Showgirls is one of those movies that doesn’t so much divide opinion as defy it. Critical vocabulary breaks down in the face of its transcendent vulgarity. Is it deliberately bad? Unintentionally bad? So bad it’s good? Or just actually … good? Whatever the case, where other movies of a similar vintage have slid into obscurity, we’re still talking about it 25 years later.
You can’t engineer cult status, but Showgirls accidentally hit upon the perfect formula: big budget yet inherently trashy premise; quotably absurd dialogue (“It must be weird not having anybody cum on you”); ridiculous characters; lavish musical numbers; salacious yet utterly unsexy nudity; and showbiz melodrama played dead straight. Everything about it is over the top, even the toplessness, but especially memorable is Elizabeth Berkley’s wildly overcommitted performance as striving stripper/dancer Nomi, who gyrates and schemes her way up (or is it down?) the greasy pole of Vegas stardom, licking it along the way for good measure.
Another key factor in Showgirls’ cult status was the way it bombed so spectacularly, commercially and critically. Nothing breeds cult success like failure. Showgirls became a hit on home video. It was embraced by trash aficionados. Ironic fan screenings were held. Film-makers, including Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino, praised it.
The rehabilitation really got going in 2003, when Film Quarterly published a roundtable discussion of the movie, assessing its artistic merits, its handling of gender, class and sexual issues, the way it “takes mass culture seriously, as a site of both fascination and struggle”. Now we have two new docs: Goddess: The Fall and Rise of Showgirls, from the makers of I Am Divine, and the entertaining You Don’t Nomi (released on streaming this Friday), which charts the movie’s chequered history and puts it in the context of Verhoeven’s recurring “themes”, including sex, violence, and, more problematically, sexual violence; he’s barely made a movie that doesn’t feature a rape scene. Showgirls’ is one of the worst, but at least it has meaningful consequences, and is avenged in its own twisted way.
People loved Verhoeven’s movies when they took aim at hardline law enforcement (RoboCop) or US militarism (Starship Troopers), or even male fragility (Basic Instinct), but with Showgirls, the target was the American dream itself – and the dishonest “star is born” narratives churned out to sustain it. If Showgirls has a message, it’s that the game is rigged for women like Nomi. She thinks she’s climbing the pole but really she’s just spinning round it. The real power lies with the men running the racket. Nobody wanted to hear that at the time; maybe they’re ready to now. In its own messy way, Showgirls is a #MeToo story with a male gaze.
