Director Paul VERHOEVEN does not have enough genuine feeling for women to make this odd movie work at all well much beyond its glossy sexual-exploitation.
"Showgirls" is a clear example of a movie that most definitely should have been made by a woman since that would almost certainly have meant less exploitation of the sexually-exploitive nature of Las Vegas and more focus on exploring the reasons for said exploitation; eg, Las Vegas as a metaphor for the generally-exploitive nature of White culture, a metaphor for Caucasian gynophobia and misogyny, etc.
Elizabeth BERKLEY is a fine actress with a fierce abrasive energy, but she and everyone else is somewhat lost-at-sea in an un-empathetic script, which hurt her career, from the usually-mediocre Joe ESZTERHAS: It is riddled with melodramatic clichés and a dislike for women which taints the entire enterprise. It's hard to think of anyone else with the requisite acting and dancing skills and whom also looks very good naked - as BERKLEY does - whom would have had the ability, the sheer guts &, perhaps, the desperation to even attempt this. And she gives of it her best.
The films lack of eroticism is precisely the point being made about sexual exploitation - it's only erotic for the sexually-jaded. And it is to be lauded for that despite the director repeating the point with so much nudity that the movie easily crosses-the-line between exploring exploitation and being just another part of it. One needs a tightrope-walkers skill to tread such a fine line successfully and VERHOEVEN has partly failed here.
Although intended as a satire on the American-dream social propaganda, the writer has no talent for comedy and the director somehow lost his after better films of his such as RoboCop (1987) and Starship Troopers (1997). The deliberate campness does not add anything amusing or entertaining as it did with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and the clever idea of having Elizabeth BERKLEY over-act someone pulling out all the stops for fame at which the actress, herself, was trying to shoot here is drowned-out by the weakness of the satire on a White entertainment-world populated by so many ghouls and parasites. Unfortunately, this leaves BERKLEY looking exactly like the character she is playing.
Because this movie, ultimately, is as shallow and as superficial as the seamy side of show-business being exposed, it would've been much better constructed as an old-fashioned Hollywood musical - melodramatic, unsubtle & with better music; eg, Singin' in the Rain (1952). Then it could have been on much firmer ground as a social satire on Western patriarchy and the falsity of the American Dream that it clearly wanted to be.
"Showgirls" is a clear example of a movie that most definitely should have been made by a woman since that would almost certainly have meant less exploitation of the sexually-exploitive nature of Las Vegas and more focus on exploring the reasons for said exploitation; eg, Las Vegas as a metaphor for the generally-exploitive nature of White culture, a metaphor for Caucasian gynophobia and misogyny, etc.
Elizabeth BERKLEY is a fine actress with a fierce abrasive energy, but she and everyone else is somewhat lost-at-sea in an un-empathetic script, which hurt her career, from the usually-mediocre Joe ESZTERHAS: It is riddled with melodramatic clichés and a dislike for women which taints the entire enterprise. It's hard to think of anyone else with the requisite acting and dancing skills and whom also looks very good naked - as BERKLEY does - whom would have had the ability, the sheer guts &, perhaps, the desperation to even attempt this. And she gives of it her best.
The films lack of eroticism is precisely the point being made about sexual exploitation - it's only erotic for the sexually-jaded. And it is to be lauded for that despite the director repeating the point with so much nudity that the movie easily crosses-the-line between exploring exploitation and being just another part of it. One needs a tightrope-walkers skill to tread such a fine line successfully and VERHOEVEN has partly failed here.
Although intended as a satire on the American-dream social propaganda, the writer has no talent for comedy and the director somehow lost his after better films of his such as RoboCop (1987) and Starship Troopers (1997). The deliberate campness does not add anything amusing or entertaining as it did with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and the clever idea of having Elizabeth BERKLEY over-act someone pulling out all the stops for fame at which the actress, herself, was trying to shoot here is drowned-out by the weakness of the satire on a White entertainment-world populated by so many ghouls and parasites. Unfortunately, this leaves BERKLEY looking exactly like the character she is playing.
Because this movie, ultimately, is as shallow and as superficial as the seamy side of show-business being exposed, it would've been much better constructed as an old-fashioned Hollywood musical - melodramatic, unsubtle & with better music; eg, Singin' in the Rain (1952). Then it could have been on much firmer ground as a social satire on Western patriarchy and the falsity of the American Dream that it clearly wanted to be.
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