Ferris Bueller's Strip-Off:John Hughes Burlesque @ PhilaMOCA

Miss Rose's Sexploitation Follies returned to PhilaMOCA for another installment in its near-monthly series of film-themed strip shows. Instead of dressing up (or, rather, down) as The Bride from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill or Alex DeLarge and his merry band of droogs from Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, this time the group's camera lens was focused squarely on conjuring up nostalgia for a slightly more awkward period in many audience members' lives: the '80s. More specifically — John Hughes' extensive body of work as a filmmaker, writer and producer.

Beginning with the quick wit of a guest MC, DC-via-Baltimore burlesque vet Hot Todd Lincoln greeted the crowd with an energetic turn as an eerie double of Jon Cryer's iconic visage of Duckie in Pretty in Pink. From there, things could only grow stranger as troupe newcomer Miss Scarlett Fever offered go-go throughout the night to the themes of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Home Alone, while guests Beezlababe, of New York City, and Mr. Fahrenheit, of Philly queer drag-and-burlesque troupe Liberty City Kings, offered their own unique interpretations of Pretty in Pink and 101 Dalmatians.

But the night clearly belonged to Sexploitation Follies regulars Miss Liberty Rose and Hayley Jane as they ran the gamut from Ferris Bueller's Day Off through Weird Science and, in the night's strangest moment, even Curly Sue. A bit of cognitive dissonance overtook the crowd in the case of Curly Sue, as MC Lincoln poked fun at their ogling of the titular character, portrayed then as a seven year-old girl and now as a fully-grown and nearly nude woman.

The night's final performance, and its largest production, came with its last offering. All previous dancers joined together to expose the apparently lurid subtext most of us probably missed all those times we commiserated with The Breakfast Club. Instead of a comic high school melodrama, the film was recast as a high-energy sex comedy, where the point wasn't so much to rebel against encroaching adulthood but rather to rebuke its minor contrivances like wearing clothes in public places and not dancing suggestively on a desk with your friends.

So in that sense, Sexploitation Follies' interpretation was certainly in the spirit, if not the direct vision of the film. In fact, that's something that could be said of the entire night: each dancer brought his or own suitably twisted perspectives on how John Hughes might have envisioned his films — if he had been born a public flasher.