Moodie Cliches

"The Clichettes were an all-women feminist performance art group formed in Toronto, Canada in 1977. Their practice is notable for injecting humour and theatricality into the sphere of performance art. The three performers initially worked using lip sync and choreography as their tools to parody pop culture depictions of femininity and later expanded their practice by including elements from science fiction and theatre in their performances. The Clichettes are notable for their impact on Canadian performance art as well as Feminist and performing arts in general...

"....The central themes that would preoccupy The Clichettes throughout their career – satire, appropriation, parody, feminist commentary, and pop-culture and media deconstruction – were clearly present during their formational period.

"As a feminist performance group, The Clichettes' practice resisted the conventions of girlhood and dance through satirical, humorous performances. They contested gender stereotypes through the use of pop culture cliches and brash humour. The Clichettes made their debut at the Tele-Performance Festival in 1978, an event themed in response to television as content and technology. Dressed in kitsch-60's good girls outfits, the trio lip-synced to Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me" for the first time. Lip-synching the words “ You don’t own me. I’m not just one of your many toys”, and their other early performances, revealed and reflected the "performativity" of gender norms. This full-frontal method of feminist assault was greatly inspired by satirical musical group the Hummer Sisters. Their brand of camp media parody exemplified the blurring between high art and entertainment occurring in the 1970s. This style of non-detached and ironic pop-culture appropriation enabled them to be critical without alienating their audience."

".... Marni Jackson became a collaborator for the production Half-Human Half-Heartache, a move for the group to expand beyond dance and into satirical theatre. The 1981 production featured a narrative casting The Clichettes as aliens who could kill by speaking, thus establishing a narrative purpose for lip-sync. The trio of aliens begins to live the facade of '1960's good-girls' but eventually become entangled in the problematic dynamics of this life. The cabaret show was a hit in Toronto, with productions that followed in Ottawa and Vancouver. Their next stage endeavour was more ambitious: She-Devils of Niagara (1985) depicted a dystopian future where gender was strictly regulated, and history had been banished to the basement of a wax museum in Niagara Falls....

"As the Clichettes' acclaim increased throughout the 1980s, their performances started to poke fun at more than just mass-market depictions of girls. Their 1985 production Go To Hell saw the group adopt anatomically correct male bodysuits as a means to expand their critique to the stereotypes of masculinity. Armed with fake guitars, they parodied the macho posturing of “cock-rock” bands. By spoofing the gestures of those musicians and lip-syncing their lyrics, The Clichettes were hilariously denouncing the contrived affectations of male stars....."
- Wiki