# What's the argument that Showgirls was a good movie?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 19, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238 "2005-12-19T02:14:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/21 "2005-12-19T17:02:16Z")
> [@psiekier](#):
>
> Me? I sat through _Striptease_ instead. How can you _not_ like a mainstream movie that features Pandora Peaks?
Pandora Peaks MADE that movie for me. Demi WHO?
---
### Author:  [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/22 "2005-12-19T17:09:20Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> The same was true of Hitchcock and Sirk, two acknowledged masters who were not well understood until their work had been digested for years.
>
> The concept of an artist whose work isn’t understood until after his death is not a new one, so the rule you’re trying to formulate doesn’t really make much sense. You seem to be suggesting that an artist’s initial reception will always be the only valid one. Again, history suggests otherwise.
This is not the same as misunderstood satire. For satire to be effective it has to be understood as satire.
Take it from a guy who has had many sarcastic remarks mistaken for serious ones. Telling people that you meant to be sarcastic from the begging does not always work nor does it enhance the quality of your original remark.
This old cliché of comedy remains in effect: It’s not funny if you have to explain it.
---
### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/23 "2005-12-19T17:27:05Z")
I agree with Nametag. Yes, it’s satire. But Verhoevan doesn’t care that the audience doesn’t get it, he hates the audience, the fewer people who get it the better.
Now, that doesn’t make “Showgirls” a good movie. Yes, there’s another level to the movie, where Verhoevan punishes the idiots who came to see a movie about boobies, as well as taking apart the “Star is Born” cliche. But at the end of the day, is “Showgirls” worth seeing? It’s a fundamentally ugly movie with an ugly message. I know Verhoevan thinks he’s holding up a mirror to show the audience their own ugliness, and if they can’t see it so much the better. But doing so reveals more about Verhoevan than it does about the audience.
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/24 "2005-12-19T17:44:00Z")
As you can see, Frylock, there are plenty of people more willing to tell you that your question is a ridiculous one than there are to actually attempt to answer it.
“It’s not for everyone” has been said about a lot of movies, but as this thread proves, it’s rarely been as true as it is about _Showgirls_. Despite the childish insults and accusations of stupidity and dishonesty that have inevitably cropped up in this thread–suggesting that there’s only ONE way to see this movie–it’s an interesting movie to deconstruct. Far more intelligent and insightful critics than I have found it worthy of such effort, so I hope the movie snobs who seem to be emotionally invested in trashing it don’t discourage you from examining it objectively if you get the chance.
I was watching Howard Hawks’s \*Gentleman Prefer Blondes \*recently and had another insight about _Showgirls_. I’ve always considered it an example of a kind of crypto-feminism; a suggestion that women don’t have to remain on a pedestal in order to gain the upper hand (insofar as there’s an upper hand to be gained). I suddenly realized that \*Showgirls \*is far more explicitly feminist: in the first part of the movie, Nomi tries to get what she wants by playing the “traditional” female role: by using her, um, talents to manipulate men. Watching Marilyn Monroe using her, um, talents to get diamonds made me realize how little has changed over the years, and made me see exactly what “rules” of feminine behavior Verhoeven was shining a pretty harsh light on. The fact that Nomi finally realizes that she’s got no one to count on but herself, and finally takes on the “masculine” role of damn well taking what she wants by direct means, put the “feminism” of the film in a new light for me.
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/25 "2005-12-19T17:50:07Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> I agree with Nametag. Yes, it’s satire. But Verhoevan doesn’t care that the audience doesn’t get it, he hates the audience, the fewer people who get it the better.
>
> Now, that doesn’t make “Showgirls” a good movie. Yes, there’s another level to the movie, where Verhoevan punishes the idiots who came to see a movie about boobies, as well as taking apart the “Star is Born” cliche. But at the end of the day, is “Showgirls” worth seeing? It’s a fundamentally ugly movie with an ugly message. I know Verhoevan thinks he’s holding up a mirror to show the audience their own ugliness, and if they can’t see it so much the better. But doing so reveals more about Verhoevan than it does about the audience.
This is all very true. My biggest problem with Verhoeven is his misanthropy. It’s just as revealing of me, that I get a kick out of this movie, as it is about Verhoeven.
I showed this movie to my reading group recently. I was pretty surprised. With no “coaching” from me, they were 5 for 5 seeing the movie the way I did. It’s come up in discussion several times since then. One discussion was about whether it’s a “necessary” movie. Now, obviously, that’s a pretty close to nonsensical discussion. But still. One of the group called it a “great” movie because of how far it was willing to go to illustrate some pretty ugly human truths, and because of how successfully and forcefully it illustrates them, but he had to come down on the side of “unnecessary”; what do we really gain by having our noses rubbed in this stuff? I’m not sure I disagree with him. But I tend to be a pretty cynical misanthrope myself. So there’s that.
