BLAZE (THE FILM) MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

The film came out in 1989.  It does not feel dated.

Based on Blaze's autobiography, which she wrote with a co author, the film goes quickly through the stripper's life, beginning with her goodbye to her mother in rural West Virginia.  Her mother's advice was never trust a man who says "You can trust me." She says there are few men as good as her daddy.  She warns her daughter about boys.

Blaze's early dream is to be a country music singer. Far from home, she works at a donut shop until a customer grooms her to be a stripper. He is not honest, but convinces her that the audience is full of military men who may loose their lives in Korea. Can't she give them what they want - a strip - for America?  She defines herself as a dancer, not a stripper.

Blaze quickly becomes a star, traveling the circuit. Implied is that she has earned her independence. When Governor Earl Long of Louisiana shows up to see her perform in New Orleans, she asks him if she can trust him. He says "No you can't" and their romance is sparked. This is a man that Blaze can relate to.

Actor Paul Newman portrays the Governor as a wily older man who is sure he wants to keep his political office even if doing so requires unconventional ways. There's a bit of "only in Louisiana." Politically there's a situation in which the press and the voters want to know how he's going to deal with racism.  Black leaders say they need jobs, good jobs. He manages to do that by shaming an administrator at a segregated hospital.  Blaze retains her "down home" sensibilities.  Earl Long keeps his boots on - an old coot he is. There are some silly-funny sex scenes

When confronted by his political cronies about being involved with a stripper Long denies it, just as he does when confronted with IRS tax problems.  Blaze Starr is depicted stripping with one of Long's campaign buttons in her garter.  He wins the election but has had serious health problems for some time and dies, just after he lies and says she can trust him that he will marry her.

This film was based on the autobiography by Blaze Starr and co-author Huey Perry. 

Blaze was a production consultant and had a bit part in the film.

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TYPECAST AS A TRAGIC MIXED- RACE CONCUBINE OR SEDUCTRESS

Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez ask us not to reduce Isabel to the stereotypes of a tragic mixed-race concubine or seductress. She says this has happened in other books, the books for instance that are part of the YouTube video I posted. To be fair, I think each author tried to envision her and understand her role in General MacArthur's life, as their own gender and time and place and personal limitations allowed. So be it a powerful older man who treats a 'petulant and spoiled' younger woman to tea gowns, kimonos, and black lingerie' or whose existence in his life threatens his career, Gonzalez asks us to look deeper.

(Notes and observations having read pages 2-3)

Did Isabel, lonely and neglected despite being Kept, go out and seduce other men for fun?

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A little time out here:  After so many years reading and researching and writing around the subject of Mistresses here at Mistress Manifesto, the idea that a Mistress is the seductress, the idea that she always ends up in a tragedy, is not new to me. That Isabel Rosario Cooper is portrayed this way is no surprise to me. Implied is that women who have relationships with men who are already married or who do not marry them end up punished in some way, such as being murdered or ending in suicide. You will find several of those women in these pages.

So at this time I want to remind my readers that so much of our perceptions about mistresses come from books and books tend to be about exceptional people and extraordinary situations, of which being a Mistress is one of those. Overall, it's difficult to find information on those mistresses who were not exceptional people in extraordinary situations. That is why I say that the most successful of them may be people we never hear about. There are people who are happy with their station in life, whatever it happens to be, and that includes some wives and mistresses who willingly man share. It is an assumption that every woman wants marriage and a traditional marriage at that. It's also an assumption that a mistress is a kind of prostitute, there for the sex, with a thin veneer of a relationship keeping her and a lover together.

My feeling about Isabel Rosario Cooper so far is that she was likely influenced by coming from the Philippines, which to this day is quite mixed-race and also dominated by Catholic traditionalism. To this day a woman uniting with a much older man is not thought badly of there overall. Some of the women do seek marriage with American men who are older. Rather an older established man who can provide is considered a plus and American men know this. I know of more than one woman of Philippine heritage here in the United States who has, with the approval of her father, been a mistress. One of these women seemed especially servile. I knew that she had also been a mistress to a Hollywood producer previously and that her then-current man had also had mistresses in the past who left the relationship when marriage was not forthcoming. So I hoped this woman was not waiting for him to marry her. By servile I mean that she waited on him, cooking and serving food, and basically acted in-wait to his needs. Consider that if he was not going to marry her, those years she lived her life around him were years in which she was not getting an education or developing a career. 

Missy

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR'S SECRET AFFAIR

I chose this video among a few about Isabel Rosario Cooper and Douglas MacArthur because of the quotes taken from other books on MacArthur that admit to Isabel's existence, as well as because there are photographs and video of her.  The book by Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez has created new interest in the woman.  According to this YouTube poster, MacArthur sacrificed his Presidential ambitions over his love affair... 

It seems to me the whole thing cost her more.

EMILY IN PARIS : DEPICTION OF A MISTRESS IN A NETFLIX SERIES

 EMILY IN PARIS

The series takes place in contemporary Paris, France.  An all American young woman, Emily, who has a Masters degree and a career and boyfriend in Chicago, goes to Paris to join the team - as she sees it - of a firm that is considered Old School - and works to promote exclusivity of their client's products. Emily is brilliant and ambitious, but she encounters generational and cultural clashes.

Does this series rely too heavily on stereotypes of American values versus French values?

Perhaps.

Emily is no virgin. She had a serious relationship in America. She has affairs in France. French men have no issues with having sex with the American even if doing so is potentially complicated.  She isn't up for the bluntness of the man who tells her outright he wants American p****. She learns her female boss, who says she is a woman not a feminist, and that expectations of happiness are not realistic, is the mistress of a wealthy client Emily is trying to woo in business.  Her co-workers clues her in that his wife knows. She is startled and doesn't know what to do when a gift shows up for her at work, the most expensive lingerie in the world, from this same man.  And what about sex with a good friend's boyfriend? Or sex with someone who proves to be underage?  Is it funny when the kid's mother only confronts her to know if her son is good at sex?

Perhaps the most interesting dilemma she finds herself in is how to turn down the proposition implied in the lingerie and keep the client, who clearly finds her American brashness charming. His wife knows about this too.  She tells Emily that she approves and thinks she would be a good mistress for her husband.

You may want to read around Paris and France in MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT, using the tags beneath the posts or going through the archives here.

Though I do think the French attitude about Mistresses and Sex in general has long been different than the American, I'm personally sitting on the fence when it comes to this Netflix series.  Are you a fan?  Why?  Let me know in Comments!

Missy

10th ANNIVERSARY of MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT

A whole decade ago, I had the idea for this blog, and began posting.  It took a while before I began with the Mistress of the Month magazine idea, but for a while I was just warming up.  Through these years there have been times when I thought I was going to run out of interesting Kept Women and Kept Men to feature or write about.  I haven't.  At the moment, I have no plans to stop blogging but I would love your suggestions.  Check out the list of persons and subjects  I've covered in the past which is called Archive in PAGES.  Do you know of someone I haven't covered that you can recommend?  Links, books - tell me what you know!  Leave a comment; all comments are read by me first and then published if they keep to my comments policy!

THANKS FOR READING MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT!

Missy

ALYSSA MILANO WILL STAR IN AMERICAN VERSION OF "MISTRESSES"

Read a number of news articles around this and basically, it's going to be a 13-episode American series that's a remake of a six-episode British series that ran on BBC America.  The interest in mistresses goes on!  What will the writers and producers do with this show?  Will it be at all based in reality?  I don't mean 'reality TV" which is usually fake, but the real lives of mistresses.