Butt News Movie Club #30: Flashdance
Literally All Welders Take Their Clothes Off at Night
[Hello! Did you know that I turned 42 in March? And if you thought 40 was an important birthday, well, 42 is 2 more than that!! IF YOU WANT TO GET ME SOMETHING FOR MY BIRTHDAY, MY ONLY BIRTHDAY WISH IS THAT YOU SUBSCRIBE TO BUTT NEWS USING MONEY! Especially if you came from the streets but now you own an entire mine and can suck on a lobster whenever you want!
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A Pittsburgh woman rides around on her bike and stops to pet a cat. She’s in Pittsburgh! What a feeling! Did you know that there are over 340 bridges in Pittsburgh? One of those would have come in handy for me about halfway through this movie!
A man named Alex is welding in the dark. You know his name is Alex because he wrote “Alex” on the front of his welder mask, and you know he’s a man because he’s welding! What kind of facility is this? Is it a mine? It seems like a mine because there are guys going in and out dressed like miners. But why do you keep it so dark in your mine???? Nobody has an extension cord? Do mines have welders???? I only know about the kind of mine they have in Stardew Valley!! (This movie would be 10,000 times better if at one point Jennifer Beals had to fight a skeleton to upgrade her watering can!)
Now there are two guys welding inside of two big tubes—like the tubes that run under the highway where a coyote and a badger shelter from a tornado and become best friends on Instagram. Again I ask: what kind of a PLACE is this? Are you BUILDING something!?!?!? Is it a mansion for the coyote and the badger to live in because they’re GAY? Is it The Dodo Hype House??
Wait, holy shit—Alex just took off his welder mask and he has luxurious thick hair and boobs and is a GIRL. Can you imagine not putting your hair up when you go WELDING in the DODO MINES? All those hot itchy curls trapped against the back of your neck by the mask strap? That’s worse than when I gave Shane a jar of my homemade pickles and he said “Why are you giving me your garbage?”!!!!!
Now we’re at a sexy exotic dancing club called MAWBY’S BAR. An old Italian man in a suit comes out on stage, but wait!!!!! It’s a lady again! It’s Jennifer Beals’s body double Bennifer Jeals. Ma’am, you need to give that suit back—somewhere Uncle Junior is NAKED!
In the crowd, Michael Nouri is talking to his friend about Alex and I rewound and turned the captions on for this dialogue and let me tell you it did not help:
“If I get the scoop on her I get Dallas at three and a half. You get anything on her I’ll give you six.”
Okay, sure!
TV’s Arliissittingrightnexttothembuthedoesn′thaveanylines.ImaginetreatingTV′sArli like an extra!
Michael Nouri’s friend reveals that it was all a setup—not only does he already have “the scoop” on Bennifer Jeals, he knows her social security number by heart, which is normal.
Friend: “She works for you!” Apparently Michael Nouri is the owner of the mine, and he let his random-ass friend finger through the personnel files and memorize sensitive information just in case they happen upon a mine-welder by day/Sexy Uncle Junior by night, an opportunity he can then exploit to secure Dallas at three and a half. The perfect crime!
Cut to the kitchen at a busy diner. A small comedian in a hat is flipping burgers and telling Polack jokes, a slur that I think I’m allowed to type due to my great grandmother Bertha Brzostowicz (1878-1968)? He tells the waitress, Jeannie, that he’s going to be “opening up in LA” soon, and then his boss, Jake, says, “They don’t let short people into Hollywood1. And you’re making the hamburgers too big again!” So Richie says (his name is Richie), “This place is so small you gotta go outside to change your mind!”
Richie, that is not the kind of jokes that stand-ups do!
Jennifer Beale (Alex) finishes her dance and is a huge success. Everyone loved her ass! Question: why is she also a welder? This seems like a legit real job! She’s having a great time! All the dancers are gossiping backstage and then Richie comes back there to be perverted (I guess this is a dance venue AND a burger restaurant?) so they all throw bananas at him.
The next day, back at the mine, Alex is on her lunch break so Michael Nouri comes to sexually harass her, but it’s okay because in the 80s they didn’t have sexual harassment yet—they only had sexual HOORAY-sment!
