Spotify Releases First Episode of Welcome To Your Fantasy about Chippendales

 Today Spotify released the first episode of their latest Original true-crime podcast, WELCOME TO YOUR FANTASY, from Pineapple Street Studios, in association with Gimlet.  

  In the 1980s the “male exotic dancers” of Chippendales were everywhere, selling the promise of women’s liberation for the price of a few dollars in a g-string. But behind the powerful mullets, oiled pecs, and non-stop parties lies a much darker story of greed, corruption and murder. In the eight-episode series host and historian Natalia Petrzela exposes one of the great, sordid, unexamined stories in American culture.

Today’s debut episode begins to outline who the Chippendales founder, Steve Banerjee, was and how the iconic club was formed. Through first-hand interviews with former Chippendales main players - including business advisor Bruce Nahin, hosts Richard Barsh and Dan Peterson, creative director Eric Gilbert, tour manager Candace Mayeron, and more - the series begins to pull back the curtain on the story of the famous dancers, the women who loved them, and the lethal back office dealings of the men who would do anything to keep the fantasy alive.

 This Spotify podcast has engendered a lot of pre-release positive buzz, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair hailing it as one of the most anticipated podcasts of this year. 

WELCOME TO YOUR FANTASY is the story of how two men — an immigrant from India and a children’s TV producer from New Jersey — transformed a seedy nightclub in Los Angeles into a global phenomenon, and how paranoia and greed turned Chippendales into a hotbed for drugs, corruption, and murder. 

 Beyond the well-known cuffs and collars, cheesy dance routines, and unlimited supplies of body oil, the series examines the club’s role in the late 70s/early 80s rise of female sexuality, gender roles and masculinity, and the corruptible power of capitalism.

Podcast host and co-producer Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Ph.D. is a historian of contemporary American politics and culture and is currently writing a book on American fitness culture, FIT NATION: How America Embraced Exercise As The Government Abandoned It. 

Petrzela is also the author of Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture, co-host of Past Present Podcast, a frequent media guest expert, speaker at universities and conferences, and contributor to international and domestic news outlets from the BBC to the New York Times to the Atlantic. 

She is an Associate Professor of History at The New School, a co-founder of wellness education program Healthclass 2.0 , and a Premiere Leader of intenSati.

Throughout eight episodes and 60+ interviews including investigators, co-conspirators, former dancers and more, WELCOME TO YOUR FANTASY investigates the story of the famous Chippendales dancers, the women who loved them, and the lethal back office dealings of the men who would do anything to keep the fantasy alive. 

You can listen to the first episode here.

 

Thanks to Hannah Macdonald

 

 

by

Frank Racioppi