I was a stripper. Yes, I was. I was fairly good too.
This film however doesn't capture the reality behind the stage, on-stage or even the crowd.
The reality is that the male dancers - or even female dancers aren't all friends...they are greedy, selfish ego tripping characters who look forward only to the dollars. They fight backstage, they get drunk back stage and they do serious amounts of coke back stage.
Most male dancers are also gay. I am not and for that reason, the few men that are not gay will be reading "picture books" behind the curtain to ensure that they are "up" to the challenge when they are on stage.
The gay men will be taking care of each other respectively before they go on stage.
Most female crowds are mostly fat, overweight women who are nearing 50 and are there to get totally drunk. Male dancers will go to the table for them and pull everything off, but will not take them on-stage and perform nasty acts - clothed or unclothed.
Also - we didn't have groups of 5 or 6 go up on-stage and perform a routine set. With people travelling all the time and new people coming in and out, we barely knew who each other was from a daily basis.
Nobody fraternized with the bar-staff after closing...everybody was tired, stressed or too stoned to do anything. The bar-staff closed up and everybody got kicked out.
If anybody tried to do a back-flip on-stage, they would have been fired or told not to do that again...because of liability and safety and insurance reasons.
We made our money doing lap dances...not having a hundred girls throw money in our underwear on-stage.
The back room dressing areas were always slightly better than a warehouse - filled with all sorts of bar crap...regardless of the bar or location.
Anybody under the legal limit would never be allowed on-stage. There was always vice to make sure.
There was always so much tension in the dressing room...because we were competing for the same money, that more than the mere basic communication between dancers never existed.
This is a film based on the male stripper occupation, but misses out on the reality of it.
It's also over drawn for plot. So much could be edited out and would not make a difference to the story.
I was looking forward to see this, and I finally did. Wow...too long to watch a movie to see next to nothing of interest.