MN: “You’re Alex.”
Alex: “I know.” (lol)
MN: “I’m Nick Hurley.”
Then he’s like, “So what’s a dancer doing working as a welder?” and EXCUSE ME, sir, maybe she’s a WELDER working as a DANCER??? He asks if she speaks French bc she’s reading French Vogue and makes her admit that she just likes the pictures (NOT chivalrous!), and then he awkwardly tells her that he’s divorced. She walks away and it seems like this interaction was a bust but then she forgot her thermos so he says “you forgot your thermos” and it’s BOIOIOIOIOIOING!
Alex goes home and her pitbull is like “hi mom” and you see his big swangin’ balls.
Alex (TO HER DOG): “So, you get laid today?”
She watches nude ballet on TV and tries to do a ballerina spin but she forgets that she’s holding a pop and she spills it on herself. That’s day ONE of ballerina school, sister: put your pop down first! Or maybe… you haven’t… BEEN to ballerina school??
Okay, why is her apartment so nice? Seems like this chick is RICH!
Now she does her “Maniac” dance montage. She’s dancing into the danger zone. They were so into the danger zone in this era! What’s she doing after this? JARTS??
Meanwhile her dog is just watching her like AOOOGA and it’s weird. To be clear, I wouldn’t have thought this if the movie didn’t say a sexual thing about the dog first!
We’re 10 minutes into this movie and I’ve already seen all the parts I knew about. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REST OF THE MOVIE?
Alex rides her bike to the Pittsburgh Dance and Repertory Company and walks through the valley of the shadow of death (hallway full of ballerinas). She goes into the admissions office and everyone looks at her like RECORD SCRATCH? Which makes no sense, because she absolutely looks like a beautiful dancer!
But I guess all the other girls waiting are wearing beautiful girl shoes and standing in first position like absolute creeps, but she’s wearing welder boots and standing normal. CLASS ANALYSIS!!!!!
The secretary hands out the applications one by one and tells each girl to make sure to list all their years of dance education (you can’t just make ONE announcement?), so Alex gets humiliated and leaves and RUNS OUT OF THE BUILDING.
NEVERMIND ABOUT BEING DANCER.
She goes back to the welding factory mine WHERE SHE BELONGS and bonks Nick Hurley with the freight elevator door.
Nick: “Hello, dancer.”
Um that’s kind of traumatic for her right now actually????
He claims to have a close personal relationship with the lady who runs the lunch truck, and I’d love to hear what the lunch lady has to say about that on Undercover Boss. Then he asks Alex to get dinner but she says no—“I don’t have dinner with the boss.” APPROPRIATE!
Man, it’s crazy that in the 80s a woman with a union job with benefits who lives alone in a giant apartment (that she could probably afford to buy!) could be thought of as a tragic failure, trapped by circumstance, because she only gets to pursue her art half-time. Which is a legitimate way to feel, of course, if that’s how you feel, but it really shows you how grim shit is now! All the frustration and disappointment but none of the housing and insurance! I love to be alive!
She rides her bike to an old lady’s house (Wikipedia tells me that this is NOT her grandma but merely her “mentor”) to pick up a dress that NOT-grandma sewed for her. NOT-grandma encourages her to go back and audition for the dance company even though her shoes are disgusting. Then someone mentions that Alex is only 18 years old!!?!??! HOW’D SHE GET A JOB AS A WELDER? Did she go to a Welding Magnet High School?
Alex goes to church to pray and do confession and tells the priest that she’s been thinking about fucking a lot. Priest: HORNY SMILE.
Then she does a looooong monologue about her inner conflict about applying vs. not applying to the dance studio and the priest is like “oh yeah totally” but HOW WOULD HE HAVE CONTEXT FOR ANY OF THIS? Alex tells the priest that she feels like she’s never going to make anything of her life. Ma’am, you’re only 18 and you already have TWO careers, and one of them is the one you want!
