Shakedown (2018)

 

Director: Leilah Weinraub

Cast: Egypt, Jazmyne, Mahogany, Ronnie-Ron, Slow-Wine and Keyonna Taylor

Ephemeral Waves

 

Some places are just hard to find.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic when it began in 2020, where many were likely watching films on the internet unless they had also acquired large DVD collections to finally go through and rewatch, there was a perfect time to appreciate cinema's more maligned areas when blockbusters were being held back for a year or unable to be completed. At a time where there were films lucky to have been finished, but many were instead delayed or not yet released, the time useful for the sake of bringing attention to both retrospective titles, like the virtual We Are One film festival which screened on YouTube between May 29th and June 7th 2020, but also smaller independent releases. This context is worth bringing up as, alongside being a fascinating documentary built from footage director Leilah Weinraub filmed through the early 2000s of a lesbian African-American strip dancing group known as Shakedown, Shakedown's history should also include the fact it premiered on PornHub¹ even before going onto the Criterion Collection's streaming service or the film's own website. That is a distinct thing consider, especially as this is proudly an LGBT work about lesbian African-American culture, juxtaposed by this distribution context.

This detail has thankfully not overshadowed the film, in mind to Pornhub and mainstream pornography being still seen as a local leper, due to problematic attitudes to sexuality worth questioning as much as problematic puritanical attitudes that single out porn for no justifiable reason. Historically, it will show alongside entrepreneurism that Shakedown's director Leilah Weinraub took this brave risk, and she deserves blessings for a great work but also for having a promotional decision that, as this would afterwards be on The Criterion Channel, blurs media sides. It also fits a film whose (evocative) poster and its footage within itself is not shying away from being sexually frank too. Within a world of "studs" and "fems", the world of Shakedown is of female dancers in erotic and explicitly sexual dances for a female clientele, surrounding them on the dance floor and even slipping dollar bills in their g-strings. Shakedown both is a film proud of being sexually explicit, and also one without needing to spell it out that really forces one to question notions of gaze and idealised physical attractiveness.

Coming to this as a male heterosexual viewer, obviously this world is for me from being an outsider, and as a white viewer as much so. It would be frankly stupid to consider my opinions the ones to follow in thought on this document. As an outsider however, probably the most fascinating immediate detail is that, whilst the dancers and patrons are of all shapes and sizes, many of the women we follow and interview dress and perform in deliberately hyper-feminised ways in their performances, usually seen from a male heterosexual form of eroticism when depicted. The film has discussions on this whilst stereotypical images such as money placed into g-strings and twerking are witnessed in a world of proud gay black women who dress and act how they want.

It is technically a documentary, but it is more meaningful to call the work an archival project experienced in first person by the director, Weinraub putting together filmed pieces shot by her during the nineties into the early 2000s following female go-go and strip performers at black lesbian bars. As someone who is remotely alien to this world, it is an uncensored lens to the world which is greatly appreciated as much for its pride in showing itself. We see the people in this world and talk about a world of theirs. Egypt, among the many dancers with such distinct stage names like "Slow Wine" and "Jazzybelle", is one of the most prominent voices, who openly admits to having once as a teenager in high school, not coming out as gay, having beat up other girls in high school who tried to make a pass at her in cheerleading groups, a long progression to finding her sexuality when having been brought to a gay club called Catch 1 without realising its target patrons. We see these dancers as ordinary people, Egypt's girlfriend both a former teen fan who found a poster of her and that is the real woman against her persona Egypt. We see the backstage, dancers getting changed and ready to go out, and there is a lot on how many of them came out of the closest later in their lives. One of the most distinct figures, the MC Ronnie-Ron, talks of having been from a Jehovah's Witness upbringing, not coming out as gay and originally when she had being a "fem" only to find herself as a "stud" dressed down much later, become one of the most charismatic figures in the documents as much for the brash personality that would have came to her in that time.

We see gay parents, one a female dancer with their daughter the first "Shakedown baby", one of the absolutely sweetest segments to see, including footage of an interview show called Issues in the Hood, where for the one person surprised of one of the female parents' occupation, another person calling in says they should be proud of themselves regardless of said occupation. In contrast, returning to the poster of Egypt, that is one of a couple of tales of how posters of her advertising the club, homemade posters for Shakedown and other "parties" shown throughout, became fixations for teen girls. Against discovering their sexualities there is also however a tangled web in the cases brought up. Even in mind to an anecdote of one girl stealing a poster from her mother to keep under her bed, and being beaten for it, a lot of blatant outward text of one's inner life when one's parents having posters for these clubs, even if married, is talked of a few times, alongside the fact that Egypt's friend who brought her to the club, which led to her finding her sexuality, was gay to her surprise too and unaware of.

