Be warned: do not ever go to see "The Mineola Twins" on the supposition that it has anything at all to do with "The Venetian Twins." It may prove the vast potential for humor in the "mistaken identity" gag, staple fare of the Dartmouth entertainment scene this summer, but there the similarity abruptly ends.
Given the recent passing of mid-term exams and without even the relief of a sunny day for Tubestock, you might think there is not much to laugh about at Dartmouth.
More than 3,000 students have left campus for summer, leaving dozens of off-campus jobs to be filled by the Class of 1998. And despite summertime budget cuts, there is a shortage of students to fill jobs on campus, said Kevin Kanda '94, the student administrative assistant in the Student Employment Office. Kanda said townspeople need students for menial summertime labor, such as gardening and planting. But most students have found jobs here on campus, especially jobs in administrative positions. Stacie Steinberger '98, who works at the Collis Center reception desk, said her job is "nice and laid back." In addition to answering the phone, handling the printer and assigning rooms for student groups, she provides visitors with information about the College. She said this is particularly appreciated during summer, when more parents visit. Kara Holmstrom '98 has a similar job working at the information desk in Baker Library.
I pity Demi Moore. Deceived into believing that she was empowering women by her portrayal of feisty stripper Erin Grant, she was clearly never informed that it was to be marketed as a "bawdy comedy." Maybe it is just a personal prejudice but it seems an inappropriate forum for making a political gesture: you always run the risk that your audience will just laugh and fail to register the vital agenda. But then Striptease is a biting social satire designed to illuminate and ridicule the gross hypocrisies and double standards indulged by men in power, not pure entertainment. The rich plot evolves on the following lines: having lost her job and custody of her child, Erin is forced into stripping to raise money for a court appeal. Amongst the clients at The Eager Beaver, the seedy nightclub where Erin performs, is a plump, nerdy guy in glasses who is infatuated with Erin and a badly disguised Burt Reynolds as a badly disguised lecherous senator, also infatuated with Erin. The nerd attempts to blackmail the senator in order to promote Erin's custody case with disastrous consequences -- dragging Moore's deranged husband, small daughter, lupine-obsessed sister-in-law, club bouncer and fellow strippers into a plot about as subtle as one of Erin's routines. Government is exposed as vice ridden, the husband is exposed as an unfit parent and Erin is simply exposed. Ignoring the ridiculous premise that any judge, even a senile, old one would give custody to Moore's psychotic husband, what is more disturbing is the film's confused attitude towards stripping. With the risk of coming across as obsessed with what must amount to approximately eight minutes of the entire film, the issue demands particular attention. The movie's title and poster both capitalize on the idea and a small but articulate proportion of the audience seemed not to have been put off by the extortionate rate of 81 cents a minute for their evening's entertainment. The film firmly differentiates between prostitutes and strippers (sorry, dancers), a justifiable distinction if Erin's fellow performers were not merely poor variations on the stock "tarts-with-hearts", each sporting a comedy accent and an IQ to match her chest size. Erin herself dislikes stripping, taking care to inform us how she never fails to feel nauseous before every performance, insisting on disrobing to Annie Lennox and becoming perturbed when her daughter happens to see her "dancing." But the sophistication of the film is such that it allows us to see Erin's routines from an audience's perspective, doubtlessly expecting we remain fully aware of her distaste for the task throughout. After all, how could anyone find four separate strips erotic in the knowledge of the performer's extreme reluctance? See the problem?