Showgirls

RELEASE DATE: September 22, 1995

LENGTH: 128 minutes

BUDGET: $45 million

GROSS: $37 million worldwide
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 17%

Commentary by Rich in black, Courtney in blue.

SUMMARY OF THE FILM

An evisceration of the entertainment industry? A Horatio Alger rags to riches story with a happy ending? Or an excuse to show tons of boobs and exploit a former teen television star looking to break into film and be the next Sharon Stone vagina shot? Showgirls is a nudity-filled unsexy mess void of characters you’ll care about or a plot that will compel you.

QUESTIONS THAT GET ANSWERED

Elizabeth Berkley Eyes

Elizabeth Berkley is a vision when she first appears on screen. No longer Slater’s girl, she’s got new hair, new lip liner and catshit amazing insane eyes. Those eyes—they haunt me weeks after seeing this movie. Part of it is make-up and part of it is genetics, but I can’t help but picture director Paul Verhoeven screaming “crazier eyes! CRAZIER EYES! DON’T YOU BLINK!” to her during each take. Elizabeth Berkley crazy damn eyes. Whether she’s being offered help (which is pretty often) or avenging a gang-raped friend (more on that later) her eyes are the windows to the deepest pits of madness. And bad acting.

Act Appalled

I do not understand this character’s horror at the things she’s asked to do. For example, while auditioning to be a showgirl (instead of just a stripper) she looks shocked when asked to take off her shirt to show her tits. Homegirl, you're a stripper who will dry hump anything for money, and you're shocked by a man asking you to take your top off? What? Not saying it ain't sleazy, but everything about this movie feels a bit dirty. This isn't the only example either. Throughout the movie, Nomi often seems surprised or outright horrified by the things that are requested of her, even though the things she normally does with such bravado and enthusiasm are far more awful.

And Nomi's not the only one to be appalled without reason. Her sleazy boyfriend, upon discovering that our beloved heroine/main trainwreck Nomi used to be a hooker, seems totally disgusted. Excuse me, sleazy boyfriend? Remember when you met this chick? Let me refresh your memory: she was dry humping the crap out of you for money. Is it really such a stretch that she was at one time a hooker? C'mon guy.

Nomi ain’t no blushing violet, or whatever the saying is. When her criminal record is discovered later in the film and her rap sheet read it contains multiple counts of prostitution and theft. This is one bad girl who’s pretty capable (and pretty willing) to do some immoral shit. Taking her top off at a sleazy Vegas showgirl tryout is like me adjusting my sock and showing a little leg.

Dancing

The movie is all about dancing—erotic and exotic. No dance move is free of thrusting and the pace is faster, faster or seizure. I’m no choreographer, but ryhthm is a part of dancing, right? Slow to moderate to fast back to something other than fast? Nomi is caffeinated at all times. Her limbs grab for the clouds, her legs kick into the fifth row and her thrusting is exhausting. Her sripper routine is ridiculous and gross. It’s sexy to lick a stripper pole if you don’t know what a stripper pole is. Otherwise, it’s the hepatitis alphabet. “I don’t need nobody to teach me to dance,” Nomi tells James at one point. You most certainly do. She dances like she’s on PCP— interacts with humans like she’s on PCP.

The dancing in this film is just bonkers. I'm usually quite the fan of dance scenes in movies. Hell, I even liked the dance scenes in Xanadu, even though it's a terrible film. But this...what school of dance is this? I'm no student of dance, but this doesn't resemble any style I've ever seen. Actually, Nomi's no student of dance either: she admits that she’s never had lessons. Despite this, she thinks she's the best dancer ever. Maybe she picked up some moves during her time with Hot Sundae? Nope. Even that was preferable.

But apparently some people like this garbage dance. Here’s one character’s assessment of her dancing:

“She's no butterfly. Tony, she's all pelvic thrust. I mean, she prowls. She's got it!”

What the hell does that even mean? And apparently this is a positive thing? I will admit, “she’s all pelvic thrust” does sum up her dancing quite succinctly.

She has the ability to make a guy ejaculate in his pants just from slamming down on his lap with her pelvic bones. That’s skill. But it’s not rhythm.

