Cabaret by Chen Zu-Ying

I am a co-host of a weekly radio show on French art and culture. In preparation for the radio show, my co-host Sunny and I will choose a series of topics in advance that we would discuss. As I was preparing for our show on cabarets and music halls, I found the subject fascinating and so decided to share it on this blog.

As world-renowned as French cabarets are, I was surprised to learn that the cabaret is not strictly French in origin. Of the top three music halls in Paris (Lido, Moulin Rouge and Crazy Horse), only one was founded by a Frenchman. Lido owes its origin mostly to an Irish lady named Margaret Kelly, better known as Ms. Bluebell. Moulin Rouge was founded by two Spanish Catalans: Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler. Only Crazy Horse was started by a Frenchman, Alain Bernardin. Alain was fascinated by the striptease shows he saw during his voyage to the United States. He was particularly mesmerised by a prominent Canadian-born American Willis Marie Van Schaack, better known by her stage name Lili St. Cyr. Although, few remember St. Cyr now, it has been widely rumoured that Marilyn Monroe consciously copied every aspect of St. Cyr's mannerism – from her postures to her tone of voice.

In addition to its non-French owners, more than 75 percent of the dancers in these cabarets are not French. According to Pierre Rambert, the artistic director of Lido, the current percentage of French dancers is already a lot higher than it was 30 years ago, when he first joined Lido.

French culture is traditionally xenophobic. So I was surprised to learn that a non-French institution, the cabaret, has become a source of French pride. I say pride because I have heard anglophones facetiously call the French Cabaret high-class porn. While the French, on the other hand, described it as graceful, classy and even discreet; anything but pornographic.

Why are the French so proud of her cabarets? Is it because, to quote Stephen King: French is the language that turns dirt into romance?
 

 

To search for answers, I delved deeper into the subject and discovered an interesting fact. Below are a few requirements (or maybe measurements is a better word) for becoming a cabaret dancer in Paris:

• Females are required to be 1.75 metres tall; males are required to be 1.82 metres tall
• They require "pretty breasts" (natural, not surgically enhanced, and not too big)
• A distance of 27 cm between the two points of the breasts

At first, these physical requirements seem to me to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the French cabaret owners to use idealised female bodies to sell shows (just as Playboy had idealised and objectified the female bodies in order to sell magazines). But Vincent Blanchard, the deputy curator of Le Musée Départemental de l'Oise of the exhibition Intimate conservations, shed new lights on my thoughts regarding nudity: "People have problems with a nude body that is not idealised. Through mainstream media, we come across undressed men or women, but their bodies are idealised and when they are their bodies seem to have disappeared. We are not conscious that they are nude. We do not notice the bodies anymore. But when we show someone who has not "worked" at making their body fit in the ideal proportions, the body exists and it is then that we as viewers find these nude bodies out of place and find they shouldn't be photographed."

In other words, the strict measurements of the cabaret dancers are not meant to objectify the female bodies. In fact, just the opposite: these measurements are meant to keep the body of the dancers indistinct and indistinguishable for the audience. No dancer is ever singled out and objectified because of her look or her body: each person is meant to be viewed as a part of the group; each group a part of the scene; each scene a part of the show. This has the effect of creating a series of sumptuous tableau vivant (or living pictures), a term often used to describe French cabarets.

The de-objectification and de-personification of cabaret girls is further reinforced by their immaculate perception. Ms. Bluebell was a strong proponent of upholding the reputation of the dancers. She imposed very straight "convent" guidelines on her Bluebell girls:

- Untouchability: The Bluebell girls are not allowed to meet clients before and after the show. Should the girls receive presents backstage, the greeting cards are removed so that the senders will always be anonymous.

- Artistic accomplishment: Bluebell girls have to maintain strict discipline through rigorous training.

All these rules are meant to focus the audience’s attention on the merit of the show itself, rather than on the reputation of the individual dancer.

"'Barbies, blonde, blue eyes’ are not what we are looking for", said Pierre Rambert, artistic director of Lido. The founder of Crazy Horse, Alain Bernadin, echoed this sentiment thirty years before: “What we do with the girls is magic, because they aren’t as beautiful as you see them on stage. These are my dreams that I put on stage.” It is clear: the show itself is the star, not the girls.

Having taken a deeper look at the subject, I find that the French cabaret is essentially a high-wire act of sublimed restraint: it borders on eroticism but never strays over the boundary of art and good taste; it goes out of its way to de-objectify and de-personify female body and yet it never loses the feminine impulse to have fun, flirt, and tease; it is sensual but never salacious, loud but never lewd.

By taking contradictory, private, (and often) ridiculous elements and moulding them to something sublime and tasteful, the cabaret has essentially been given a modernist and ultimately, a French touch. So despite its non-French origin, the French has made the cabaret thoroughly her own; an institution that she can be proud of.