Alex and one of her dancer friends walk past a club called Zanzibar, which is the BAD kind of sexy dancer club where they don’t get to do art, they only get to show nude bush. The owner is standing outside screaming at pedestrians to come see the live nude girls five dollars all nude all the time. Omg, and it’s only LEE VING wearing the craziest little elf boots I’ve ever sawn!!!!!!!!!!
Finally a little backstory on Mr. Boddy!
Lee Ving tries to recruit them to work at Zanzibar but Alex says, “Do you know that the smallest penis ever measured was 1.1 inches?” which doesn’t really answer his question???
Then there’s an absolutely insane montage of the dancers from MAWBY’S BAR working out, followed by another (separate, not connected!) montage of Alex and Jeannie walking down the street and stopping to watch some breakdancers, followed by a literal THIRD montage of a cop directing traffic, which the movie is clearly implying is its own form of dancing! There’s dancing everywhere if you just look for it!
Is the whole movie montages??
Flashdance only passes the Bechdel Test because of when she talks to her not-grandma about sewing.
Alex and Jeannie go to Jeannie’s parents’ house for dinner and Jeannie’s unsupportive father says, “You girls eat like pigs. What happened to the diet?” which sounds harsh but that was actually the President’s Physical Fitness Advisory in 1983, and Jeannie says, “I didn’t eat anything yesterday,” and I want to be more mad but I was distracted trying to figure out where I know Jeannie’s mom from (she’s in While You Were Sleeping).
The girls promise to work their carbs off at the rink and then they go ice skating and Jeannie rules at it and Alex sucks but she has a good time anyway because she is a good friend.
Back on stage at MAWBY’S BAR, Richie is practicing his standup so he can move to LA.
Richie: “You hear about the Polack2 bank robber? Tied up the safe and blew the guard.”
What kind of establishment is this?????? They have burgers, strippers, AND Richie doing Polack jokes!?
Then Richie says this, which I am scared to type in case it’s offensive in some way that I don’t understand: “You want to talk about boogers? I know a lot about them!”
Richie is bombing and Jeannie is sooooooo embarrassed (idk how we’re supposed to know this but according to the Wiki plot synopsis they are dating), but then he screams at the audience in a rage and threatens to put roaches in their hamburgers, so they start to warm up a little bit, and then he mentions the Steelers and he’s got ‘em!!! The crowd is on his side!!!!! Now his Polack jokes kill!
Next up, it’s a dancer named Tina Tech dancing to a song named “Manhunt.” Tina Tech is Penny from Dirty Dancing and I SCREAMED. Mr. Boddy AND Penny from Dirty Dancing!? If Socrates Johnson shows up, you’ve got yourself a Lindy’s-favorite-80s-movies supergroup!
Mr. Boddy grabs Alex’s ass and so she pours her beer in his lap. He’s SOOO mad about it. After the club closes, he’s waiting outside to kidnap her! Richie tries to protect her but Mr. Boddy’s henchman (the Motorist) punches him and makes his hat fall off, so he loses all of his powers!
Nick is walking by and sees what’s going on and he tells Mr. Boddy to knock it off. Mr. Boddy gives up, but he warns Nick, “this ain’t your neighborhood no more.” Oh wow so Nick used to be from the streets but now he OWNS THE MINE?? This lore is never mentioned again.
Nick offers Alex a ride home but she says, “no thanks, I got a ride,” and leaves on her bicycle. Sorry, you’re not perturbed AT ALL after your ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION AND SEXUAL ASSAULT? Then Nick follows her home. Very reassuring when one has just been menaced by a terrifying man! Alex says no thank you AGAIN but Nick is undeterred, a behavior which, as we all know, women love.
Alex: “I told you, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go out with the boss.”
Nick: “Have it your way. You’re fired. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 8.”
…Romantic?????!!!?!!???!?!?!?!?!??!!!???
Now it’s Jeannie’s ice skating recital and her dad is being a dickhead as usual. Everyone is there: Richie, Alex, Nick (WHY?). Jeannie does her routine and it’s MODERN and COOL and even her dad is moved, but then she falls down twice and gets discouraged and quits. The classic story of working class Pittsburgh!
Jeannie’s like, “all that time and practice, what a waste,” but then her dad gives her a pep talk and says he loves her (for the first time?) so she feels better.
