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Hotels | Shows | Concerts | Golf | Dining | Tours | Tickets | About Us | More Info | Contact | Buy Now | Links | Info Get dressed, girlfriends! By Dayvid Figler My dad says when he met my mom she was a showgirl--he had to show her everything. I never understood what that meant. Now, I swear I don't watch television anymore. In fact, the small television I do own, I keep in the closet. The other day, however, while merely moving my television around in the closet to get to some quality works of classical literature, I accidentally hit the on-switch and the TV got all glowy and started hummin' (really, it wasn't even plugged in). I tried, but I couldn't turn away from the image on the screen. It was immediately compelling...it was a showgirl. Growing up in Las Vegas, showgirls were omnipresent and to some extent the ideal fantasy bride. I imagined being married to one. She would strut around our desert dream house all plumed and perfumed, on occasion offering a tray of cubed cheese to our guests...sometimes even topless. As a kid, I would sometimes go to the early dinner shows with my parents, the Lido or the Follies. No nudity, but the suggestion thereof, which for a young boy in that pre-politically correct world was even better--fueling a burgeoning desire without the harshness of actual flesh that may have been a little much for this Cub Scout back then. And here on the TV was my showgirl of old (as opposed to an old showgirl). Window dressing for some game show filmed in Las Vegas, well, it just made me sad. First of all, I don't think it was really a showgirl as much as a model with festively adorned cleavage and an outlandish headdress--an imitation as cold as hearing recorded music in a Las Vegas showroom in winter. Second, it made me confront happy memories of showgirls with this whole cynical, deconstruction thing that has cursed me since I hit my 30s. Blah blah blah, exploitation. Blah, blah, blah, objectification. I know talented women dancing in current productions who on occasion may have to wear the va-va-va-voomer frocks designed by someone who was trying to put a little glossy on the Fosse and they concede it's part of the game. Some draw the line at baring it all, but sex sells (and, as my friend John L. Smith points out, since they can't sell sex...). The mystique and physique of the showgirl will continue as a commodity so long as casinos clamor to get you to "look over here." Which is why cocktail waitresses have traditionally worn such revealing garb, why they must endure harassment from slovenly drunken customers, why there are no cocktail waiters and why their feet are bound up in crazy high heels that would make a Chinese concubine wince in pain. In many ways, cocktail waitress are like showgirls without the beat (not to say they don't take a beating working long hours on those stilts). Maybe it is time to take a whole look at the situation. I mean, I know Las Vegas has been grandfathered into an immunity from many laws and mores (smoke in the workplace, wasting water, etc.), but do we still need to stick feathers in their hair with a dress cut down to there...or am I totally barking up the wrong money tree?
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