The teen-movie sensations of today come loaded with sexed-up hotbods to fuel pubescent fantasies well into those confusing nights when you're home alone. Kristin Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Patterson in the Twilight films; the pole-dancing antics of 16 year-old Miley Cyrus; a 23 year-old Megan Fox cast as teenage vixen-vampire in Jennifer's Body - surely too much for the pre-teen mind to cope with (let alone this aging critic).
The primary movie fantasies of my teenage years were Episodes 4 through 6 of the Star Wars films, and they were some of the most sexless films ever made. Sure, Return of the Jedi had that weird green dancer (Ed. - Oola, played by Femi Taylor) and Carrie Fisher in that leather slave-bikini. But when a key subplot involves a brother's obsessive love for a woman who turns out to be his sister....well, not really the stuff to set teen loins a-simmering.
And so it was with a surge of long-dormant teenage libido that I greeted the overnight images streaming out of downtown-LA nightclub 'Bordello'. Local burlesque dance-troupe Devils Playground staged a Star Wars-themed evening of bawdy Jedi-inspired sexiness that would have spun George Lucas' maiden trilogy into a whole other galaxy. To the beat of Meco's disco-themed rendition of the Star Wars themes (still the biggest selling instrumental album of all time), Darth Vader exposed her dark side while pole-dancing and Bobba Fett went from silent minion to stilettoed minx.
I'm glad they showed a modicum of restraint - the mind boggles at what these delightful deviants, under the inspired creativity of 'Stormtrooper' Courtney Cruz, would have done with R2-D2. Gazing in disbelieving awe at performer Scarlett O'Gasm's version of Tattoine's grotesque criminal overlord Jabba the Hutt, I am reminded of Han Solo's description of his ragtag ship, the Millenium Falcon: "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid..."
With images of C-3PO in pasties swirling in my subconscience, I might reassess the memories of my youth.
May the force be with me...
