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If you think this is one of those clickbaity, contrarian stories in which I argue the virtues of trash-cinema favorite Showgirls, you're wrong. Showgirls—showing Saturday at the Hollywood in much-deserved Hecklevision—is terrible. It's an exploitative, misogynist piece of shit that's entertaining to watch only because it crashes so incredibly hard.
In 2012, Magic Mike proved that it's possible to make a fascinating, humanistic and earnest film about the business of baring it all for flying dollars. It had compelling personalities, romance and the utmost sympathy for its characters. Its male characters. Naturally.
Women strippers, on the other hand? They're damsels in need of saving at best (Sin City, Closer), punching bags or drug addicts at worst. They're burnouts (The Wrestler) or jokes (Striptease). Sometimes they're man-eaters, often literally (From Dusk to Dawn, Zombie Strippers).
The thing about Showgirls is that the strippers in the film–especially "good girl gone bad" Elizabeth Berkeley–represent every one of these tired tropes. In striving to make it big in Vegas, they maim and seduce the competition. They run on drugs and sexuality. When theyâre good, theyâre rewarded with rough sex. When theyâre bad, theyâre punished with rough sex.
Robocop Basic Instinct Dancing at the Blue IguanaShowgirls
So Showgirls endures as the best film about female strippers ever made. And that's a goddamned shame.
SEE IT: Showgirls plays at Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 26. $8.
Also Showing:
- Church of Film moves to the Clinton for the penultimate screening in its French Film Fantastique series, Maurice Tourneur’s macabre 1943 fable Carnival of Sinners, about a man’s attempt to undo a deal with the devil to save his soul. Clinton Street Theater. 8 pm Wednesday, Sept. 23.
- In the Brazilian frightfest At Midnight I Take Your Soul, infamous B-movie icon and undertaker Coffin Joe seeks the perfect woman to bear his son. Too bad it was 1963. Nowadays, a dude like Coffin Joe could do pretty well on the Craigslist Casual Encounters section. Joy Cinema. 9 pm Wednesday, Sept. 23.
- Projekt Records and Movies in the Dark present a 35 mm screening of the director’s cut of Donnie Darko, which is slightly less confusing and convoluted than the theatrical cut. On the plus side, it does feature Patrick Swayze, playing a pedophile for the first time since Dirty Dancing.Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Friday, Sept. 25.
- Sergio Leone’s sprawling, gorgeously realized Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the best films of its genre, if not the best. The other two candidates? A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly…also by Leone. Hollywood Theatre. 8 pm Saturday, Sept. 26.
- With its twisted imagery and murderous somnambulist, 1920’s silent expressionist masterpieceThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the first examples of horror on film. And, to this day, it’s still one of the best. Hollywood Theatre. 2 pm Saturday, Sept. 26.
- Once you get past the casual racism and rapey vibe, John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles is, well, casually racist and kind of rapey. That it endures despite that is a testament to Hughes’ and Molly Ringwald’s charms. Kennedy School. Sept. 25-Oct. 1.
- Banned by the Nazis in France upon its release—because, apparently the Third Reich only really loved movies about the glories of the Third Reich—Max Ophuls’ politically charged drama From Mayerling to Sarajevo deals with romance amid the events that led to World War I. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 4:30 pm Saturday and 7 pm Sunday, Sept. 26-27.
- The Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore romantic thriller Ghost holds up remarkably well until you consider Whoopi Goldberg’s role in the weirdest cinematic threesome of all time. Century Clackamas Town Center. 2 pm Sunday, Sept. 27.
Willamette Week