Alex: “She practiced for two years.”
Nick: “She’ll do better next time.”
Alex: “There won’t be any next time.”
WHY???? PLEASE EXPLAIN MORE!
Nick asks if Alex wants steak or lobster or escargots or duck a l’orange and she says she wants PIZZA because she is DOWN TO EARTH. They go eat pizza at her apartment and talk about music and she casually takes her bra off under her big sweatshirt as though she is not a repressed Catholic ruled by shame. She talks about how Nick could never understand this but where she’s from in Altoona they don’t have any music but sometimes her grandpa would take her to the symphony but she thought it was boring because she wasn’t allowed to dance, and I must pause to say that ALTOONA IS ONLY AN HOUR 45 AWAY FROM PITTSBURGH. “You wouldn’t know what my life in Walla Walla is like—you’re from Yakima.” It’s giving Coyote Ugly!
Anyway, then she explains that eventually she learned that the symphony isn’t boring because if you close your eyes you can “see the music.” She makes Nick close his eyes and is like, “well?” but there’s no music! Did this movie actually have a script?
Nick gets up to leave (why!?) and she says “don’t you want some pizza?” WHILE TAKING OFF HER PANTIES, because by “pizza” she means “puzzy”!!!!!!
They kiss VIOLENTLY. The next morning, Nick wakes up alone because alex, WHO IS 18, had to get up early to go to work at THE MINE THAT HE OWNS.
Then there’s another montage where they walk on the train tracks and goof off (Alex, you should not walk on the train tracks in lil pumps!) and then run giggling through an industrial wasteland and then climb up a 10-story abandoned building just for fun.
Alex starts twirling around the tetanus-infested garbage loft and Nick sees her do a ballet move and he’s like “DO THAT AGAIN.” Alex explains that she’s “not a dancer like that.” She reads books and stuff and she watches but she’s never taken dancer classes. She says it’s different dancing at the club because you can’t see the audience.
For some reason she starts crying and Nick thumbs her tear so she takes his hand and puts it on her bazonga.
They’re back at the club now and someone (maybe Alex?) is on stage doing the CRAZIEST dance number. This is performance art!! You’re telling me they build all these bespoke sets for one-off dances at MAWBY’S BAR?
Mr. Boddy hits on Jeannie and asks if she knows how to do the horizontal mambo. Sorry—Mr. Boddy isn’t 86’d from MAWBY’S after he tried to forcibly horizontal mambo with one of the employees and then broke the chef’s nose????????
Then he says he’s just kidding around and gives Jeannie 100 bucks. He says it’s his way of saying he’s sorry and Jeannie’s like hmm I know you tried to kidnap and rape my best friend but maybe we should date.
Meanwhile, back on stage:
STROBE LIGHT WARNING
IT’S UNWATCHABLE
I’VE NEVER HAD A BAD REACTION TO A STROBE LIGHT BEFORE
WHY IS IT GOING ON SO LONG
TURN IT OFF
PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME
Now Alex is at the ballet with not-her-grandma. The prima ballerina gets flowers at the end and Alex asks, “At the end of every performance does the lead dancer always get flowers?” and NG says only sometimes and Alex says she wants to know how it feels to get flowers at the end of a ballet dance.
NG: “You will let me know.”
Outside the ballet, Alex sees Nick get into his Porsche with a blonde woman and she’s ENRAGED so she rides her bike to his mansion and THROWS A ROCK THROUGH HIS WINDOW: “You son of a bitch!!!!!!”
Look, that’s not good behavior, but she’s only 18 and she’s a dancer and a welder and she must be SO TIRED!
Nick runs outside with no top on but she’s already ridden away. She gets home and finds a huge puddle on the floor—is it dogpiss or water from the radiator? Just then, Richie shows up to say goodbye because he’s going to LA now.
WHAT TIME IS IT
IT MUST BE LIKE MIDNIGHT
Alex: “What about Jeannie?” - alex
Richie: “I love Jeannie, but I just don’t have it to give to her right now.”
NO OFFENSE SIR BUT JEANNIE IS THE BEST THING THAT WILL EVER HAPPEN TO YOU.
