Stripped and Teased

Synopsis . Screenings and Links

"Las Vegas exists because it is the perfect reflection of America."
What do Las Vegas women have to say about all women today or for all of society?

Since its earliest days, Las Vegas has depended on women. Then and now, to be female in Las Vegas is to be caught in the crossfire of every imaginable definition of "woman"—definitions from Hollywood, feminists, gangsters, and the corporate world. In Las Vegas, where the phonebook devotes 20 pages to callgirls, and where most taxicabs carry buxom billboard ads for topless clubs, the female body is more an object of commerce than anywhere else in America.

"Women of Las Vegas have always been the objects, and never the subjects"

Yet strip away the Strip, and another reality unfolds.

The film, Stripped and Teased, tells the untold story of the Other Las Vegas—the real women behind the showgirl mythos, beyond the neon. "Women's work built Las Vegas," says Culinary Union president, Hattie Canty, who is featured in the film."There's more to Las Vegas than naked women."

The filmmaker, Amie Williams, narrates the film, as she struggles to understand how women survive here, in a town that flaunts sex, prostitution and pornography. She comes from Los Angeles with a lot of preconceived notions about female exploitation.

As she gets deeper into the story, she finds her initial misgivings are challenged by following the day-to-day lives of nine other women. Through an initial structure of "day shift, swing shift, and night shift," we hear stories that tear at the seams of any preconceived notions about "Sin City" and the women who make their living here. We meet women such as Shirley, a single-mom maid who cleans high-roller suites at the Mirage, and every day cares for her homeless brother suffering from AIDS. Or Tina, a journeyman carpenter who has helped to build most of the Strip hotels;Mindy, a forty-something "goddess" at Caesar's Palace has put two sons through medical school on her cocktail-waitress salary;

Susan, a painfully shy ballerina finds her confidence as Bally's lead showgirl, and Hattie, the first African American labor union president in the U.S., presiding over the longest running strike in America today.

These are women who work hard in a twenty-four hour town, who support their families, pursue their dreams, and live the ups and downs shared by women from all walks of life. Ultimately, we learn that these women are no different than women elsewhere, as the film ends with the filmmaker having met and married a man in Vegas, and conceived a child. Against all odds and learning from other Vegas women, she finds a new life, "or at least an entirely new way of looking at it."

Theatrical Screenings

Laemmle Theaters, Santa Monica and Hollywood, Summer, 2000
Anthology Film Archives New Filmmakers Series, Spring, 2001

Websites About the Film

Main - Synopsis - Credits - Reviews - Purchase Film

Bal-Maiden Firms, DSG Productions, 4203 Jackson Avenue, Culver City, CA 90232, 310 559-7065