"Being a stripper is like eating a noisy bag of chips at church. Everybody looks at you in disgust but they know they want some." - dancer, Atlanta: Strip City
The pulled quote above, from Vice's new mini-doc on Atlanta strip club culture, is almost a perfect metaphor for the growing dichotomy in Atlanta over our unofficial designation as "strip club capital." Not that our hometown appreciation for the distinction was ever universal, but today there seems to be a widening gap between camps that consider it a bane versus a boon.
We've come a long way from the era when notorious Gold Club owner Steve Kaplan's free-sex policy for VIP athletes and his alleged mob ties became the stuff of legend during a federal racketeering trial that drew national media attention. Or when the exploits at spots like Magic City and Club Nikki's inspired the script behind Ice Cube's 1998 movie The Players Club. Big Meech's make-it-rain reign similarly came to an abrupt end with the fall of BMF. But in many ways Southern rap has done more to perpetuate the subculture than all of the above. And from the looks of this doc, the fetishization of Atlanta strip clubs has reached global and mythic proportions.
London-based journalist Joanna Fuertes-Knight brought her outsider curiosity and a Vice camera-crew to Atlanta to uncover the phenomenon. It made watching this NSFW Vice Fringes documentary, Atlanta: Strip City, which was released last week, rather interesting. More than behind-the-scenes exposure, the documentary provides a lens into a foreigner's impression of the city, and how her first-person tour of Atlanta strip clubs is filtered by pop culture's glamorization.
If you've never grabbed a hunk of naked ass in the name of immersion journalism, perhaps you've been doing it wrong. (Note to self.) Or maybe you don't work for Vice. Fuertes-Knight's fascination borders on cultural slumming at times, but the deeper she digs the more earnest her investigation becomes. (She also writes critically this week about how Atlanta's strippers helped her "get to the bottom of the twerk debate.")
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She takes us backstage to talk to dancers at Magic City, the manager at Diamonds of Atlanta, the bathroom attendant at Kamal's 21, and bouncers at the Clermont Lounge. In a candid interview with Blondie, Clermont's legendary stripper/poet reveals the pain she endures crushing empty beer cans with her boobs for non-tipping customers. (Apparently, Robert De Niro stiffed her once.)
Despite our growing boredom with the backyard phenomenon - and the increased outrage many within the city's gentrifying wave have expressed over existing strip clubs - the scene continues to intrigue those outside the city. An NPR report a couple of years ago documented the long-running economic link between strip clubs and the local music industry, as did a 2013 Wall Street Journal article that profiled the real strip club kings/queens, the Coalition DJs.
Vice's expose makes no bones about the real source of the obsession. Fuertes-Knight even pays a visit to a local cosmetic surgeon who specializes in butt lifts. He informs her that it would cost $15,000 to alter her "long butt" and other imperfections. In a more sensitive exchange, the journalist visits a local dancer's apartment and helps her cook chicken while the dancer talks the perils of dating and shares her plan to retire from the strip club to the classroom.
In the end, Fuertes-Knight's Londoner perspective sheds a filtered light on Atlanta's old vice. But for a city constantly preoccupied with how it's viewed by the rest of the world, it's a compelling reflection.