Australian
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Clubland (2007)

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clip 'The horizontal tango'

Original classification rating: M. This clip chosen to be M

Clip description

At home, Jean (Brenda Blethyn) hugs her boys and warns Mark (Richard Wilson) about what he can and can’t watch on video. Tim (Khan Chittenden) drives her to the club where she is to perform that night, in between a whistling singer and a ventriloquist. In the dressing room, Jean embarrasses Tim with her talk about sex. The dancing girls disrobe in front of him as her manager (Russell Dykstra) brings cocktails. Jean begins her act with Tim watching in the wings.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

The script manages to inject the subject of sex at every opportunity. Jean’s warning to her son Mark is about her fear of his developing interest in sex, even though she jokes about it. The club dancers are shown as sexy and unashamed of their bodies. Jean’s talk in the dressing rooms embarrasses her son about sexual matters. Her stage act is all about sex. In part this is a way of entering Tim’s state of mind – his youthful longings and fears – but it’s also a way of revealing Jean’s very English repressed sexual mores, in which sex is given euphemisms and made into the subject of ‘naughty’ humour. For both characters the subject carries a lot of fear.

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