Documentary about famed Dallas male strip club LaBare has heart … and other body parts
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
There comes a moment during the new documentary LaBare — it will be different for everyone — when you suddenly realize something: You’re grinning ear-to-ear, and your facial muscles are beginning to ache. You wonder: How long have I been like this? Has anyone been looking at me, and how goofy I must seem?
Of course, no one is looking at you. There are better things to see on the screen.
Starting in 1978, the Dallas strip club LaBare gave straight women (but few gay men) the opportunity to ogle flesh in the way straight men had done for decades at titty bars. LaBare became legendary, like Chippendales, for objectifying men for the pleasure of horny women.
The club thrived on upper Greenville Avenue until 9/11, when it fell on hard times. It was reborn a few years later with a new location and new owner, but the same sex appeal. The formula works.
And why wouldn’t it? Watching male strippers (do they prefer exotic dancers?) work a crowd is like watching a puppy at a dog park, sniffing and wagging its tail in joy. They are almost hypnotically adept at seducing everybody, even total strangers. They look their fans in the eye and they repeat their names back to them. They smile. And they are completely aware that they are beautiful.
Beauty could be in the eye of the beholder here. The granddaddy of the strippers, Randy “Master Blaster,” has been shaking his Speedo-clad ass since 1979, and he’s still in great shape — the longest-serving continuous male stripper in the world, according to Guinness. But Randy is a far cry, stylistically, from the twinkie newcomer Channing, or even the exotically overmuscled David. There’s something for every taste here.
Joe Manganiello, the actor best known for playing the often-shirtless (and occasionally pantless) Alcide in True Blood and for his supporting role in the male stripper feature Magic Mike, produced and directed LaBare, and it’s an impressive debut. The film is a hoot — surprisingly funny, occasionally sentimental, adequately insightful and chock full of manmeat. And since LaBare discourages male patrons (they’re exiled to the back of the club, and don’t even consider a gay bachelor party there — all men who do enter must be accompanied by a woman), this might be the closest you’ll ever get.
It’s a disappointment of the film, in fact, that it never once delves into, or even acknowledges, its gay appeal. LaBare is touted as the “only” all-male stripper revue in North Texas, but that implicitly excludes gay clubs. And perhaps, as implied, every dancer within its cast of two dozen is a heteromale, though … well, let’s just say some of the guys might look familiar to you.
Does that make the film bad, though? Heck, no. Nothing about LaBare is homophobic, really — it just approaches its theses from the perspective of women interested in men, and men who like to perform for women. In that way, it makes some interesting points about male-female relationships, about the feminist position that female strippers are exploited by men (the guys here don’t seem exploited to me) and even makes a case for why these guys deserve respect for their performing skills. It’s entertaining … and the fact there’s nudity is just a bonus.
There’s an appalling lack of beefcake in Transformers: Age of Extinction. Here’s my rule: If you are gonna make a three-hour action film with Mark Wahlberg, his shirt has to be off a minimum of 15 seconds. But this steroided Michael Bay picture, the first-ever shot with an IMAX digital camera, is a big nothing — noisy, unrelenting action that makes no logical sense. The tropes it trades in have no currency in the marketplace of ideas: Wahlberg is a Caratacus Potts-like failed inventor, but he’s really just an over-protective dad; Kelsey Grammer is a Cheney-esque CIA ghost who does everything but twirl his moustache and tie Wahlberg’s daughter to the train tracks. It’s exhausting to watch the digital transformers (they don’t operate in a physical world, which was always the pleasure of the toys) so it’s impossible to feel for them. And why do robots smoke cigars, speak in broken English or have beer guts? I guess because they are war-movie stereotypes everyone can identify with. But I can’t imagine anyone past puberty being fooled by this. Then again — for better or worse — brainless movies are what summer is about. No use in fighting it.
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To read an interview with LaBare director Joe Manganiello and reviews of more new movies, visit DallasVoice.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 27, 2014.
