Elizabeth Berkley deserved better.
July 14, 2020 8:03 PM   Subscribe

 
Not sure that I'm buying all of the slightly-overheated apologia for the movie. I'd say that it's probably the best movie that could be made with a Joe Eszterhas script, but it's still an Eszterhas script. (I also find it very disturbing that many of the recent showings cut out the rape scene--the part of the movie that's most relevant to the ongoing #MeToo revelations--because it interferes with the campy fun.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:22 PM on July 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


Showgirls continues to be interesting in part because everybody has different ideas about what it was trying to achieve and, whatever the perceived intention, whether it succeeded or not.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:51 PM on July 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


I guess I am one of those long time fans of the film that thinks it would be even better without the rape scene. Admittedly I think most films could be improved by dropping the rape scene.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 9:02 PM on July 14, 2020 [35 favorites]


Saw it at a drive-in when it first came out. My immediate reaction: big-name director makes this totally run-of-the-mill low-rent porno and everybody loses their shit? Wtf, yawn, what a waste of ticket money.
posted by flabdablet at 9:04 PM on July 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


I've never seen it, and I've seen everything. (Ok, almost, but it seems like.) Just never had any desire to see this for some reason.
posted by Catblack at 9:22 PM on July 14, 2020


I rewatched Showgirls recently, and I think it’s great, but Verhoeven is one of my favorite directors. I think it’s definitely in the realm of camp (most - all? - of his movies are, in my opinion). I’m not sure satire is the right word; it’s completely sincere and completely unreal at the same time. It revels in the same parts of culture that it’s critiquing. A lot of what was talked about in the article here. I don’t love “masterpiece of shit” but it’s not far off.

The rape scene is horrible but I feel like the threat was there throughout the whole movie, and, uh, I find it an amped-up version of the reality of living as a woman in a patriarchal culture? I felt like Nomi’s revenge was an act of sisterhood, because she knew it easily could have been her at any any other time, and she also helped put her friend in that situation. I also don’t think we need more violent rape scenes in movies so I don’t want to defend it wholeheartedly, but in the movie as a whole and as a piece of art I think it’s not clearly out of place.

Overall I think Verhoeven has a lot of woman characters who use their sexuality as a way to enact violent revenge (like in Black Book, for example) and honestly I appreciate it. It’s schlocky and not “proper” and I don’t necessarily think he could safely be called “feminist” but he’s certainly more interesting than a lot of other filmmakers.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:31 PM on July 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


I just saw Showgirls for the first time about a month ago.

What Showgirls is trying to achieve: tits.
Does Showgirls succeed at what it is trying to achieve? Yes.

Otherwise, it is a terrible, terrible piece of filmmaking.
posted by neuron at 10:14 PM on July 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


One of the biggest problems with Showgirls is that, like Starship Troopers, it isn't attacking reality directly, but Hollywood's take on reality, so it's a movie about movies as much as anything else. But unlike Starship Troopers where that take on the ideology of Hollywood is filtered through looking at Hollywood's version war and fascism as entertainment, in Showgirls its looking at the ideology of Hollywood entertainment and stardom at only the slightest of removes, using strippers instead of "stars" to drive home its point. That complicates watching the film as a "movie fan" as it draws in all the baggage fans have about Hollywood itself and doesn't really allow the same level of remove that Starship Troopers does because its all one and the same.

Essentially Showgirls is a kind of remake of a long standing Hollywood story cliche, the most famous early incarnation of which might be in the Goldiggers series of films back in the thirties, but variations also can be seen many, many other times throughout Hollywood history, like in Singin' in the Rain or All About Eve, even making versions of it part of Hollywood's own lore, as in Lana Turner getting discovered at Schwab's drug store, where a girl wants to be in showbiz and gets a job as a chorus girl or understudy only to be thrust into the limelight when the star can't go on, thus becoming an overnight sensation when she knocks 'em dead in the star's place. Eszterhas' script basically sets fire to that bit of mythology as a way to rip at Hollywood itself and Verhoeven was only too happy to go along with it as the kinds of movies he made in the Netherlands weren't fit to any genre, and thus sure sales, here and perhaps because as an outsider to the US, Hollywood movies were a clearer target for his lens being so popular worldwide.