Dolphin Sex

There’s an old saying, “You make love like you dance.” That is 100% true of Nomi. She dances like a dolphin and she fucks like one too. The infamous pool scene is ridiculous and there’s a 0% chance that the simulated sex was a) possible, b) sexy. Unless you’re an 11-year-old who hasn’t figured out his dad’s laptop password yet. Which leads to one of the main themes of the film—eroticism and sexiness. There’s very little about this film that is sexy. It goes back to what an 11-year-old struggling with new feelings might think was sexy. Tacky nails. Big hair. Terrible costumes. Boobs hanging out all the time (I hate to complain, but you can only eat so much chocolate in the chocolate factory). Nomi isn’t sexy. Cristal isn’t sexy. Zack and his Crispin Glover hair is definitely not sexy. I blame screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. He was acclaimed for writing Flashdance, then unlocked a little more of his psyche to write the hit Basic Instinct, then went full-on insane with his holy trinity—Sliver (in one scene a character sprints across the room to impale another from behind on his penis), Jade (the final nail in David Caruso’s film coffin) and Showgirls. And that was pretty much it. Two more films he wrote were released in 1997 (two years after Showgirls) and then he took nine years off before making a water polo movie. It’s the fruit of his brain on the screen in all it’s unsexy splendour. I watched Showgirls with friend Courtney and her boyfriend and I didn’t feel truly uncomfortable the whole movie because nothing was sexy. It was like watching cartoon cars falling in love and dating. It’s not real.

When I told a friend I would be screening Showgirls at my house, he seemed concerned. "It's pretty racy, don't you think that will be awkward to watch with a group?" I started second guessing myself. Maybe it would be weird.

Nope. Like Rich said, for all of the explicit sex and nudity, this movie is laughably unsexy. Maybe I'm just terribly jaded and hard to offend, but after a few minutes the nudity no longer phased me. Oh look, more tits on the screen. Ho-hum.

The sex scenes themselves are about as sexy as Miley Cyrus twerking, which is to say not at all. Maybe it's Nomi's crazy eyes, but she never seems to evoke any real passion or eroticism from scenes that are basically softcore pornography.

The infamous sex scene (sometimes referred to as washing machine sex) features Nomi on some kind of grinding spin cycle while under a waterfall. Her boyfriend tilts her back beneath the waterfall, making it appear as if he might, in fact, be trying to drown her. Is this what waterboarding looks like? Maybe this movie should be tried for war crimes. Penetrative waterboarding seems like it would fall into the torture category; if nothing else it's definitely torturous for the viewer.

Boobs

The first bare boobs emerged at the eight-minute mark and it was a tidal wave from there. You only need to wait 19 minutes before you see Elizabeth Berkley’s boobs, then like a minute later, you get to see her shaved undercarriage. I was surprised by the amount of full frontal nudity in the film, but with everyone hairless it was again, weirdly not sexy. It was like a bunch of crazy-eyed Barbie dolls.

Who are you rooting for?

An hour into the film you should meet the protagonist, right? But I kept wondering—who’s the protagonist? Surely not Nomi who screams in the face of anyone who offers her a free place to stay or free advice. Not Cristal or Zack or anyone who works at  Cheetahs or the Stardust. James is kind of a dick and Penny is on the screen for three minutes. An argument could be made for Molly, but she doesn’t do anything to deserve your cheers. She just gets used a lot. I’m going to go with Henrietta “Mama” Bazoom for cracking wise and being positive and trying to mentor the younger strippers at Cheetahs. I hope she goes on to hit the big time in Vegas. (Hey, hey, the actress is in Orange is the New Black!)

I suppose, hypothetically, we are supposed to root for Nomi. But why? The audience is never really given a reason to care about this character. She doesn't get a compelling back story, and although her reactions to everyone around her would indicate past trauma, she mostly comes off as a terrible person. (The amount of times she screams "fuck you!" is frequent enough to make for a fine drinking game.) You could almost (almost) root for her bouncer friend James, who appears to be trying to help her though is really just trying to get in her pants. Her friend Molly is possibly the most interesting of the lot: she meets Nomi in the midst of a total meltdown. Nomi screams profanity at her, but Molly still feels that this lost soul needs saving. After Nomi's done throwing a fit, Molly hugs her, and they look as though they're about to make out. Then she offers this hysterical stranger a place to stay, and helps get her a job. Nomi regularly tells Molly she loves her. There are some odd lesbian undertones to the whole friendship. These undertones go nowhere.

What does Molly get for all her do gooding? She gets gang raped by her idol. What the what? Yes. In a scene of totally pointless brutality that serves almost no purpose in the plot, Molly is gang raped by her favorite musician and his body guards. I don't get it either.

Not all reviews of Showgirls are bad. This incomprehensibly positive take of Showgirls by this guy.

If you watch just one scene

Undoubtedly, it should probably be the infamous sex scene. I think it goes without saying that this is incredibly NSFW, but it’s an excellent example about how an explicit sex scene can be incomprehensibly unsexy. It also illustrates the movie’s overall attitude toward sex, Vegas sleaze, and Elizabeth Berkeley’s pelvic thrusting.

Bottom Line

There’ a reason this film has reached a cult status among bad film lovers: it has all the earnestness, star power, gratuitous sex, and achingly bad plot/dialogue that one expects in the best of the worst. If our previous commentary didn’t completely turn you off, watching this movie will. Highly recommend, if only because it has to be seen to be believed.