Stripperella was recommended to me by the Netflix system, probably for my combination of interests in Cosi Fan Tutti and Batman: The Animated Series. It was one of those Netflix surprises, when something that was 128 in your queue suddenly became number 1 when you weren't looking. So, I watched it.How was it? you may ask. Sometimes it was better than expected, from both a prurient and political standpoint.
It was certainly more titillating than I expected. I knew it was produced by and shown on Spike, the so-called first TV station for men, but actually the home of almost 24-hour ST:TNG reruns. Plus, it's basic cable, so what I'm expecting is risque jokes and skimpy outfits. Stripping in the background, and that consists of taking off coats, scarves, parkas, maybe a shirt, but no actual nudity. Surprise: not only is stripping a centepiece of several episodes, but there are a lot of breasts on display. Animated breasts, of course, but very well drawn and capturing many of the qualities of great breasts. Dynamic, balanced, and well-shaped, these breasts are much better than your average anime fare. And Stripperella looks great, especially when she goes undercover as a nun (Sister Mary Hadalamb) in the episode where she faces off against a crazed plastic surgeon (episode seen below, but no pics of the nun costume).
Stripping sequences are well-rendered and imaginative--at least as entertaining as watching real-life strippers, partly because the sequences are shorter and it's easier to maintain interest over these shorter spans. And partly because these are fantasy women and the "floating eye" of the camera can put your eye just where you want it to be. There is one sequence, performed by Stripperella's alter ego, Erotica Jones, that is especially long and lovingly illustrated which pushes the limit but works overall because it is working at an internal barrier set by the series: you never actually see Stripperella topless (perhaps a condition of Pamela Anderson's work on the series?)
Sociopolitically, I guess the main question is whether Stripperella is degrading to women, a question I might not be fit to answer, but I'll take a stab at. Stripperella as a character is not, I don't think, a degrading portrayal of women. Sure, she's supersexy in a Barbie-perfect way (happy 50th, BTW), a sexualized figure of femininity, but this is not her only characteristic or even her defining characteristic. Nor is she more unrealistic than most super-heroines, and her explicit characterization as a sexual being seems partly to be a call-out to comic book sexiness.
And she may be a ditzy blonde, but her universe is one in which everyone is idiotic, so she comes off as being remarkably grounded and even smart.
Overall, she comes off as a moral character, deeply concerned about social causes and prepared to stick her neck (and tits) out for a friend in trouble.
As a series, Stripperella suffers from a number of problems. First, the episodes quickly fall into a routine of small set-pieces from which they do not vary, making the episodes quite boring after a little while. Then, the series underwent a change of producer, leading to a change in the animation style, characters, plots, and themes. While early Stripperella episodes had an animation style similar to Batman: The Animated Series, this changes mid-series into something more like The Flintstones. Stripperella's character, whose early version had an angry edge (especially when stripping) that implied a (slightly) greater depth, becomes merely her surface, a dumb blonde. The plots become dumber, the gags cheaper, characters blander. Even stripping, the only thing the early episodes took really seriously, something with real stakes-- an artistic avenue of expression with genuine rewards for success and consequences for failure--gets played as a joke.
I'd watch early episodes of Stripperella again with a bunch of guys and a bunch of beers, if somebody else wanted to, but I wouldn't go out of my way.
