A Wink and a Smile: The Art of Burlesque (2008)

  Okay, I'll say it.  I'm obsessed with burlesque now.

Ob.

Sessed.

This documentary has been sitting in my queue for almost a year and still had thirty movies ahead of it but Netflix streaming knows no boundaries!

Here's the thing:  real people do burlesque.  Women and men.  And they're not all drag queens, although drag is considered a form of burlesque.

And you don't have to look like Christina Aguilera to do it!  The documentary follows 10 women enrolled in Seattle's Academy of Burlesque. (That's a real thing.  I shit you not.)  It's a six-week course that teaches women from all different backgrounds the timeless art of the striptease.

I know what you're thinking:  any idiot can take off their clothes.  That's not art.  But that's not all burlesque is.  It's an attitude, a way of life, a glitter-filled way to poke fun at societal norms.  After all, satire is making fun of rich people by other rich people.  Burlesque is making fun of rich people by everyone else.

Let me illustrate this with a video.  Agent Provocateur is a high-end British lingerie company and this video is one of their advertisements that combines their product with a rather scathing view of American politics.  Um...it's definitely NSFW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWNiBaZme_w&has_verified=1