That's all part of the reason why talking about Showgirls either in terms of standard Hollywood entertainment or as "camp" doesn't quite fit as it attacks both those modes of engagement as part of its wider assault on Hollywood. Talking, as the article does, for example, about Berkley's "star turn" is to reference the same ideology that the movie is condemning as all being part of the same set of values as the rest of the world of Showgirls. At the same time, one other major aspect of Hollywood ideology is that the most important value is if something sells, all else is secondary, which is why Hollywood frequently makes movies that allegedly condemn the values and people that run Hollywood. Movies can attack corporations, money, and whatever else they want as long as they turn a profit, which is the cynical underside to the whole notion of "meaning" in movies. The act of producing them and enjoying them can run completely counter to any other values they espouse as entertainment almost always wins out over the rest in the end. The movie is fully aware of this, becoming that somewhat rare example of the Ouroboros film, one that devours itself out of a mix of loathing and pleasure at the privilege afforded in its special meal.

These kinds of movies, at their most blatant, as Showgirls is, are rarely popular because they both try to reward and condemn. They follow the genre rules of Hollywood while telling the audience how much they hate the rules. In a slightly less direct fashion, there are many extremely well thought of films that find a measure of self condemnation and pleasure that do tend to read more comfortably to audiences, they expose the rotten values of the patriarchy and/or capitalism and/or other "isms", but do so without necessarily embracing a better alternative as an answer.

Hitchcock, for example, does this in many of his films, exposes something essential about how the patriarchy works without ever crossing over to a truly feminist conception of justice, more just opening a door to the darker impulses behind the scenes, so to speak. Some of these kinds of films can provide a much richer feminist reading than many of the more mainstream heroic women films for carrying a complexity in response that can be lacking in more straightforward fare, even if it seems to ostensibly treat women better on the surface. (Neither of those are the same as a more deeply conceived feminist film, but those are exceptionally rare from any of the major film production centers.)

Showgirls isn't Vertigo of course, and Verhoeven isn't Hitchcock, but there is still something of the same in Showgirls that has drawn a lot more critical response than so many other movies. Part of it is because the craft and artistic elements winnowed through such a cliched but forceful story lends it all a sense of meaning-seeking excess that's hard to account for, which leads some to think it camp and others to take it more seriously. While I certainly am not against camp, at least in more the old school sense, I don't think Showgirls is a really good fit for that model, even though it does have many similar elements of excess that would seem to make it so. I find it too aware of its own spectacle to be an easy fit for camp since that response too seems to be already fit into its self concept, which kind of undermines the value in camp.

None of any of that means anyone should "like" Showgirls obviously, just my sense of why it continues to get attention.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:14 AM on July 15, 2020 [39 favorites]


Commenting on the relevance of movies from 30 years ago is an exercise in generating content on deadline. See "Seinfield is Unfunny" on TV Tropes for a thorough discussion.

I do think that Elizabeth Berkeley's career did not deserve to get thrown out with what amounted to a pearl-clutching backlash from the MPAA that cheerfully gave PG ratings to gorefests and celebration of murder.

Showgirls wasn't a great movie but between that and Hostel, who deserved more of a career - Eli Roth or Elizabeth Berkeley?
posted by lon_star at 5:13 AM on July 15, 2020 [15 favorites]


Also - imagine this team writing The Handmaid's Tale series - an Ezterhaus script, Verhoven production, Elizabeth Berkeley as Offred and Kyle Maclachlan as the Commander...oh, wait.

I know I harp on that and it will never happen but what a horrible, beautiful sight of indictment on USA blood-soaked-capitalist-Christian-apotasty it would be to behold.
posted by lon_star at 5:17 AM on July 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


Ion_star, we'll always have Dune. It fits in this constellation somewhere too.
posted by bonehead at 5:32 AM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


What Showgirls is trying to achieve: tits.
Does Showgirls succeed at what it is trying to achieve? Yes.