They hug, weirdly, and his hat falls off.
WHAT IS THIS MOVIE ABOUT
OH MY GOD IT’S SO BORING
I KNOW MAYBE THIS ONE IS THE BLUEPRINT BUT WHY DOES EVERY DANCE MOVIE HAVE THE EXACT SAME PLOT
Back at work Alex goes to get a snack from the lady at the lunch truck, with whom Nick claims to be BEST FRIENDS, and I’m still not buying it. Nick shows up and is like lemme get that for you but she’s like NO I SAW YOU AT THE BALLET WITH A BLONDE. And he’s like wow everyone’s being crazy right now—someone broke my window last night.
And she’s like I BROKE IT BC I HATE U!
And he’s like that cost me $170! I had to special order it!
And the lunch lady is like:
Nick says the blonde is his ex-wife whom he only sees once per year at the ballet charity gala and Alex needs to get off her period and calm down.
They go to a fancy restaurant and Alex is wearing a VERY cute girl tuxedo! She eats lobster SEXUALLY while toeing Nick’s crotch with her foot. Please stop sucking the lobster, ma’am, it’s literally disgusting!
A woman in a fur hat comes up to their table and asks if Alex is really a welder who takes her clothes off at night (probably most welders do, but ok??). Oh, it’s the ex-wife. WHY IS SHE THERE? I thought he only sees her once per year!
Ex-wife asks if Nick took Alex to the steel mill for their first date to give her his tetanus shot, wink, because that’s his move. But Alex isn’t fazed—she takes off her tuxedo jacket to reveal she’s JUST WEARING A DICKIE and she says, “Yeah, I fucked his brains out!” The ex-wife is about as steamed as that lobster!!!!!!
My favorite accessory is my standalone shirt cuffs for my sexual dickie.
Now that she has conquered the ex-wife, Alex finally has the confidence to go back to the dance school. She walks in and the secretary is still saying to every single applicant, “Make sure to write down all your previous dance training.” CAN YOU PLEASE JUST MAKE A SIGN?
Nick secretly watches Alex go in and out of the building, and then he goes in to talk to the secretary, who is for some reason terrified of him. Then he goes and calls Larry, who is on the arts council, and asks for a special favor for a special friend.
Alex looks over the application and there are SO many boxes for your previous dance training! But she doesn’t care—she has the confidence of a girl who had sex with both a lobster AND a mine owner!
It’s Halloween at MAWBY’S BAR and everyone is wearing costumes. An alligator wearing a hat walks in and takes off its face and it’s Richie! He’s already back from LA, what on account of failing. Jeannie is mad at him. She’s with the rapist now. Can’t he just be happy for her? Mr. Boddy looks at Richie and says, “See you around, Izod,” and okay, that’s a good joke! He should go to LA!
Alex gets a letter from the dance company but she can’t bring herself to open it yet so she takes it to work with her and reads it in the mine. What if it catches on fire???
The letter says that she got the audition. She tells Nick and he says they have to celebrate tonight! Then she goes and tells not-grandma and says, “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” and uh oh! Now that lady’s definitely gonna die!!!!
Nick takes her out to dinner and she loves it because the restaurant seats them right away and gives them special treatment and she feels like she’s a big deal. Nick’s like, yeah, well, “I called them last night and told them it was a very special occasion.” Alex does some brain math and realizes… last night… but I didn’t tell him I got the audition until today! Nick must have pulled some strings at the arts council to get her the audition! This has Larry written all over it!
Alex: “You had no right to help me… I’m not going to the stupid audition!”
YOU DON’T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE! WHY WOULD THEY GIVE YOU AN AUDITION WITHOUT SOME KIND OF REFERENCE??
Alex is so depressed that she doesn’t go to work at the club all week. Then she calls and asks for Jeannie but Jake says Jeannie works at Zanzibar now.
Alex: “WHAT!?!”
Man, I can’t believe that rapist had bad intentions with Jeannie!!!!!!!!
