Sick And Sin: The Allure Of Lace

Not a Duran Duran video: Maxine

Maxine gets set up with a down-on-his-luck champagne magnate, Judy finds success as a writer, and Pagan spends many years in an ultimately doomed romance with Prince Abdullah of Sidon, a fictional Middle Eastern, Muslim nation. There’s only a little bit of stereotyping going on vis-à-vis that storyline and one speculates how such character would be portrayed in a post 9/11 world.

Pagan hails from some vaguely down-on-their-luck aristocratic family: She spends a lot of time riding horses and her mother sounds like Katharine Hepburn. Unlike Judy or Maxine (who may or may not be an interior decorator), Pagan doesn’t seem to have an actual career at any point, except self-pitying alcoholism, until she marries Lord Swann and helps him with his cancer research charity. And her accent is really, really poor. I didn’t even realize she was supposed to be British until someone actually mentions that she’s supposed to be British. She continually pronounces “Abdullah” to rhyme with “dullard” which is mildly annoying, but also hilarious.

Pagan, Prince Abdullah, and a horse

Pagan does get to participate in two of the more peculiar and vaguely homophobic subplots in Lace. She makes a joke that L’Hirondelle’s married headmaster is sexually involved with his chauffeur Paul (the perversions alluded to earlier?), but as it turns out Paul just sleeps with everyone, photographs the trysts, and then uses this evidence for blackmail purposes. There’s also her mother’s “friend” and business partner, Selma, who hits on Pagan within about 30 seconds of meeting her, and then leverages Pagan’s rejection of her against her later on. So according to Lace, bisexuals and homosexuals are vengeful and amoral.

Much of this comes across as forced conflict that is supposed to propel the already-flimsy plot, but definitely contributes to the overall trashy atmosphere of Lace. Lili is probably the most stereotypically trashy of all the characters. Her revenge against each potential mother is enacted in ways specific to their present lives. She seduces Maxine’s son, who may or may not be her half-brother (ick); thwarts Pagan’s attempt at getting a charitable donation from Prince Abdullah while alluding to being his future lover; and provides a juicy interview to Judy’s financially struggling magazine then threatens to deny everything she’s said to her.

Still, we’re supposed to sympathize with Lili because she didn’t choose such a life. Her foster parents, along with her “uncle” Karl, are gunned down on the Hungarian border when trying to escape (no mention is made of the iron curtain) and she is held in a detention camp (and presumably molested) from the age of six to 16.

After she escapes, she gets pregnant by her boyfriend and has to have a back alley abortion. To pay for the abortion, she submits to nude photographs. This leads to prostitution and porn. I’m not sure how she parlayed this into a movie career in the pre-Kim Kardashian, pre-Traci Lords 1970s, but anything’s possible I suppose.

The Lili in white

Visually, Lili definitely looks the part of an international celebrity. Some of her outfits (like the black feather ensemble and the cream colored coat with fur) are actually amazing; other times she looks less like a movie star and more like a member of Vanity 6. (Like Star Wars‘ Padme, she has many ensembles.) One can only assume that her modest attire in Sidon is due to the country’s Muslim traditions. There, her hair is more Wella Balsam and less Miss America and her outfits are quasi-Japanese couture. Regardless, she wears lots and lots of the titular fabric throughout the miniseries, including lace gloves, lace stockings, lace negligees, hats with lace, etc.

In fact, all of the characters, except one, wear a lot of lace, which makes that character’s choice of magazine title fairly telling. SPOILER ALERT! Judy, as far as I can tell, wears not one shred of lace throughout Lace, and as it turns out, she’s Lili’s mom. Their reunion is saved until the very last minute of the miniseries and is every bit as awkward as you can imagine.

Lace is not available commercially on DVD but it can be found on YouTube. Lace II aired in 1985 and is also on YouTube, though I have yet to take that plunge.

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