"Live Nude Girls Unite!” (2000) Very Personal Documentary Film Risk - Julia Query is many things, filmmaker, stand-up comedian, something called queer-theory graduate, peep-show entertainer, stripper, professional dominatrix, and the daughter of the famous Dr. Joyce Wallace. In “Live Nude Girls Unite,” Query becomes something else--a union activist for sex workers. This careful and believable documentary makes a good case for treating sex workers no different that any other legally employed group. The T&A laced throughout the film is merely an entertaining yet, at times, distracting backdrop for the serious social issues addressed.

Julia Query lightens the mood with a little stand-up, she is funny.

      The Story - We are treated to an inside look at various forms of sex work (defined as work in stripping and other forms of legal adult entertainment), mainly the goings on in a San Francisco peep-show called appropriately the Lusty Lady. Julia Query introduces herself by explaining the road she traveled to become a sex worker. We learn in some very personal moments that she is the daughter of a famous doctor who publically advocates safe sex, protection, and treatment for prostitutes. Julia is smart and funny, taking the stage in an almost Seinfeldian manner doing standup at a comedy club about the developments in her life chronicled in the movie. As it progresses, “Live” gives us less sex and more coverage of the struggle of sex workers to unionize and to be taken seriously.

      The Review - Interesting and likable, superior to HBO’s dumbed down “G-String Divas.”

These ladies wear their union stripes well.

Last Friday night, I watched Adam Sandler on “The Chris Rock Show” sing one of the most awful songs I’ve ever heard about a man married to (or dating, it was not clear) a prostitute. His word choice was beyond filthy and reached the limit of even what was appropriate for premium cable. Still, the song showed his obvious but squandered talent and made me think of the mistreated and misunderstood sex workers in Julia Query’s “Live Nude Girls Unite.”

      Think about the plight of the sex worker. These people, mainly women, are very poorly treated by both their employers and the customers they service. The industry appears ripe with corruption and, one would argue, built around the exploitation of women.

      It is not surprising that the characters featured in “Live” experience problems when they try conventional channels to redress the evils of their industry. The local Department of Labor tells them to get lost, the police are not attentive to the violence thrust upon them, and even lawyers don’t take them seriously.

The cause hits the streets.

      There is a scene in which one of the characters complains that the lawyers for the strip club owners with whom the strippers must negotiate are repulsed by the use of the “p” word. Such word is a sex industry term and, surely, one of the more tame terms thrown around nightly in any typical legal stripping establishment. I’m reminded of Sandler’s wickedly nasty tune on Mr. Rock’s show, he employed even more descriptive and repulsive language perhaps appropriate to the sex industry. Comparatively, I doubt that standard terms in the meat-packing industry are excluded from the negotiating table because they are hard to say or there is some kind of moral hangup.

      “Live Nude Girls Unite” is also an intensely personal film. Julia Query, the star, co-writer, and co-director is a stripper, who has dropped out of graduate school. Her mother is a famous doctor and champion of prostitute safe sex education. We see Julia, in home movies, in old photos, and in the nude, as she narrates the story of attempting to unionize sex workers.

Would like to spend 8 to 12 hours a day in this small mirrored room?

      There is a tragic scene in which Julia’s hip and connected mother, breaks down when she learns that her daughter is a sex worker. Her mother, the famous doctor, in a sad almost funny way, remarks that she did not really suspect that her daughter was a sex worker, rather, that her daughter’s closet featured “just a lot of boots.”

      Ms. Query’s documentary is more than an intelligent adult film and its ultimate effect on the sex industry is uncertain. I read an article on the British website FilmUnlimited discussing how adult films of the 1970s were shown in mainstream movie houses. Whereas today, such films that don’t jump directly into that small room in the back of REAL video stores (think Sinbad’s in my small southern town, never in Blockbuster people), are shown in the scary porno theaters in the less than reputable parts of a city. Anyway, the Mitchell Brothers (“Behind the Green Door”) and Gerard Damiano (“The Devil in Miss Jones”) might respect Query’s attempt to elevate their craft while at the same time making it a little harder to exploit their actors and employees.

Take in “Live Nude Girls Unite” and think about it afterwards.

Jonathan W. Hickman, 2000