Something about New York Magazine’s “Vulture” blog’s plug for the film “Mardi Gras: Made in China,” caught my eye. Perhaps it was the post’s title, which contained the phrase “Ritual Breast-Baring”? Reading on, I learned that the film profiles four of the Chinese teenage factory girls who make those infamous love beads, making the point that the Western women who — in that infamous Bourbon Street courtship rite — don the beads… well, they enjoy quite a different set of human liberties. “The documentary earns an intimate, easy confidence with the girls,” says the post, “who blush and scream when they see how their product will eventually be used.”

Check out the trailer here, in versions both S and NSFW.

While we’re on the subject, what do you think? Is Are women at Mardi Gras (and while we’re at it, women on Spring Break vying for a free Girls Gone Wild t-shirt) reveling in their freedom of sexual expression and celebration of their bodies, or are they merely cheapening themselves and keeping their global counterparts from ever advancing and earning equality and respect in their own countries? Is American bad-girl behavior (if you classify this as such) what the rest of the world has to look forward to in terms of cultural advancement? Weigh in your thoughts in the comments below!

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