In SHOWGIRLS Sex Is A Violent Illusion And Everyone’s A Whore
Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls is a trash masterpiece, a film that feels confused and tonally discordant, but one that we are perhaps still years away from really understanding. It's a garish Cinderella story that doubles as an allegory about fame and its cost. Revisiting it now with all its seediness and neon lighting, Verhoeven's style isn't that far removed from Nicolas Winding Refn. And for all the overt sexuality and sex, there's absolutely nothing sexy about Verhoeven's film. Elizabeth Berkley's performance as Nomi Malone is the personification of rage-fueled and frustrated sex. She doesn't merely walk away from a conversation or another human being; she perpetually storms off with exaggerated, petulant movements, her arms flailing expressively, punctuating every bipolar interaction with a scoff. Nomi herself is a desperate exaggeration, and Berkley portrays her as if servicing or satirizing some trope or stereotype that didn't yet (and still doesn't) exist.
The sex of Showgirls is told in three acts: the lapdance Nomi gives to Kyle MacLachlan's Zack at Cheetah's, while Gina Gershon's Cristal salaciously looks on. Nomi's movements are feral and obnoxious, an act of both defiance and possessive desire. It's here that she first shows off a strange sexual move, where she leans back and does a jerky wave motion. For Nomi, sex and dancing are intertwined, and it's only her new friend James that seems to understand that what she does is "fuck 'em without fucking them."
This marriage of sexuality and dance draws Nomi to the glitzy world of the Stardust and its seductive show, Goddess, starring Cristal Connors as the main attraction. Nomi's casting in Goddess is the segue to the second sex act of the film, and its most notorious: the pool scene. Neither Nomi nor Zack act recognizably human, and instead they perform as if they're children mimicking the concept of sex as gleaned from late night Cinemax softcore and various pop culture references. Zack drenches Nomi in champagne, like an accessory in a rap video he saw on MTV once. He comes through a waterfall in his pool to grab her, emerging from the veil of water like Frankenstein's monster, a moment that attempts to deliver something candid and playful, but instead feels bizarrely out of place given their rigid yet intensely exaggerated performances.
In the pool, Nomi repeats the epileptic, dramatic flailing she performed on Zack at Cheetah's - leaned back, she drastically flails her body in something approximating a wave motion, her head precariously whipping around in the water, as if she's being violently drowned. The pool sex is a mimicry of violence - like the Goddess show, whatever qualities it holds are illusory. Verhoeven conveys that sex and violence (and dance) are linked, which makes his third sex act all the more jarring and horrible.
It's the third sex act - the exceedingly violent rape of Nomi's friend Molly - that most people forget when recalling Showgirls. We remember the oddly savage and humorous pool sex, but never the brutal rape of Molly. Unlike Nomi's sex acts, which are merely an illusion of or allusion to violence, the rape of Molly is outright vicious, the driving force of the sexless violence to come when Nomi seeks to avenge her friend. In the glitzy, ostentatious world of Vegas and Showgirls, the rape of Molly seems almost glaringly misplaced. But that's sort of the point - this is Nomi's fairy tale dream, and lurking beneath the gleaming surface of desire, past the glittering curtains, lies the harsh reality that violence and opportunism permeate all. In this world, our dreams and desires are facades, fairy tale stories we tell ourselves to obscure the desperate truth of the things we do to succeed.
Showgirls is an often misunderstood film, one that's been perceived as a genuine attempt at sexualized melodrama, a gimmicky stage for former Saved by the Bell feminist Jessie Spano to disrobe herself both literally and figuratively. But with Verhoeven's affection for darkly satirical material, Showgirls isn't the movie many perceive it to be at first or even second glance - it is, perhaps, a failed attempt (depending on perspective) of crafting a sardonic and irreverent moral fable. But it is inarguably confrontational, its sexuality more bizarre and jarring than hypnotic.
Above all, Showgirls is a morality play, one that succeeds in its refrain about self- and co-opted prostitution - whether you're a low-class hooker, a mid-level stripper, or a high-priced showgirl, you're still fucking them without fucking them and getting paid for the mirage of sex. Everyone in Showgirls is selling themselves like a cheaply-made but attractively designed product, and success comes with a price that not all (like James and Penny) are willing to pay. Whether or not you're willing to pay that price is irrelevant because you're getting fucked regardless.