---
### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/26 "2005-12-19T18:32:06Z")
I just saw the film for the first time, and only after reading one of **lissener** ’s posts on it. Perhaps not so good as he suggests, but there is definitely more going on than you would immediately guess.
I am reminded of Theatre of Cruelty in the spectacle of it.
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/27 "2005-12-19T18:35:21Z")
> [@flight](#):
>
> I just saw the film for the first time, and only after reading one of **lissener** ’s posts on it. Perhaps not so good as he suggests, but there is definitely more going on than you would immediately guess.
>
> I am reminded of Theatre of Cruelty in the spectacle of it.
Yes; “cruelty” is one of the words that cropped up most frequently in my reading group’s subsequent discussion of the movie, particularly in the “necessary/unnecessary” tangent.
---
### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/28 "2005-12-19T18:35:55Z")
Heck it has **Gina Gershon** in it. (That’s good enough for me).
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/29 "2005-12-19T18:45:04Z")
> [@flight](#):
>
> I am reminded of Theatre of Cruelty in the spectacle of it.
Wasn’t specifically aware; Wikied. Interesting. Antonin Artaud did a “cameo” in one of the films that I include in my \*Showgirls \*“seminar,” _The Passion of Joan of Arc_. Probably a coincidence; I don’t think Verhoeven had \*Joan \*in mind at all when he made _Showgirls_. But his name is a name that one doesn’t come across every day, and here I come across it twice in relation to _Showgirls_. Wheels within wheels, _n’est-ce pas_? (French makes me seem smarter.)
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/30 "2005-12-19T18:48:19Z")
[
> [@Antonin Artaud](#):
>
> ]([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin\_Artaud](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud))The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid.
---
### Author:  [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/31 "2005-12-19T19:03:31Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> This is all very true. My biggest problem with Verhoeven is his misanthropy.
I think it’s more of a childish need to feel superior.
But I tend to agree with **don’t ask** , it’s the “emperor’s new movie”.
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/32 "2005-12-19T19:09:58Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#):
>
> I think it’s more of a childish need to feel superior.
>
> But I tend to agree with **don’t ask** , it’s the “emperor’s new movie”.
Yook, let’s see if we can do this without you calling me a liar and trying to start something, K? Take it to the Pit please, if you want to accuse people who’ve found something of value in \*Showgirls \*of making shit up. You have me at a disadvantage here: you can circumvent forum rules by dishonestly couching your insults in an “opinion,” but I can’t respond in kind.
Or . . . we could just discuss the movie, without taking cheap shots at the motivations of people you disagree with. K?
---
### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/33 "2005-12-19T19:23:36Z")
Just because one person saw brilliance in The Hands of Fate does not make it brilliant.
---
### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/34 "2005-12-19T19:38:29Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#):
>
> I think it’s more of a childish need to feel superior.
Moderator interjects: There’s some ambiguity here. **Yookeroo** , if this comment is directed at **lissener** , then personal insults are NOT permitted in this forum. It is possible to disagree on a work or an artist/director without name-calling.
If your comment is directed at Verhoeven, then that’s fair game.
However, you do need to be clear.
---
### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/35 "2005-12-19T20:03:17Z")
“Cruelty” is the key word for me when considering _Showgirls._
It’s cruel to its audience. Over and over, it sets up the viewer’s expectations based on tropes of the genre it’s mocking, and then either reverses itself or puts a nasty spin on the cliche. The key to watching the movie, as I’ve said before, is not to watch the movie, but to watch the relationship between the movie and its audience.
It’s cruel to its culture. The rags-to-riches star-is-born fantasy is compelling, enduring, beloved. It’s one of the core fantasies of our American worldview. _Showgirls_ takes it apart, dissects it, studies it dispassionately, clinically, and reassembles its components into a monstrous caricature of the original, exposing the darkness that usually goes unrevealed and unremarked in the story. The mythology is distorted, inverted, and perverted; and yet its road map is still easily recognizable.
And, of course, it’s cruel to its actors, Elizabeth Berkeley chief among them. She gets a lot of shit for what she did in the movie, but it’s important to remember that the director has almost total control over performance in the editing room. For any given scene, depending on the director, there will be between twenty and a hundred versions of a line, a facial expression, or other moment (say, five to fifteen takes per setup, three to six setups or more per scene). Directors and editors usually attempt to serve the actor’s performance, but really, it’s a trivial matter to do the opposite, to selectively use takes to make an actor look like an ass. In other material, Berkeley has proven herself to be, while not brilliant, not untalented either; I suspect that Verhoeven misled and misused her without explaining his motives, directing her a certain way and choosing the worst takes as best for his purpose, thereby consciously destroying her career for the sake of a single film. She doesn’t deserve the criticism she’s received for her performance, and I cannot defend Verhoeven as an individual for doing this. (And it isn’t accidental, either. Note his habitual casting of second-tier actors, like Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien in _Starship Troopers_ and Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin in _Hollow Man_, in his later American films. The actually-good actors are typically reserved for other purposes, in supporting roles.)
