit affair. You’d do best to approach this doc with the strippers’ credo in mind: Look but don’t touch. Scrutinize this one too closely, and you’ll find a sagging, pockmarked mess. (Live Nude Girls Unite! premiered in Austin at the SXSW Film Festival.)