Curtain Call

This experience has been both eye opening and rewarding.  At first, I thought this project would be a vehicle for getting to know Kitten and whomever else I could meet before the end of the project.  Not only have I met these incredible women, but I have also had the opportunity to look at burlesque and the lifespan through an academic lens that I may not have considered before.  The most enjoyable experience would have to be going to GlamourCon with Kitten.  Not only did we see a lot of interesting people, but also it gave me a glimpse of how the business side of being a small time celebrity works.  Being able to observe those interactions and meet people are the most invaluable lessons a new girl could learn.

            My biggest challenge was spending eight hours with my grandmother yesterday.  It is difficult to be faced with the fact that not all people in older adulthood are as selfless and interested in generativity as the ones I’ve spent most of my time with.  Even further, it’s difficult to face the fact that no matter how much effort you may put toward fostering a relationship, some people are unable to attain that.  It was just as difficult to write about the experience, as it was to live it because I want to help her and show her that happy people care about more than just jewelry or their Christmas decorations.  Unfortunately, I know that none of that information will be received or understood in a way that is productive.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to spend time with my grandmother after what happened yesterday.  Not because I am holding a grudge but because I don’t see a way I can make those interactions better for myself without equally hurting her feelings.  I would rather just be cordial and superficial. 

            I plan to continue to spend time with Kitten.  In fact, we have plans to spend time with some other Russ Meyer girls as well.  This project gave me the courage to make a dream and a hope I have had, into a reality.  I doubt I would have been able to blindly approach Kitten to spend time with me, unless I had the project to justify my correspondence.

            I have learned so much about myself and I have had many doors open up to me in this experience.  This project has been a way for me to sort through the different things and opportunities that have been presented to me.  I have definitely struggled with whether or not I was cut out for the normal cultural script of life for women. I don’t know if I’m interested in meeting a guy and putting my dreams on hold to raise kids and be married.  In the spirit of honesty, I would like to meet a guy.  This experience has exposed me to the lives of women who have completely disregarded the cultural script and live happy fulfilling lives.  Sometimes, living off the beaten path is the only way to find the happiness that you desire.  I have come to realize that I may not be cut out for conventional life and that is ok.

            I have learned that I am not that different from the older adults that I have spent time with.  Sometimes it is hard to picture these “old people” were ever young or exciting.  That is the most interesting realization of all.  By spending time getting to know what they were like when they were my age, I can get an idea of what I might be like at 64 or 80.  It has also shown me the consequences that ensue when you mix up your priorities. 

            This assignment has forced me to take an in depth look at what is really important in life and which trajectories will take you to what finish line.  I am eternally grateful for the opportunity and the lessons I have learned over the last 3 months. 

Barbara

My last entry for this project took an interesting turn.  Equally enlightening, in a different and more painful way.  I spent my last eight hours with my grandmother on my mother’s side.  Barbara Elliot, 85 years old, lives in a big house all by herself.  Her 3 daughters each live about an hour away in 3 different areas.  In many ways, knowing Barbara is a lesson in remembering what is important in life.  According to Erikson’s theory of personality development, people are faced with choices in their development.  In the case of my grandmother, it is my opinion that she has made misguided decisions.  Even going back as far as young adulthood, it seems that isolation was chosen over intimacy.  While she has almost always had a husband and fulfilled marital duties, she has no friends, her first husband described her as a “cold fish”, and her 3 daughters are all isolated from her and from each other.  While there is the appearance of intimacy and fulfilling societal duties, when it comes to the relationships, there is no intimacy.  Moving further in time, one is faced with generativity vs. stagnation.  This is where the story gets interesting.  Barbara was a schoolteacher and taught reading to young children for many years.  To hear her pull from her episodic memories of her youth, she was the best teacher in the school and all the other teachers were jealous of her talent.  As we learned from the reading and the lecture on memory, we know that not all episodic memories can be taken for absolute truth. In the sense of her classes and students, she achieved generativity.  She passed on the skill of reading to many children.  Unfortunately, at home, much more emphasis was put collectables and having nice things, rather than having good relationships or teaching her three daughters that they matter.  I would say that her most intimate relationship is with her pet boxer dog, Frosty.  Now, in later adulthood, Barbara measures her ego integrity by the things that she has in her home and how much the things are worth.  She is more outwardly proud of her things more than any of nine grandchildren or 5 great grandchildren.  The week before she and I spend time together, she attended a birthday party for one of her great grandchildren.  One would expect that most of our conversation would have been about what all the children are up to, but instead, the conversation was about Barbara and how great she was in her youth.  I heard all about her experience as a child in the first grade, her experience acting in the school play in college, her experience writing her master’s thesis (and how she got a better grade than her husband).  I also heard all about how gorgeous people said she was when she was young, her experience teaching the first grade, and the fancy restaurant she got some of her Christmas ornaments from.  I believe that this is a prime example of Life Story.  She has composed a certain view of her life that makes it easy for her to establish the identity she wished to have.  Incidentally, the only things I heard about the birthday party, were my cousin’s significant other’s tattoos and how awful they are.  Needless to say, she practices remote grand parenting.    I believe that she has constructed these myths about her life to build up her self-concept and her self-esteem.  This is what my mother has identified as the reason that she has never fully disclosed to Barbara all the emotional damage and painful memories she has of her childhood.  She doesn’t want to jeopardize her mother’s Self-esteem by damaging the truths she constructed for herself.