I saw it in the theater when it came out, with LGBT friends. I think the movie was trying to achieve more than just tits, though for most of the audience in the theater I was at, tits were far and away the only reason to be there. The campiness made it harder to pigeonhole, and Elizabeth Berkley didn't deserve to have her career impacted the way it was.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:00 AM on July 15, 2020


Yeah, I want to make the point that it really wasn't good that Berkley was made the scapegoat for the failure of a film that at least tried to make a point about how the entertainment industry exploits and uses up female artists.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:11 AM on July 15, 2020 [9 favorites]


If Chloe Sevigny managed to have a career after Brown Bunny then it is weak, weak sauce to pin Elizabeth Berkley's lack of mainstream success mainly on Showgirls. I mean, Gina Gershon was also in that film and has done much better. The difference is that the other two are great actresses and Elizabeth Berkley is not. At the time she was a household name because of Saved by The Bell and her casting was as much puerile adolescent wish-fulfillment as anything else. The sales pitch was literally "every boy's TV crush stars nude in X-rated film shown in theaters." Which is to say she was definitely not chosen for the role based on her acting chops.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:27 AM on July 15, 2020 [9 favorites]


Which is to say she was definitely not chosen for the role based on her acting chops.

Her scene from Saved by the Bell where she was on drugs was a 'meme' before memes existed. You might be aware even if you've never seen the show: "I'm so excited!! I'm so scared!!".

Also to take this back to Starship Troopers again, most of the main actors in that have barely worked in Hollywood (except on the many direct to DVD sequels I guess) since. Hollow actors might be Verhoven's thing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:33 AM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


I've always felt, like many others, that Showgirls would've been better without Berkley. The fact that she was such a terrible actress and so poorly cast in that role really sank the film and any possibility of it being truly appreciated as mega-camp satire whatever you wanna call it. It brought the film more into the realm of embarrassing than "embarrassing-with-a-wink".. What a missed opportunity... anyway it was still better than Striptease.
posted by Chickenring at 9:39 AM on July 15, 2020


On the other hand, you could argue that the brutal disruptiveness of this scene is what makes it the film’s most necessary moment.
Yes, the universe in Showgirls - like Starship Troopers - is pretty brutal. With nightmarish qualities, no?

To view it through a camp lens, we have to distance ourselves from the characters, and laugh at how pathetic these characters are, kind of making us complicit in their abasement. And then that scene jerks us out of the camp.

I don't know if it's a great movie or a classic. But it's certainly a spectacle. And watching it triggers a rush of unpleasant emotions.
posted by beigeness at 10:01 AM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


The sexual assault thing is a Verhoeven thing, there's a rape in like 50% plus of his films. He's kind of a gross dude. I don't think it needs an apologia, although I would love to see the follow up thinkpiece about how the Stockholm Syndrome rape in Flesh+Blood is somehow a deep deconstruction of female helplessness in middle age narratives, or some shit.

Anyway, I guess what I would say about Verhoeven is that it's possible to be making a point and also the point is ultimately that you're a creep.

Also the best Verhoeven film is Zwartboek, fight me
posted by selfnoise at 10:20 AM on July 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


Roger Ebert's review of Showgirls is a fun read. But he also made a really astute observation:
"Both of Nomi's smart, gentle Vegas friends are African American; nobody white is nice to her for long."
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:29 AM on July 15, 2020 [4 favorites]


a little while back one of my very closest friends accidentally bought a can of natty light alcoholic seltzer. their verdict on it was "it tastes." i asked "it tastes like what?" and they responded "it tastes. it tastes a lot."

showgirls tastes. it tastes a lot. which i say with all respect to verhoeven's craft. i happen to like things that taste, and it is very difficult to make a movie that tastes this much.

where are we going next? robocop? basic instinct? should we give zwartboek a try?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:36 AM on July 15, 2020 [9 favorites]


Also to take this back to Starship Troopers again, most of the main actors in that have barely worked in Hollywood (except on the many direct to DVD sequels I guess) since.

