Welcome to Chippendales review: Hulu’s true-crime overlooks horniness

Hugh Hefner may have been considered a king in nudity. However, he probably didn’t find himself among a crowd of naked dancers. (…Probably.) It’s unlikely that he gave much thought to the male form at all, and yet, his legacy still casts its long shadow over Chippendales, welcome. Not five minutes of Hulu’s latest true-crime miniseries go by before Hefner’s face, youthful and smiling, flashes across the screen. His likeness is pasted to the wall of buttoned-up Indian immigrant Somen Banerjee — played by an inexplicably buff Kumail Nanjiani — as one of the many glossy cutouts making up his living room vision board.

This is the main theme Six Million Dollar ManSomen, soon to become Steve, plays on his TV, but ignores the perfectly male Steve Austin and all the other sprawling images on his vision board. Bionic men, backgammon, luxury clothing, and a vision of a better American future be damned; what catches Steve’s eye instead is that little black-and-white picture of the world’s most famous magazine editor.

It’s not that Steve was unique in this respect; since Playboy’s debut issue was published in 1953, many men have looked to Hefner’s studly reputation, his bon vivant lifestyle, and the leagues of women with whom he surrounded himself with awe and aspiration. What Steve doesn’t know, however? Chippendales, welcomeHefner was a businessman first and foremost, seems Hefner keen to remind us. There was a simple yet profitable truth behind the decadent glamour and hedonism. Desire is a commodity that can be bought or sold. In 1979, second-wave feministism had established itself. Pills were readily available. Liberated women became a major market force. But it was obvious that they were not the only buyers. Selling, though? Chippendales learned a lot from Mr. Playboy.

You can, of course. Chippendales, welcomeHistory cannot be changed. This was never going to be a story about women commodifying their own desire, and there’s no denying that men are built into the story of Steve Banerjee’s dancing empire. But where the show fails its subject — and its audience — is in what it seems to forget, or worse, willfully push aside: women.

Photo: Erin Simkin/Hulu

Even as they crowded the floor of Chippendales’ original west Los Angeles location, even as they may flock to this show about a kingdom of half-naked men, even as they supplied the dollar bills that made this chronicle, tragedy and all, possible, women were never the main concern of Chippendales, welcome. In fact, apart from a line or two from the ill-fated playmate Dorothy Stratten (Nicola Peltz) — “I have something to tell you, Paul. Something extremely shocking… but women get horny!” — the salience of women’s desire to Chippendales’ success is neglected episode after episode, unceremoniously buried in favor of the sensationalism of men’s desire. It’s not the male revue that is the meat of the show, but Steve (Murray Bartlett) and Nick De Noia (Murray Bartlett), the new Emmy-winning choreographer. Each man wants to succeed in the club. But, for both, success means control. When methods and egos clash with each other, friction results.

It doesn’t take long for these tensions to set in; this is true crime, baby. We don’t want sociopolitical awareness, not really. We want the bad guys, now. Time that could be spent making the audience understand what went into making Chippendales such a worldwide hit — women’s liberation, a more traditional, straightedged masculinity that presaged the commercialism and conservatism of the 1980s — is spent more straightforwardly on making us understand the building blocks of Steve’s ego and establishing the origins of his mounting rage. (Not so much background is afforded to Nick, but he’s not the villain; we don’t have to understand what makes him tick so much as we need to know that he’s ticking.)

Really, Steve’s journey is a well-trodden path: A man has a dream, different from the one his parents had for him. He achieves his goals but does not reach theirs and feels like a failure. It hurts. Everyone around him suffers. What Steve wants (parental approval, fame, fortune) comes into conflict with what Nick wants (creative freedom, fame, fortune), even though it’s really all the same thing. The hostilities get worse and the story that should have featured the fortunate convergence of historic moments becomes a tale about two prideful men. It’s true to life, of course, but still — it irks.