Throughout there is a nice and subtle reminder, without hammering it home, to never make snap judgements of what sexuality should be as, between a performer who deliberately exaggerates her costumes to the point of drag to Egypt herself, who was came out gay only when she was brought to such clubs. These are all individuals and their sexual attractions vary wildly. Their matriarch Mrs/Mother Mahogany, who runs the clubs, even talks of there being a vast difference between stripping for male patrons and for women, for the later far greater need for dress, pose and how to portray femininity to tantalise the female audience, whilst the flexibility and openness of the community means that, costume and body diversity alone, all the dancers here are vibrant and powerfully eroticised figures in full control of their own image. Whether first wearing a full fireman's costume, street clothes to suits or costumes deliberately chosen to barely conceal a thing, this is as vast and creative as you can get from these performers in how to express them. Particularly, again with mind as an outsider, of the stereotypes of how black women are sexualised in mainstream media, it is really ironic and fascinating that those stereotypes are embraced by quite a few of these dancers, including in dressing and acting in a way to emphasise their figures, alongside women in the crowd or running the establishment who do not wear makeup, dress down and act the complete opposite. 

It is only seventy plus minutes long, which is a shame as this subject matter (if the materials recorded at the time were plentiful) could have been longer. A timeline of this culture in Los Angeles with footage shot by the director on early digital cameras, it is low resolution and of its time, among the homemade posters and DIY attitude of the performers and their MCs. The film is proudly sensual and erotic for any viewer of any gender and sexuality, but entirely from a perspective of a minority in LGBT culture with its own characteristics, which is a huge virtue of the film coupled by the complete lack of patronisation and lecturing within this world, throwing them instead into the middle of it with some onscreen text and talking head interviews for context. Entirely working class, with a lot of background in Baptist and Christian churches, this world is shown and allowed to breath. There is even male figures, such as an older guy who talks of being in this area the Shakedown headquarters are at since the fifties, who looks to the club we follow with friendliness and mutual respect as someone who is hired as an employee.

The only time Shakedown depicts anything oppressive is when two male white police officers abruptly appear in the middle of a performance and arrest a dancer halfway through her act for soliciting, not even bothering to cover her up as they handcuff her hands behind her back in a way that comes off as humiliation. The sense of this club, and these gay women, being outsiders is finally felt as it is male police officers who continually appear to interrupt the club, disguised in plainclothes and abruptly appearing as outsider threats. Their sense of banality, when the director manages to get conversation with them (even if lying about having turned her camera off), makes it far more troubling especially in how, in the middle of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States went through the entire Black Lives Matter movement and a lot of greater existential questions of how police should be. Ultimately the male owner of the building not wanting sex taking place in his establishment is what tragically ends the Shakedown parties, he feeling like an outsider without understanding the wholesome environment he is intruding on, forcing eventually the tale of a safe place being torn down and having to be rebuilt as the ending.

Shakedown is a film I admire just from the perspective as an outsider to this culture being permitted access to this environment. Hence documentary as a genre tag would be a disservice when this deserves to be called a home movie, to embrace the intimacy of Leilah Weinraub being a participant of this world, and an archival piece, worthy of those tags as positives as it is a snapshot to a place and community bristling in energy and excitement. More so as this is a community of progressive ideals, not stereotypes stand-ins as framed ideals, but women who are a variety in who they are and themselves a far admirable image to raise up as an LGBTQ ideal. The decision to premiere for free on PornHub was only until the end of March 2020 and, sadly, this is easily a film that can slip through the cracks after the initial surprise of that promotional strategy, when in truth it is one worthy to see. Choosing PornHub ultimately has a rewarding existential question in itself too. In late 2020 as well, PornHub flushed half if more of its user generated content when accusations of unwholesome content were made at them². They themselves too as the mainstream face of porn is an albatross around their necks too when, in image, the stereotypes of mainstream pornography can easily stick to them even for all their amateur and professional figures of all types who create material for the site. Not even in terms of questioning the tropes in mainstream porn either honestly, but whether the tropes are in themselves gauche.

Something like Shakedown is a rewarding and even subversive work to briefly have connected to such a site, with real LGBTQ women proud of themselves, and painting an image of their own desires and sexuality which, as mentioned, defied many presumptions. That of a) what is eroticism for a gay female gaze and b) that presumed stereotypes of the male heterosexual gaze, in shapes and sizes, do not necessarily exist as things merely only men like, but that the problem was always the male objective gaze, not a woman's dress sense and figure. The film also does not in the damndest hide the explicitness of the sexuality, both in how explicit the nudity seen is, and even with eroticised smothering of whipped cream at one point mid-dance, and a mock strap on performance, among scenes. A hell of a lot more powerful erotic imagery can be found here regardless of the average viewer and their sexuality and gender, greater knowing it is for gay women by gay women.

 

========

1) More detail on the film can be read HERE.

2) HERE.