Breakdown of the characters of the movie "Burlesque"

Yeah, I watched it. Now I'm gonna give you the character breakdown.Why? Because this movie manages to do something I find to be very, very interesting.... it manages to make the characters be the complete opposite of who you were supposed to believe they are.

Let's start with.... Allie


Allie is a small town girl with a strong will and a dream of being a singer. A dream which she completely forgets about the second she sees a bunch of scantily clad women dancing on stage in the dive-bar version of a burlesque club.
Some how she decides it's her new dream to be up on stage with a group of girls who lip-sync (i'm not being mean. They actually lip-sync)and wants it so much that despite being told there's no job for her there she begins working there ANYWAY, presumably for free, until the owner goes "wth? why are you still here? Ah well. Guess I'll start paying you because I'm terrible with money"... but we'll get to that in a bit. Now that you've seen how pushy she is, it's no real surprise when, despite having no audition, she pretty much forces the owner to watch her dance.. no, forget pretty much... she FORCES the owner to pay attention to her until she can manage to prove she's a good dancer. This bring outs two more points: 1) Alice is perfect for some reason and the biggest mary sue I've ever seen. Somehow she turns out to be one of the best dancers they've ever seen simply from her just watching the other girls. 2) Her dream is to be a singer. Remember that? And here she goes all out to force the owner to let her become a DANCER. Which is important because later on she asks if they'd consider letting the girls sing their own songs but when she's told that's not what people come to see she folds. And this is the ONLY time she folds IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE. Her strong will is nowhere to be seen. Later still, when the owner runs off to her private quarters to cry, Alice busts in - straight kicks in the door, no lie -  to be all pushy and make her listen. But she folds when it comes to the singing. Her "dream". So it turns out that what she actually wants is to be in the spotlight no matter what she's doing. One point towards the real character being the opposite of what they were going for.
Then there is her love story... which serves to make her seem like a horrible person. She moves in with a guy, and within hours of finding out her's not gay (because he has a FIANCE.. which is very important) she begins throwing herself at him very obviously. Then gets MAD because he won't cheat on his fiance with her. In a true show of passive aggression she goes on to flirt with and run around with a guy who buys her stuff and takes her to parties but who she has no interest in. How do I know? She tries to sleep with fiance-boy every two seconds but she never even asks Mr.Moneybags for a hug. So she blatantly uses Mr.Moneybags as bait until she a)gets the boy she really wants AND, b) on a separate occasion, uses him again when she gets mad at her boy. She only tosses Moneybags when she realizes that he - and this is the best part - is doing absolutely nothing wrong. Let's get to that, shall we?

Moneybags.

So here is the "villain". He's all pretty and is obviously bad news because he's trying to buy the club and tear it down. Only he has nothing against the club. He's actually offering the owner a very good deal so she can make some actual money on it. You see because she's behind on the payments the bank plans to foreclose on it and take everything from her so he's actually offering to SAVE her. He's dating the lead girl in the show but... that in no way makes him a bad person. In fact it's obvious that "dating" is too strong a word so you don't even really feel bad when he starts buying things to woo Allie. In fact the previous lead girl has a very short moment where she gets to look sad for a split second and then NEVER MENTIONS IT AGAIN despite being the most vocal person there next to Allie.After everyone going on about how he can't be trusted, how does this tryst end? Does he try to force himself on her? Does he gets super upset or possessive or crazy when she doesn't put out? Does he threaten to ruin her career or not let her use his connections if she won't date him? No. She finds out what EVERYONE else already knows at this point: That when the bank forecloses on the club he's gonna build something else there. So she leaves in a huff. Hell, I bet he could afford to build her and the owner a new club and probably would if Allie asked... but nope. How dare he build something on a piece of land he buys with his own money AFTER THE CLUB WOULD'VE BEEN SHUT DOWN ANYWAY. So the villain isn't a villain. Not even a little bit. He's the poor sap who despite being rich, very nice and even buying a woman thoughtful gifts (he remembered her saying  a specific pair of shoes was cute once during a huge party. No cliche roses for this dude.) gets called 'the wrong one' because his dream isn't to keep hers going in one very specific dive bar when, as he states, she could easily live out her dream someplace other than the club she's only known existed for like 2 months.

Villain 2. The ex Hubby.

This horrible man is all for the owner, his ex wife, selling the club. In fact he sets up business deals to do just that- the bastard! Except a) he owns half of the club and apparently does ALL of the finances himself so his making the deals is not only a part of his job but the only way to keep everyone involved from getting swallowed up in a black hole of debt and b) his ex-wife has run the club into the ground and put HIM in debt and he's just looking for a way to get out of this without his credit, savings and life being destroyed. He's not really a MAIN character and seeing as how he's in a movie all about following your dreams (kinda) and he's standing in the way of things he is a character you'd normally characterize as being on the opposite side of the heroes. But really and truly he just feels like a guy who got beat up by the heroes after having spent years giving them money to keep their dreams a float. Yet another guy who gets crapped on for just generally trying to be helpful. I wouldn't think this is a pattern except....