[citation needed]

The primary (Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris) and secondary (Jake Busey, Michael "Jester" Ironsides, Clancy "The Kurgan" Brown) casts have all done a TON of film and TV work since, and not related to, Starship Troopers.
posted by hanov3r at 10:48 AM on July 15, 2020 [8 favorites]


Commenting on the relevance of movies from 30 years ago is an exercise in generating content on deadline.

When done lazily or otherwise poorly; but done thoughtfully and well, it can be an important part of filtering creative work for those downstream, the ongoing task of collectively curating and creating cultural canon. What's worth holding onto, keeping and remembering and returning to, amidst the ongoing deluge of new stuff? And why? Those can be fun and valuable conversations to have.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:10 AM on July 15, 2020 [4 favorites]


plus revisiting works that were panned in earlier decades can help us see the blindspots people in those decades had, and provoke us to consider what blindspots we may have today.

(my favorite example of the importance of the practice of thoughtfully revisiting older creative works involves the britney spears album blackout. it was pretty much dismissed as disposable trash when it came out, and it is almost universally acknowledged as a masterwork today. like that album basically invented contemporary pop, but absolutely no one realized it at the time.)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:29 AM on July 15, 2020 [8 favorites]


where are we going next? robocop? basic instinct? should we give zwartboek a try?


My vote is Total Recall
posted by Carillon at 2:18 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


Zwartboek and Soldaat van Oranje are both excellent WWII flicks. Zwartboek I always thought had exactly the right level of Verhoeven without it overwhelming the film. Plus I REALLY like Carice van Houten.

On the other hand, if you are specifically looking for a film that tastes like a lot, try Flesh+Blood.
posted by selfnoise at 3:06 PM on July 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also: Spetters, which is a tough watch, and De vierde man, which was very loosely remade as Basic Instinct. I've always loved Verhoeven, but Showgirls is just not very good. It's raw and satirical, as we can expect from Verhoenven, but the characters are not interesting enough and both Berkley and MacLachlan were miscast. Gina Gershon was great though, and her next movie was the impressive Bound, the Wachowskis's debut.
posted by elgilito at 3:59 PM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


where are we going next? robocop? basic instinct? should we give zwartboek a try?

One of these is not quite like the other. Zwartboek is essentially a more serious film, with some weird moments.

'Soldier of Orange' (Soldaat van Oranje) (1977) is Verhoeven's other Dutch resistance WWII film.
'The Assault' (de Anslaag) (1986) (Fons Rademakers) is another film about the time.

They all question simplistic ideas about heroism and resistance.

(yes I agree)
posted by ovvl at 4:19 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


My vote is Total Recall

How about a post in twoo weeeks.
posted by benzenedream at 4:57 PM on July 15, 2020 [6 favorites]


I've long said that "Paul Verhoeven" is the name Alan Smithee uses when he wants his name taken off a movie.
posted by jwest at 6:13 PM on July 15, 2020 [5 favorites]


A running joke on News Radio was that the station owner Jimmy James had a “wife candidates” list of celebrities he had crushes on that he constantly had to revise for various reasons. (For example, Melissa Etheridge was once on the list.) I don’t think Showgirls was ever mentioned by name, but in one episode, Jimmy James says in disbelief, “That sweet little girl from Saved by the Bell made a dirty movie!”
posted by jonp72 at 6:34 AM on July 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


My vote is Total Recall

This is the plan: get your ass to FanFare

I kid, mostly. But I also want to drive more traffic to FanFare for movie discussion, too.
posted by hanov3r at 8:55 AM on July 16, 2020


I'd forgotten about 'The Fourth Man', now that film is really... something.
(good point about it's structural similarity to 'Basic Instinct')
posted by ovvl at 10:42 AM on July 16, 2020


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