✨ Featured Offer
Used, Very Good
$12.88
List Price: $47.50
🚚
See all 5 offers from $12.88 FREE standard delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Overview
Robert Allen's compelling book examines burlesque not only as popular entertainment but also as a complex and transforming cultural phenomenon. When Lydia Thompson and her controversial female troupe of "British Blondes" brought modern burlesque to the United States in 1868, the result was electric. Their impertinent humor, streetwise manner, and provocative parodies of masculinity brought them enormous popular success--and the condemnation of critics, cultural commentators, and even women's rights campaigners.
Burlesque was a cultural threat, Allen argues, because it inverted the "normal" world of middle-class social relations and transgressed norms of "proper" feminine behavior and appearance. Initially playing to respectable middle-class audiences, burlesque was quickly relegated to the shadow-world of working-class male leisure. In this process the burlesque performer "lost" her voice, as burlesque increasingly revolved around the display of her body.
Locating burlesque within the context of both the social transformation of American theater and its patterns of gender representation, Allen concludes that burlesque represents a fascinating example of the potential transgressiveness of popular entertainment forms, as well as the strategies by which they have been contained and their threats defused.
Burlesque was a cultural threat, Allen argues, because it inverted the "normal" world of middle-class social relations and transgressed norms of "proper" feminine behavior and appearance. Initially playing to respectable middle-class audiences, burlesque was quickly relegated to the shadow-world of working-class male leisure. In this process the burlesque performer "lost" her voice, as burlesque increasingly revolved around the display of her body.
Locating burlesque within the context of both the social transformation of American theater and its patterns of gender representation, Allen concludes that burlesque represents a fascinating example of the potential transgressiveness of popular entertainment forms, as well as the strategies by which they have been contained and their threats defused.
| ISBN-13 | 9780807843161 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0807843164 |
| Weight | 1.19 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 6.13 x 0.92 x 9.25 In |
| List Price | $47.50 |
| Edition | 1st Edition |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Pages | 370 pages |
| Publisher | The University of North Carolina Press |
| Published On | 1991-05-27 |
View All Offers
Sort by:
Price
Condition
Seller
Seller Comments
Price
✨ Used, Very Good
Seller details
HPB-Emerald
Dallas, TX, USA
Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and ...
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Used, Very Good
Seller details
HPB-Emerald
Dallas, TX, USA
Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and ...
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Used, Very Good
Seller details
HPB-Ruby
Dallas, TX, USA
Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and ...
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Used, Very Good
Seller details
Solr Books
Lincolnwood, IL, USA
This books is in Very good condition. There may be a few flaws like shelf wear and some light wear.
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Used, Very Good
Seller details
Dave Wilhelm Books
Evanston, IL, USA
Size: 6x0x9; Solid VG except for remnants of book store price sticker at lower spine area.
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026