Throwback Thursday: A Campy Sexy Classic

This movie is the epitome of “you don’t watch it for the plot”!

Hey Fleshbot fans! It’s hard to believe that the film Showgirls (1995), directed by Paul Verhoeven, is now 30 years old. She may be turning 30, but she’s definitely not toning herself down for anyone! This film is infamously terrible, an epic box office flop that was nearly universally panned by critics, but there are lots of hot people and downright hilariously bad dialogue. The Vegas showgirl and the mystique of that profession have never really left the popular zeitgeist. With the recent acclaimed film The Last Showgirl and Taylor Swift’s latest album entitled The Life Of A Showgirl, we seem as a society to be as obsessed with the glitz, glam, feathers, sequins, flesh, and drama as we’ve ever been. Let’s check it out on this Throwback Thursday!

We open on Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley), hitchhiking to Las Vegas with some douche who steals her suitcase after ditching her at a casino. She wants to be a professional dancer, of course. Almost like magic, Nomi literally runs into Molly (Gina Ravera), a kindhearted costume designer for a major topless revue show called Goddess, and gets her first taste of showbiz life, complete with pyrotechnics. At this show, she meets the star Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), who becomes her biggest frenemy. Nomi begins her stripping career at a skeezy club called Cheetah’s, run by an equally skeezy dude but through a series of events including an injury for Cristal, Nomi ends up dancing the lead role in Goddess, a hard-won spot where she needs to deal with Tony Moss, the director who demands that she rub ice on her nipples to they’re hard when she’s dancing--- this is where his singularly goofy  “I’m erect, why aren’t you erect?” line happens.

As it always is in this type of movie, when the main character is at their pinnacle, they’re going to fall from grace, and Nomi’s downfall comes about when she tries to defend Molly after a brutal sexual assault. Thematically, Showgirls is a scathing critique of the American dream and the commodification of sex and ambition. The film portrays Las Vegas as both a beacon of aspiration and a machine of exploitation, where talent and sexuality are marketable goods. The film also explores female rivalry and empowerment in a world dominated by male control. Beneath its sensational surface, it remains a dark, self-aware portrait of the American obsession with fame and spectacle--- with lots of boobs.

Showgirls is available to stream (at press time) on HBO Max.