Showgirls

With references to musicals like Gold Diggers of 33rd and 42nd Street and “rise to stardom”-conventions, Showgirls tells the tale of Nomi Malone hitchhiking to Las Vegas to become a dancer. She first lands a job at a strip club named Cheetah, but dreams of becoming a showgirl at the Stardust Casino. The road to the top, however, is the road straight to hell.

Rarely has a film experienced such a hard time as Showgirls. Critics turned away in disgust and labelled the film as awkward, overplayed, flat, misogynistic etc, making it clear that anyone who could find anything interesting about the film had to be perverted. Director Paul Verhoeven won seven Razzie awards, and to everyone's surprise, he showed up to receive them. It was a box-office flop, and soon the film gained a new (and lucrative) life on video – at home, one could safely enjoy its non-qualities.

After years of ridicule, the film reclaimed a position as the number one camp experience, and some began to question whether it might have been rejected on the wrong basis. Had the film's satirical elements been overlooked? Was it really a cunning criticism of the entertainment industry? Did Showgirls fail because the it plays with genre expectations, criticizes them and even crushes them?

Today, many see the film as misunderstood. The Oslo Cinematheque initiated the discussion with a comprehensive Verhoeven retrospective in 2017, with lectures and panel talks on Showgirls as well as Verhoeven's other filmography. A documentary by Jeffrey McHale, You Don’t Nomi, was released in 2019; a thorough, entertaining and quite geeky examination of the criticism and afterlife of Showgirls.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Showgirls, and on August 28, Oslo Pix, in collaboration with Vega Scene and Montages, invites you to the celebration. We start by screening You Don`t Nomi, before Hege Jaer, curator at Cinemateket i Oslo, introduces the screening of Showgirls. If you haven't yet seen this film or want to see it again it with fresh eyes, now's your chance!

Director’s bio:

Paul Verhoeven (b.1938) is a Dutch director, screenwriter and film producer active in both the Netherlands and Hollywood. He is known for drama and science fiction films like RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992) and Starship Troopers (1997). His most recent film Elle (2016) premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.