Showgirls

With references to musicals like Gold Diggers of 1933 and 42nd Street, and nods to the “rise to stardom” conventions, Showgirls tells the story of Nomi Malone, who hitchhikes to Las Vegas to become a dancer. She first lands a job at the strip club Cheetah, but dreams of moving up and becoming a showgirl at the Stardust Casino. The road to the top, however, is a direct descent into hell.

Rarely has a film been as harshly received as Showgirls. Critics turned away in disgust. Embarrassing, overacted, shallow, misogynistic—they listed it all in their reviews, making it clear that anyone who found anything remotely interesting in the film had to be perverse. Verhoeven won seven Razzie Awards—and, to everyone's surprise, showed up to accept them. The film also performed terribly at the box office (in Norway, several cinemas, including Oslo Kinematografer, refused to screen it), and the U.S. marketing department quickly repositioned the film. Soon, it found a new (and profitable) life on home video—within the safety of one’s own living room, its non-qualities could be enjoyed in private.

But wait. After years of ridicule, the film gained new life as the ultimate camp experience. And then, more and more people began to ask whether the film had been dismissed for the wrong reasons. Had its satirical elements been overlooked? Was it actually a clever critique of the entertainment industry? Jacques Rivette called it one of the best films of the 1990s: “A film about surviving in a world full of assholes.” Verhoeven himself never disowned it.

Today, the film is far from fully rehabilitated, but more and more voices argue that it was misunderstood. In Mia Hansen-Løve’s film Eden, the character Arnaud forces his friends to watch Showgirls—for the third time—while explaining that the film’s artificiality, including Elizabeth Berkley’s acting style, was intentional: “Verhoeven emphasizes the monstrous. He critiques American vulgarity.”

Did Showgirls fail because, in an act of hubris, Verhoeven directly attacked Hollywood? Did it fail because the film plays with genre expectations, critiques them—and ultimately shatters them?

 Judge for yourself.

Cinemateket i Oslo

The (Fe)male Gaze

The screening of SHOWGIRLS at Tancred on Friday 29.08 at 20.30 is part of the section «The (Fe)male Gaze» and will be introduced by curator Hege Jaer from Cinemateket in Oslo.

Read more about the section and its films here.

This film is part of