But I do defend the film. It is a masterpiece of cruelty. It is cold, manipulative, and vicious, on virtually every level. Next to _Showgirls_, the grindhouse glee of such superficially sadistic exploiters as Rob Zombie come off as third-rate junior-high “Scared Straight” knockoffs. Verhoeven’s film is a brutal, merciless wolf in a stripper’s g-string. It is the blackest of black comedies, so dark it doesn’t even laugh at itself; even as it shakes its tits at you, it bares its fangs in a twisted, malevolent grin, and stares at your throat with predatory anticipation.
You are, of course, free to reject the movie on this basis. Its harshly patronizing view of the mainstream audience and culture, its pitiless mistreatment of its actors, and its wicked misanthropy are all, without question, extraordinarily unpleasant. When you get right down to it, when you clear away all the other distractions, the core motivation behind _Showgirls_ is to squat over one of our most cherished fairy tales and take a straining, groaning shit right in the middle of it. If you elect to dismiss or detest the film for this, that is, of course, your right, and I cannot and will not argue with you about your choice.
If, however, you assert that the film is simply “bad,” or that its badness is the result of incompetence rather than calculation and design, then I will forcefully disagree.
Like it or don’t. But never pretend it’s something that it isn’t.
---
### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/36 "2005-12-19T20:30:48Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> Showgirls had lots of tits and ass and sex and was funny on many levels ( **remember the dolphin thrash sex scene?** ). What’s not to like?
_bolding mine_
I just have to say that I’ve been trying to think of a way to describe this for ages.
Thank you **Evil Captor**! (and just to be clear I don’t mean that as either a criticism or endorsement of the movie – I just think it’s an excellent description)
---
### Author:  [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/37 "2005-12-19T20:39:35Z")
> [@Nametag](#):
>
> Verhoeven’s intention was to do artistic violence to Heinlein’s philosophy and his adulatory fan base – such a director should never have been given this film.
I would disagree, and in fact would claim quite the opposite- Verhoeven was very clear in pointing out the latent fascism in Heinlein’s book, and had both the temperament and the artistic ability to turn that back on the fan base. Good for him; it always rankled me as well.
I’ve never seen _Showgirls_. But recently, **lissener** posted a list of his top ten films of all times, and I was impressed with his selections. I had seen about half, and most of the rest were on my “must see” list. And yes, _Showgirls_ was on that list. Based upon the popular perception of this film, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a theater when this was on the screen, but **lissener** has made a strong case for giving it a serious look. And this whole discussion raises a question that I have always had; how could a talented, intelligent and experienced director create a film that many consider the worst of all time? It’s worth a couple of hours to answer that for myself.
I do wonder about the way that the OP was phrased.
\*\*What’s the argument that Showgirls was a good movie? \*\*
This would imply (to me, at least) that someone was familiar with the previous unpleasant controversy, and wouldn’t mind it coming back. I hope that it was a genuine question, and not just the sort of thing one thinks of when spending too much time under the bridge.
---
### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/38 "2005-12-19T20:50:37Z")
> [@Plynck](#):
>
> I do wonder about the way that the OP was phrased.
>
> \*\*What’s the argument that Showgirls was a good movie? \*\*
>
> This would imply (to me, at least) that someone was familiar with the previous unpleasant controversy, and wouldn’t mind it coming back. I hope that it was a genuine question, and not just the sort of thing one thinks of when spending too much time under the bridge.
I’d say it’s more likely that the OP reflects the near-universal meme that \*Showgirls \*is considered, almost to a degree of objective fact, to be a bad movie. Most people who haven’t seen it consider that “fact” to be a given. The initial critical reaction was a snowball of emperor’s fashion critics (to use that metaphor more appropriately). Many critics are “coming out of the closet” nowadays, admitting that they saw something more interesting in the film, but were afraid they’d be thought a fool if they’d admitted it at the time.
---
### Author:  [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/39 "2005-12-19T21:00:11Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#):
>
> Heck it has **Gina Gershon** in it. (That’s good enough for me).
Damn straight.
---
### Author:  [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238/40 "2005-12-19T21:18:02Z")
I think the value of Showgirls is that it’s not easily forgotten. People are still talking about it ten years later. Most movies simply fail to be good, but Showgirls is actively bad. Audiences simply can’t accept a movie in which the protagonist gets to the top by being a backstabbing bitch. It doesn’t sit well with us so we dig into every imperfection until it becomes the worst movie ever made.
FWIW, yesterday the New York Times published an arts editiorial about the importance of creating truly horrible films like Showgirls. It is only possible to make a truly great film by taking the risk of making a truly horrible film.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-argument-that-showgirls-was-a-good-movie/336238.md?page=3)