Family-Faith Film Review: Burlesque
By Catholic Office of Film and Broadcasting
Burlesque: Initially pleasant but ultimately sordid musical tracing the rise of an Iowa farm girl (Christina Aguilera) as she moves to Los Angeles and becomes first a waitress and then — thanks to her knock-’em-dead voice — a star performer at a burlesque club. She’s cheered on by a friendly co-worker (Cam Gigandet) — with whom romantic sparks are bound to fly, his faraway fiancee notwithstanding. Eventually, she’s taken under the wing of the establishment’s financially beleaguered owner (Cher). Writer-director Steven Antin’s small-town-gal-makes-good showbiz celebration starts out feeling as though Andy Hardy and his friends had wandered onto the set of “Cabaret.” But a few of the showcased acts cross the line from saucy to salacious, the outcome of the love interest winds up glamorizing an unwedded encounter and an incidental gay relationship is treated as just another amorous alternative. Benign view of premarital sex and homosexuality, possible acceptance of abortion, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, fleeting rear nudity, often suggestive and briefly obscene dancing, several uses of profanity and one rough and some crude and crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is
O — morally offensive. (PG-13) 2010
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