Alex goes down to Zanzibar to rescue Jeannie, who is just lying on the stage doing dead bug. She drags her off stage and when Mr. Boddyoddyoddy tries to stop them she pushes him over! Then Alex pulls Jeannie outside into the rain and grabs the money out of her vagina and throws it in the gutter.
Wow, a good friend!
Alex gets home and her dog is outside in the rain!!!!! WTF!? Nick is there too. He came to see if she’s okay. She says she doesn’t care about the audition anymore. She only cares about eliminating consensual sex work.
Nick: “If you can’t be honest with yourself then how the hell can you be honest with me?” (WHAT DOES THAT MEAN)
Alex: “I’m not a baby!!!!!”
I’m 18 years old! I graduated from high school earlier this year!
Nick takes the cigarette out of her mouth: “You’re not grown up enough to smoke.”
The dog3 is like YEEEE-IKES and leaves.
Nick alleges that Alex actually just too scared to go to the audition, and warns that “When you give up your dream, you die.”
Alex rides the funicular to not-nanna’s house and goes in and she’s like hello? Hello? And some other old woman pops out of the dumbwaiter and says, “SHE DIED.”
Now there’s a montage of Alex crying while she looks through not-grandma’s stuff and her old bloody dance shoes. I AM NOT INVESTED ENOUGH IN NOT-GRANDMA FOR THIS MONTAGE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO NOT-GRANDMA IS, ONLY WHO SHE IS NOT.
Alex sits on the floor and smokes cigarettes. She looks cute. Look, I don’t like this movie, but you won’t catch me out here saying that Jennifer Beals is not cute! She’s the cutest! I love her!
Alex goes to pack up her stuff at MAWBY’S BAR and she’s acting all glum and her coworker is like, “If it’s that bad why don’t you just go slit your wrists?” JESUS!!!!!
Then her coworker says that she used to work in an old movie theater and “I had more fancy dresses and costumes than you do” and when she was on that stage “I was looking so good” but then one day, she doesn’t know what happened, but “the dresses got old, I just stopped wearing them, I’ve got some in a trunk, I’ll show them to you sometime.” Alex (fighting tears): “Okay.”
WHAT WAS THAT CONVERSATION ABOUT???
Alex goes to confession again, but she’s just crying and she doesn’t even say what her sin is this time. Loving dancing too much?
She goes to the audition. It’s a classic audition scene—five judges sitting at five little desks. Sorry, the secretary is one of the judges? One of the judges is SMOKING A CIGAR during the audition!? Are you sure this is a real dance school?
Alex puts on her record. Now it’s time to DANCE. This is the famous scene. As soon as she starts dancing she falls down. “Can I start again?” She’s not a QUITTER like Jeannie.
The judges are bored and angry. They HATE when people audition for the dance school! But then the tempo picks up! And Alex starts hoppin’ all around like a little field mouse! Now the judges are like WHAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
She’s doing some sort of ballet/modern dance combo with a little bit of breakdancing and for some reason a LOT of pointing. What’s with all the pointing???
OH MY GOD I JUST FIGURED IT OUT SHE’S USING ALL THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF DANCING THAT SHE SAW THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE AND THE POINTING COMES FROM THE COP DIRECTING TRAFFIC OH MY GOD LOL THAT IS SO STUPID AND YOU KNOW ADRIAN LYNE REALLY THOUGHT HE DID SOMETHING THERE
Why didn’t she incorporate any welding into her dance?
Alex goes home and Nick has stolen her dog and put a big bow on it and he gives her roses and she grabs them right by the thorny part which is amateur hour tbh
WOW END OF MOVIE
DOES SHE STILL HAVE TO WORK AT THE MINE????????
Not true!
Other ancestors include:
Bogumil Wawrezyniec Brzostowicz (1786-1854)
Nepomucena Brzostowicz (1826-???)
Kunegunda Brzostowicz (1842-1926)
If you try to cancel me then great great aunt Kunegunda will haunt you!
OK to be fair to this movie 18 is the only time you have enough energy to be a welder by day and dancer by night
You didn’t mention that Jeannie’s ice skating performance was done to Gloria by Laura Brannigan which is the best song ever!! Butt news is my one and only news source!