Not Just a Leg Show: Gayness and Male Homoeroticism in Burlesque, 1868 to 1877

Authors

  • Michelle Durden University of California, San Diego

Keywords:

burlesque, spectacle, homosexuality, performance

Abstract

While contemporaries and historians alike construct the theatrical genre of burlesque as a "leg show," a commercialised spectacle of female nudity for masculine visual pleasure, evidence from burlesque performances during the years 1868 to 1877 demonstrate that the forms of sexuality represented are much more diverse, complicated, and fluid than these writers suggest. While burlesque may have been a leg show for many Victorians, burlesque representations in the post-bellum era also helped to create and disseminate social types related to subcultures of men who love men - the gay dandy and the fairy - and utilised coded narratives to represent and legitimise sexual relations between men.

Author Biography

Michelle Durden, University of California, San Diego

Michelle Durden is currently finishing her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Her dissertation 'Reconstruction Humor: American Social Types in Burlesque, 1865 to 1877,' addresses how the theatrical genre of burlesque helped to reconstruct and disseminate social identities destabilised by economic upheavals, racial politics, and expanding opportunities for women in the U.S. following the Civil War.

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