The desire for male love has been taken very seriously. While Playboy may be joked about because of its articles, in its glory days, Playboy featured writings from P.G. Roald and Dahl. Wodehouse and Ray Bradbury were among the many who read Playboy for their articles. However, in its heyday, there was a magazine that published writing from P.G. Female desire has seldom received the same treatment; even a former Chippendales dancer has described the show as a “comedy act for women.” It’s not that what we want has never been in vogue — Chippendales itself is just one example of the outsized influence of women on popular culture. However, for every moment of legitimacy we get to our dreams there are always waves of ridicule waiting. There’s always someone (usually a man) to say, “That’s not really important,” or “That was always overrated.”

While Chippendales, welcome doesn’t mock or deride women, the camera glides again and again over screaming crowds and backstage trysts and sends a clear message: That’s not really important. When men want women, it’s front page news. However, what happens when women desire men? Well, we know that — what’s the Real Story?

Photo: Erin Simkin/Hulu

Photo: Erin Simkin/Hulu

It’s not just the women that Chippendales forgets, however. Even most of the dancers are pushed to the wayside as nothing more than faceless accessories in Steve’s relentless pursuit of fame and fortune. Although they rip their clothes off with gusto and have lots of fun with their fans, nothing remains. They are almost all denied any innerity. It seems as disinterested with them as it does in the women that they are serving. But such is the trap of true crime, or at least the river of true-crime series that we’ve been swimming in as of late: Any detail that doesn’t contribute to the implicit behavioral profile of whatever wretch we’re focusing on is not really worth exploring. If it’s not going to tell us What Makes Steve This Way, then what’s the point? This tendency to form again undermines the legitimacy of female desire, making it impossible for them to make caricatures of real-life dancers. It flattens it and diminishes a complex phenomenon into a simple fact — naked, muscly men here — in order to make room for the violent main attraction.

One notable exception — really the only one — is Otis (Quentin Plair), Chippendales’ only Black dancer and their most popular one at that. It is revealed that Otis has aspirations for his family as well as high-achieving businessman Steve. There are hints of Otis’ struggle with his newfound fame, as white women jump at the opportunity to manhandle him, grabbing his crotch to “confirm” rumors and stealing messy kisses they did not ask him for. But even Otis, based on real-life Chippendales stripper Hodari Sababu — who at one time was also the only Black member of the dance troupe — soon finds every hint of individuality the show gives him in the destructive path of Steve’s goals. In this week’s episode, aptly titled “Just Business,” Otis learns too late that he has been excluded from the inaugural Chippendales calendar, which is a commercial success before it even hits the shelves. The doors to opportunity are closing before Otis’ eyes. Steve’s answer to the question is straightforward when he confronts him. “Ultimately, I felt it would be bad for sales… Most can [handle a shirtless Black man]But not all. And we want them to buy the calendars, too.” And that’s it. Otis’ career as a Chippendales performer has reached its limit. Not because he can’t, and not because women don’t want him, but because Steve says so. One man’s desire rules all.

Photo: Erin Simkin/Hulu

Chippendales, welcomeThis series is, in its essence, about the messy business of wanting. Not the sensuous, sexy wanting I was hoping for, but a grittier kind, the kind that leads otherwise sane men to commit violent acts like the ones Steve Banerjee eventually did (no spoilers; the show’ll get there). It’s about how covetousness — the excess of desire — corrupts and devours everything in its path. But more than that, it’s about the ways in which men’s desire — their ego and their pride — swallows up women’s specificity, even in the case of Chippendales They are those who have the desire. Hugh Hefner, his monthly playmates and centrefolds are a good example of this. It is a list that reduces women to turn-ons and offs, star signs, and measurements. You can argue that it’s not inherently degrading, but it is undeniably flattening, in every sense. Hefner and Playboy understood that men want an ideal woman.

Chippendales doesn’t do anything so egregious, and yet the effect is not far off: The women who, for better and for worse, helped set Steve Banerjee on his dangerous path are reduced to a faceless, screaming mass. It is a tool that Nick and Steve use to enrage each other. It is not contextualized or specific. “Women get horny!” Dorothy Stratten tells Steve. Chippendales, welcome suggests there’s nothing else to it.