As American as smut!

I spent our nation's birthday feeling rather crappy (like everything else on Earth, colds are worse in the summer), but I managed to do two American things on the Fourth: I washed my car and I watched Showgirls. That's what this nation's founders fought and died for, right?

"...gave proof through the night/that her boobs were still there."

Showgirls is something of an institution in our house. For more than a decade now, I have forced just about everyone I know and like to watch it. J gave me the VIP Edition of it last fall, and it was the featured event of our New Year's Eve party. But I had never seen it on our big-ass TV, nor had I listened to the commentary track by David Schmader, who has made even more of a study of the film than I have.

The larger screen showed me something I had never noticed before: Elizabeth Berkley has one green eye and one brown eye (well, in addition to the one she showcased in the lap dance sequence). I was also able to appreciate, more than ever before, the sheer poundage of makeup worn by every actress in the film, Berkley in particular. You know that scene where Cristal has just been put in the ambulance and Nomi has taken off her wig and lied to Molly and she's standing there with her hair pulled back wearing a bondage halter and a robe? I usually say, "Call me... Joker," at that point because of her ungodly spackled face and creepy smile, but this time through, I sputtered out, "Holy clumping kohl, I can't see her eyes!" I'm astounded that any cast member emerged from this shoot with even one working pore.

In his commentary, David Schmader puts forth his theory about this film, and it would even explain the crimes committed by the makeup department: "Everyone involved in this film, from the writer to the director to the actors... to the gaffers -- everyone involved made the worst possible decision at every possible point. The result is an incredible density of failure."

While I get caught up in the film's minutiae, Schmader keeps the big picture in mind. I always open the film with the admonition: "The first scene is of a woman walking. And you can tell, just from watching her walk, that she can't act to save her life." Schmader eases us into the snark, greeting Nomi fondly at the beginning of the film, but soon points out with uncanny accuracy that "Elizabeth Berkley has two modes in this film: staring and kicking."

Schmader answered quite a few of the questions I'd had for years regarding the film. Yes, Paul Verhoeven did indeed mean to make that very film. It didn't accidentally tumble into the nadir of cinema; he very deliberately hurtled it there. There is apparently a coffee-table book about Showgirls full of essays from Verhoeven about the meaning of the dance numbers in the film -- no, seriously, the "Goddess" dance numbers are supposed to mean something! Besides hooters!

Schmader spares a few mournful thoughts for Kyle MacLachlan, the most notable name in the film. Were it not for Sex and the City, I think MacLachlan's career would have ended with Showgirls. According to Wikipedia, MacLachlan walked out of the movie's premiere and was heard muttering, "I thought this was an art film." If that account is true, all I can say to him is: Dude, you were there during the filming of the neon-palm-tree-spewing-dolphin-fountain-grand-mal-seizure sex scene! You must have known there was no art involved.

Schmader and I agree that Molly the seamstress is the one good character in the whole film, and we also agree that the one good performance is that of Gina Gershon as Cristal Connors. "She's the only one who knows what film she's in," says Schmader, and I can't think of a better way to put it. Gershon nips at the scenery with those bizarrely sexy front teeth of hers, overplaying just enough to let us all know she's in on the joke.

Gershon is also one of the best dancers in the film, although that's not saying much. Berkley tends to flail around like a carp on the line when she's not licking a pole that's probably a vertical petri dish, a move that provokes shudders from everyone, including Schmader. The constant praise Nomi gets for her dancing is a source of bemused delight; Schmader mocks Glenn Plummer for telling Nomi "You burn when you dance." At our viewing party, my best friend Felicia followed this line with "... and chafe, and blister."

Although I've seen the movie more times than I can count (and I can count pretty high), like Schmader, I'm still fascinated by it. I'm captivated by the obvious energy and work that went into making something this exuberantly awful. I'm impressed -- nay, unnerved -- by the mass delusion that the entire cast and crew (except the amazing Gershon) had to labor under to produce this film. And the finished product never fails to leave me in open-mouthed awe. I'm the teeniest bit embarrassed to be associated with it, but I can't help giggling madly and showing it over and over to myself and others. I can't tell if I love it because of itself or in spite of itself. And that's not a bad way to summarize my feelings about America sometimes. So it was a pretty appropriate choice for a febrile Fourth after all.

Westward, ho.

Comments

[Glenn]

God, this was great. I LOVE Showgirls. Simply amazing. My favourite part of the commentary is that enlightened me to the fact that, yes, Nomi does eat a lot and do her nails a lot. I guess I'd noticed it, but not consciously.

Brilliant.

[Vyola]

Oh, now I'm gonna have to watch it again with the commentary. My love for this film is scary. The sheer earnestness of the awfulness....

Someday, I hope to have the courage (liquid, most likely) to watch the Mariah Carey masterwork "Glitter".

[Catherine Cantieri]

Glitter!!! Oh, I'll have to recap that sumbitch at some point. You must watch Glitter, Vyola! Have you ever emerged from a shopping spree with your best buds wearing coordinating gold lame outfits? Have you ever been seduced by a dude playing a marimba? Have you ever composed a song in tandem with a guy clear across town through some sort of creepy-ass telepathy? YOU WILL.

[Dr. Beevomit]

See, I've always agreed that Verhoeven meant to make *exactly* this film, even without hearing the commentary. I think it was meant to be a beautiful self-parody, and the line that clinched it for me was the one that James Smith spoke to Nomi after her audition for the chorus line so that she can leave the strip club. Ahem: "You don't want to be in this kind of show. What you're doing, at least it's honest. They want tits and ass, you give 'em tits and ass. Here, they pretend they want something else, and you still show them tits and ass."

See, I think he was making a statement about art films and (video) porn. Video porn = strip club. Art film = chorus line. Showgirls = self-knowing art film that revels in its hypocrisy. Or am I all wet?

[Dr. Beevomit]

And dammit, of course I forgot to mention that I've been sucked into this blog ever since looking for a little bit of info on the naughty, naughty T. Weed from I Love New York. And from you, I have learned about Flavor of Love, and its sequel, and the Rock of Love, and the Charm School which taught the girls to be anything but charming. Bugger to those VH1 craptastic TV and the crapgasms it affords us.

See? :)

[sudiegirl]

I wanna come to your house and watch it!

Something tells me we'd have a good time. My favorite scene that isn't a sex scene is the "boat show" thing.

[Azzan]

Nice Actrees and nice movies