            It was also interesting to me that much of the episodic memory she shared, were from the reminiscence bump (the time in which the most change was occurring).  Mostly she told me things from her college years, but no stories of her children, another time of great change.

            Needless to say, my time with my grandmother was difficult for me.  The times I tried to share with her, such as my upcoming graduation or my place on the dean’s list, I received a polite nod and “Well, anyways…” and the conversation would return to whatever story she was telling me.  The times we did discuss people in our family, it was negative things.  I actually had to excuse myself and cry in the bathroom after she said some particularly hurtful things about my father.  Even though I wanted to leave, I didn’t.  The reason I didn’t leave was because I didn’t want her to get on the phone as say mean things about me to whoever would listen. 

Kitten takes me to GlamourCon

Kitten at GlamourCon

This past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend GlamourCon in Long Beach.  Kitten invited me to tag along with her in an effort to spend our time together.  And as usual, Kitten showed me a wonderful time and introduced me to a lot of new and interesting people.  GlamourCon is largely Playboy playmates, and otherwise young, thin women who work in the sex industry in some fashion (I use the term sex industry more loosely than others might, but I consider anything particularly sexy or appearance based to be sex work.)  This demographic makes Kitten especially interesting because she is far different from these Playboy cut outs in so many ways.  Again, she defies our culture’s idea of what is sexy and who is allowed to be sexy.

Glossy 8x10 Kitten will gladly sign for adoring fans

Kitten arrives with boxes of nude or suggestive 8x10’s of herself at various ages (some quite recent), DVD’s of porn she did, and a plaster mold of her vagina to sell.  I might add she rather successfully sold a number of every item, including the vagina bust.  She also has a very different attitude than most of the younger girls vending at the convention.  She is nice to her fans.  She has such a great relationship with some of them that they got us water, bought us dinner and kept us company throughout the day.  If you ask any stripper they will tell you that most of the guys really just want someone to talk to.  It seems like that is what Kitten’s fans are like.  Nice, normal, middle aged guys who really admire her and want to be around her.  The fact that she is personable and gets to know them makes her appeal that much more.  Kitten operates from a balanced social exchange, giving her attention and care in exchange for money, gifts and favors.  Unfortunately, most of the younger girls I observed had a severely unbalanced social exchange.  They were expecting men to give them money in 

Me at GlamourCon

attention, but offered nothing in return.   I had countless conversations with men and women at the convention who were saying how unfortunate all of the new Playmates are personality wise and how they don’t have the tact and personality it takes to make the social exchange worth while.  What the men want is attention and acknowledgement.  The girls also want these things, in addition to money.   Most of the younger girls are missing the part of the exchange where they give the men what they are seeking.  Kitten understands this concept beautifully.  In fact she is so successful at it that she has fans   

The cover of the Russ Meyer film Ultra Vixens

I also see Kitten’s use of the selective optimization with compensation theory.  Although Kitten isn’t in the young, thin bombshell she once was, she has found new ways to fit into her world. She doesn’t shoot porn currently, she is comfortable with selling what she shot before.  She hasn’t completely given up her former role as the famous Kitten Natividad, but she has modified in a way that better suits her physicality and abilities.

She uses these conventions as opportunities to sell her products, but also as a means of life review.  She essentially has her life cataloged by glossy 8x10 prints and movies that she encounters on a regular basis.  I imagine she is able to organize and process her life much more easily because of this rare life she has led, mainly in front of the camera.  Like Lottie she is unashamed of her aging and changing body.  Kitten is a good example of body transcendence.  She is able to accept what she used to look like is different than what she looks like now, but she is just as sexy and confident as ever.

