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Live Nude Girls Unite!

About the Film

Year Released:

2000

Running Time:

Documentary/Fiction:

Documentary

Synopsis:

“Thanks for the six years of ballet lessons, Mom,” says Julia, a wisecracking dancer at San Francisco’s Lusty Lady peepshow. Considered progressive, the club attracts self-confident, intelligent, educated performers. When a coworker is unjustly fired, they decide to join a union in a scenario right out of Norma Rae. Julia decides to document the union’s developments, which start out as an effort to protect their jobs. But before long, it turns into a fight for human dignity as the women demand an end to rules that classify them by race, hair color and breast size. Management brings in the union-busting corporate lawyers; workers are fired for joining picket lines. When your struggle is on the nightly news, there’s no way to avoid telling your family what you’ve been doing, which pushes Julia to come to terms with her mother.

Pendás, Miguel. “Live Nude Girls, Unite!” San Francisco International Film Festival. Accessed December 2 2012. http://history.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=2900&searchfield=.

Poster Image:

Director

Film Director:

Julia Query

Production Info

Reported or Estimated Budget:

~$10,000

Location:

San Francisco

Other Interesting Production Info:

Query got a Pacific Pioneer Fund grant for $7,000 to help fund the film.

Categories About the Film

Genre:

comedy

documentary

Keywords:

activism and social justice

glbtq

sexuality

urban life

Racial/Ethnic Affiliation:

North American

Filmmaking Team

Writer's Name:

Julia Query, Vicky Funari

Producer:

Julia Query, John Montoya

Cinematographer:

Julia Query, John Montoya, Sarah Kennedy, Vicky Funari

Primary Cast:

Vicky Funari, Julia Query, Stephanie Batey, Darrell Davis, Joyce Wallace

Exhibition/Distribution Info

Distributor:

First Run Features

Box Office Earnings:

$84706

Where to find it/How to get it:

DVD widely available

Festivals/Awards:

World premiere at SXSX in 2000.
At the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2000, it won Audience Award for Best Feature and a Golden Spire Award for Bay Area Documentary.
Boston Women’s International Festival of Women’s Cinema in 2000.
Los Angeles Outfest in 2000.

Links

Link to the official film website:

Official Website

Links to interviews (written) with Director/Filmmakers:

Interview with Julia Query

Link to notable film reviews:

New York Times review

Analysis

Personal Film Review and Cultural Context:

Live Nude Girls Unite! captures the first successful movement to unionize strip club workers in the US and is the debut film of co-directors Julia Query and Vicky Funari, and premiered at SXSX in 2000. We follow Julia Query and her fellow dancers at The Lusty Lady, a strip club with the reputation of being feminist and empowering, the film footage crosscut with clips of campy animation that is both purposeful and self-aware. The selectively grainy film quality and handheld camerawork of Live Nude Girls Unite! sutures the viewer into the world of San Francisco’s strip club dancers, transporting the audience into the struggle and frustration of union organizing. These workers and their allies fight to resist exotification and lesser work opportunities for people of color while countering the strip club industry’s idea of “marketable,” mainstream beauty. As co-director, Vicky Funari thoughtfully negotiates direction so Query can have authorship of the film and be a subject at the same time, an untraditional circumstance in the industry.

- Maria Aghazarian