...the love interest.

At this point I begin to realize that this movie is all about how hot girls should be allowed to have whatever they want and anyone who doesn't agree with that is horrible. In the defense of the writers this guy actually DOES make two mistakes in the movie but one he is actually rewarded for by the female lead and the other is an honest mistake in the heat of an incredibly awkward moment that he's forced to beg for forgiveness for.
Basically due to some circumstances Allie crashes on his couch because she assumes that due to the makeup he wears at the club (seen above) that he's gay. She she finds out he has a female fiance... and handles this by throwing herself at him constantly. What does this typical man do? BE A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN AND NOT ALLOW HIMSELF TO CHEAT ON HIS FIANCE, for which he is met with aggression and/or passive aggression. True, he probably isn't the right person to give her dating advice since he's obviously jealous but there's no reason for her to straight up be mad at him for saying "hey... you probably shouldn't hang out with the guy trying to shut down the club you work at who ALL of your new friends (only friends) hate." But of course: How dare he tell her who to see when he's with someone else? Someone who he has been with for ages. And, I dunno... don't friends give friends advice? But I digress. This is not one of the two mistakes I spoke of.
1) The SECOND he and his fiance break up he becomes a huge tool, gets drunk and tries to bang Allie. He LITERALLY uses "I'm single as of a couple minutes ago" as a pick up line and... gets laid for it. That's right. Man of integrity? Met with aggression. Drunk, pawing at her the SECOND his fiance is gone? The ladies are all over that.
2) His ex-fiance - an all too short cameo by Dianna Agron - busts into the apartment, obviously angry that he's already sleeping with Allie and having EVERY reason to believe that he has been sleeping with her all this time, goes ape shit on the two of them. Part of the lease is in her name, I believe. In fact, before Allie showed up she was paying half the rent. So when she comes in, freaking out and going "This is MY apartment! What do you mean what am I doing here??!!" he asks Allie to leave so he can talk to his ex.
...
No, there is nothing else. THAT is his mistake. Sure he could have stood his ground, gone to bat for Allie, said she's living there now and he's not going to ask her to leave but saying "hey, let me talk to the girl I was ready to MARRY up to a few hours ago and have tons of history with without you lying naked next to me to make the convo even more awkward" is not a crime. Except for in this movie where apparently anytime you're a man who likes women and are NOT a douche... you've done something wrong.

But enough of villains who are just villains because they're men. On to one last heroine... the true villain. Confusing? I will explain.

Tess... Owner/Dreamer/Villain.

 

 I like that pic because she does kinda look like a villain.... but I digress. Tess owns one half of the burlesque bar she runs. She, however is completely responsible for running it. The brains and the heart behind the whole thing. Through her the place has been run so far into the ground that even when Alice shows up with a voice that allows them to DRASTICALLY increase how much they charge they still can't pay the bank. Her ex constantly  looks like he wants to die because she dragged him down into debt with her. She straight up REFUSES to make any changes to the show DESPITE it being a failing business that desperately needs all the ideas you can throw it's way. She straight up refuses FREE MONEY being given to her that she could use to, I dunno, open another place free of debt? This is despite the fact that the person offering her the cash doesn't have to. At all. If he waited then the bank would foreclose on the place and he could just buy it from the bank for a lower price. He even LEAVES THE DEAL ON THE TABLE when she refuses it rather than saying something like "fine then, we'll do this the hard way. See you at the bank auction." No, it's her that has absolutely no regard for anyone else's feelings so that she can continue on her one track crusade to go down with a sinking ship and take everyone with her. That's what villains do, Tess.
IN FACT the club is only saved when she and her accomplice villain, Alice, pull out a horribly evil scheme which kills two innocent birds with one stone. THEY BLACKMAIL A NICE OLD MAN INTO GIVING THEM MONEY FOR NO REASON. Did they earn that shit? No. They explain to him that if he doesn't use his hard earned money to pay off their debt that someone will put up a structure that that will ruin his business.So in reality he should have haggled with Moneybags for the air rights. Moneybags is a nice guy who could've come to some sort of understanding with him. But instead he is coerced into buying air rights from two harpies who COULDN'T HAVE BUILT ANYTHING ANYWAY AND THEREFORE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PAID FOR THE AIR RIGHTS. THEY GOT HIM TO PAY THEM FOR SOMETHING SOMEONE ELSE WAS GOING TO DO. Which isn't the real kicker when you take into account the fact that they smugly told an old man "give us money so we can cockblock the guy who was GOING TO GIVE US MONEY ANYWAY but then we'd have to move".

So that's Burlesque. Where the heroes are villains and the villains are... men. With no other crime than being men. Thank you man-hating movie. I didn't even realize how bad you were until I started to write this.

Cheers!!