Another film Kitten stars in

 Certainly there is a bit of disengagement happening, but not in a bad way.  She doesn’t perform as much anymore and she isn’t quite as active now as she was 20 or 30 years ago, but she is still out there.  Kitten is certainly making room for the new generation of girls to come up around her, but that doesn’t mean she needs to step away.  She was so sweet about introducing me to contacts she has and people that could help my image and career.  It isn’t a place of competition, but a place of love.  I can’t be certain if she is this way now because of her age, or if she has always been this sweet.  Either way, she is a pillar of self-confidence and charm and I absolutely adore her.

Lottie the Body at BurlyCon 2012

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with Lottie The Body.  Lottie is an 81 year old burlesque dancer from Detroit, Michigan.  I have to say that upon first glance, Lottie does not look, sound or move like she’s 81.  She needs a little help, her gate is short and slower and she wears those lovely orthopedic shoes.  My first encounter with Lottie was her address at the opening ceremony of the convention we attended.  She was making jokes, and laughing all the same.  She had no problem grabbing people from the audience and embarrassing them, either.  She meant it in the form of a compliment (she was telling a current dancer that she embodies burlesque) however Lottie either didn’t care, or didn’t notice the obvious embarrassment and discomfort of the other girl.  To Julie’s credit (the woman receiving the compliment) she was gracious and respectful while desperately trying to sneak back to her seat.  I noticed this behavior from Lottie occurred often over the weekend.  She seems to lack a certain public awareness, or care for what other people think of her.  She was also extremely polite in that her hearing is not amazing, so she makes up answers to the question she thinks you asked.  I think it is possible that she may be developing presbycusis.  It seems that the difficulty with which she communicated with her assistants and others when there was music on could point to a bit of pneumonic regression.  Considering her race (African American), her age and her time spent dancing in loud clubs in her youth, it is highly likely that she struggles with presbycusis.  While all of this could seem like confused behavior, I think that Lottie is just trying to be nice.  She still has the most outgoing personality, kissing people and making dirty jokes (which are in no shortage in our world). 

Lottie and Tigger in Vegas 2010

            Lottie dropped in on a particular class I took about classic bump and grind technique.  Lottie came in late with her escort, and made a grand entrance.  To be fair, it’s hard not to make an entrance when people clap for you everywhere you go.  My favorite thing about Lottie is that she doesn’t expect that kind of treatment.  She eats it up and she is appreciative.  Lottie seems to be a full believer in reciprocal social exchange.  All the love that the new generation gives to her, she gives back with kisses and waves and “I love you babies!”.  The whole class is about bumping your hips to the music and doing a proper walk.  Lottie was sitting and cheering for us, making comments about girl’s physical features (in a good way) and shouting exclamations at girls serving especially sexy bumps.  There was a lot of polite laughing on the part of the class and the instructor, but all in all it was a treat to have her there to contribute.

            I had the pleasure of taking a class from Lottie on entrances and exits.  While it wasn’t exactly clear to her that she needed to, in fact, teach the class, she was very excited to be with us and show us her moves.  She taught us the importance of kegals and how men find these exercises especially pleasing in certain situations.  I find myself especially impressed by Lottie’s willingness to share.  From what I know about the community of burlesque 60 years ago, it was not a particularly friendly place.  I am reminded of the socioeconomical selectivity theory, in this sense.  In the beginning of her life, Lottie probably concentrated most on gathering all of the information on how to be a good stripper (much like all of us are doing now).  However, after you have gathered enough knowledge it seems to be much more about emotional ties and community.  She is willing to impart her knowledge on to us, in exchange for our love and admiration. 

Lottie and I at BurlyCon 2012

Lottie is selecting the adaptive sides of Erikson’s later stages of development.  While many dancers choose isolation and become hermits after their physical beauty fades; Lottie has clearly chosen intimacy.  She wants to be around people that care for and respect her.  She also chooses generativity over stagnation when she recognizes her worth in terms of being able to pass on what she has learned over the years to the younger generation.  In fact, she meets all 5 dimensions of gernerativity according to Erikson.  By traveling to Seattle for BurlyCon, Lottie is demonstrating a desire to pass on knowledge, contribute to the community by teaching classes, leaving a legacy by introducing herself to us, being creative and productive by selling her wares at the convention and showing us she cares by taking the time to talk to us and give us advice.

            While our community loves and adores her, even if she is loud and inappropriate at times, I definitely wonder how her peers might receive her.  I certainly get the idea that with Lottie, what you see is what you get.  I would be willing to bet her personality hasn’t changed much over her life.  She has the hard shell one would require to be a black stripper in 1960.  Certainly she doesn’t sugarcoat or tone it down for anyone, in the true spirit of sassy black ladies everywhere.  Perhaps I am thinking a bit ethnocentrically, but my grandmother is in her 80’s and I can’t imagine the things she might say about someone like Lottie.  Solely based on her personality, let alone that she is a stripper.