The One True Dave

I read Tracy Davis’ Actresses as Working Women at the same time as Marx’s Das Kapital and Genet’s The Balcony.  It should be no surprise, then, that the first three chapters of Davis’ book had everything to do with value, exchange value, human labour and commodities while the final two chapters were dominated by thinly veiled pretense, sexual innuendo, and layers of deceit to protect the interests of those in power (privileged male shareholders) at the expense of the work, dignity, and lives of the multitude of “surplus women” in Victorian England.  The tripartite profit machine of bars, prostitution and the “stage as a highly charged erogenous zone” (149) was known by all (like the euphemisms and sexual codification of gestures and costume conventions) yet the authorities were able to feign innocence or powerlessness due to the ephemeral quality of the offending gestures and context when under scrutiny.  Taking Genet’s allusion a further step, it was the (male) sexual fantasy composing the hidden underside of the proper (see rational and patriarchal) Victorian England that, essentially, allowed it to exist.  Darkness is needed to know light.  [If I pursued this, I would invoke Jean Paul Sartre’s Saint Genet here to expand this idea.] Davis’ claim that the “Victorian theatre and prostitution were alike in that they both traded on sensuality and pleasure, with women as the commodity,” (99) and the “erotic semiotics of performance” (155) summarize the content of the book.

This is an important and overall successful book in its effort to document the pivotal place (as the commodity traded, women were the essential ingredient to creating exchange value in these institutions) women had in the entertainment industry during Victorian England.  My greatest criticism – which is very small compared to the great strides the book has made and underlines how much work remains to be done – is Davis’ reliance, despite her framing the book in a New Historical light, on exceptional examples.  For instance, the space devoted to highly exceptional people like Kittie Carson, Helen Taylor and the Chorister’s Union is disproportionate to the sheer number of women implied by this topic.  Images of the streets being crowded by prostitutes, titillated men and actresses/dancers moving to and fro home and work is dizzying compared to the specific and privileged example of Helen Taylor.  Granted, including Taylor is an excellent juxtaposition and in some ways, an informative nod to the type of historical scholarship Davis is reacting to.

Reading this material makes me think of that infamous (and exceptional) American burlesque performer, Josephine Baker.  In addition to the sexual politics, the stigma of performing for the pleasure of a male gaze and being a woman, she was also black.  Despite these challenges facing her in a white male dominated commodity-driven society, she became (at times) extremely wealthy and enjoyed a social mobility known by few.  She played the sexual-power game as both the object of desire and also as an outsider (female and black).  I am curious to see Davis’ thorough and enlightening work taken further by exploring the lives and careers of women who both bought into (and manipulated for their own – fleeting – gain) the patriarchal system like Ms. Baker as well as those like Kittie Carson who worked to be an alternative to the exploitive and often degrading choices available to women in the entertainment industries.