transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:09] Hello, you, welcome to You Are Good, a Feelings podcast about movies. Today, we are talking about Showgirls. We're talking about it with Ariel Demure and Crystal. I'm your host today, Alex Steed. I'm very much looking forward to talking about all this and more with y'all. If you are new to You Are Good, a Feelings podcast about movies, what we do is in the name. We are not film critics. We're not here to say this film was good or this film was bad. We're here to talk about how these movies make us feel, about who and how we are in the world. That is what we're up to. And if that sounds good to you, we are exactly the show for you. Showgirls is a 1995 erotic drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven, of course, written by Joe Astrohaus, starring Elizabeth Berkeley, Kyle Mazzocchi, Gina Gershon and many others. The film focuses on an ambitious young woman hitching a ride to Las Vegas to pursue her dreams of being a professional dancer in Showgirl. Content warning today for the movie and for the conversation. This movie notoriously includes a pretty brutal rape scene in it. And it happens in the movie. So just know that if you haven't seen the movie yet, know that. And also we have a conversation about that scene and have a conversation about its place in the movie and how people involved in the movie itself feel after the fact about its inclusion. So just know we are going to have a conversation. I usually say when we talk about these things, we kind of don't go deep into them. We don't go deep, deep necessarily into great detail, but we do have this conversation. And I want you to know that as you go into it. Crystal is a drag queen, a DJ, and a political commentator. Has been on the show before several times. I hope we'll come back to the show several times again, if not more times, many more times. Love Crystal, love these conversations. This movie was Crystal's choice. We also have Ariel Demure, who, it's like, Ariel is a model, has been a dancer, is a porn performer, and is a pal, really just a wonderful, wonderful person. I'm so happy we have her on the show and we have her feedback on this. When I knew we were talking about Showgirls in particular, I knew, I just knew in my bones that I needed to have Ariel here with us, and I'm so glad that she joined us. You're going to have a blast with this conversation as I did. How are you doing? What's going on in your world? How are you feeling? I am still in Canada. I think the last time I talked with y'all, I was in Canada. I'm in Toronto. Ideally, I'm going to see my great friend, Nico Stratis, coming up here soon. Seen a bunch of Canadian pals and I'm very happy and delighted to be here and having a great time wherever you're at. Whatever you're doing, I hope that things are going OK. I know times are chaotic. I know times are hectic. I'm usually encouraging of you getting involved in your community and in action, et cetera, et cetera, and I still am that way. But you know, today, I'm just going to say, however you're doing, however you're feeling, whatever you're getting up to, wherever you're traveling to, if you're doing any of that, whatever books you're reading, whatever movies you're watching, whatever stand up you're enjoying, whatever garden you're getting your hands dirty in right now as you're doing the planning or getting initial seeds in or dealing with your seedlings or whatever it may be. Don't forget that you, my friend, are good. You Are Good at Feelings podcast about movies is made possible with and by your support. Thanks everyone who supports us on Patreon and Apple podcast subscriptions. We appreciate you. We can't do it without you. You get those bonus episodes. You get those extended cuts. We have a couple bonus episodes coming out this month. We have one coming out about season two of The Pit, which I get into with the aforementioned Nico Stratus. That should be out any day now. And that was just for a fun conversation because I knew Nico and I were watching The Pit. It comes up a lot when we talk about the OC on the OC again, when we're catching up about what we're watching. So I just wanted to have a little chit chat there. And then we have a Star Trek, the Next Generation bonus coming up. These are both bonuses about TV shows. That's not going to become a regular thing. That is just a coincidence, but I am looking forward to sharing those with y'all. Oh, and just so you know, I pinned a post over on Patreon that has a link to every one of our bonus episodes that we've ever done. So if you're just curious about what you could be listening to over there, go check it out. You'll see all of our bonus episodes linked in one place. I think it's like well over 50. I mean, it's going to be more than 50 episodes. So, you know, if you have run out of content and you're looking for more, that's a great place to check out. All right. That's enough of the hard selling over here. Please join me in supporting our friends in Gaza and in Palestine more generally. Palestine Children's Relief Fund is a great place to start that. There's all sorts of ways to contribute all sorts of campaigns to get involved in. But if you're looking for a place to start, you haven't done it yet. There's a link to all that in the show notes. I think that's all we need to get into this episode of You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies. I'm so excited to share this one with you. I really love everyone involved. This was a trip. This was a trip. So I can't wait to go on that trip. Hello, Crystal and Ariel.

Speaker 2:
[05:50] Hi.

Speaker 3:
[05:51] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[05:52] How are you doing today? Crystal, why don't you kick us off because you have brought us this fine film.

Speaker 2:
[05:59] I am fantastic. I mean, any evening I get to spend talking about Showgirls is a good evening.

Speaker 1:
[06:06] How do people know you outside of people who listen to this show because they have been graced with your presence before?

Speaker 2:
[06:11] So I am a drag artist. I was on RuPaul's Drag Race UK Season One. I am a DJ, I'm a political commentator, and I'm also a podcaster, and I have a podcast called Camp Classics, which now you understand why I've brought you Showgirls.

Speaker 1:
[06:26] Yes, absolutely. I feel like the president of Camp Classics.

Speaker 2:
[06:29] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:30] Ariel, when I knew we were talking about this movie, I knew I needed you here with us.

Speaker 3:
[06:36] You're too kind.

Speaker 1:
[06:37] I felt like that was important.

Speaker 3:
[06:41] Well, I'm just so grateful that you thought of me.

Speaker 1:
[06:45] Oh, my gosh. Of course I did. Tell us about you before we get going.

Speaker 3:
[06:49] Sure. I'm Ariel Demure. I am an adult film actress. I have been dabbling in writing, directing, all that jazz. And Showgirls is a hometown favorite, a childhood classic. You know, it's a fantastic prerequisite for any horror dabbling in this industry, I think.

Speaker 1:
[07:12] You have a background in clubs, that is true?

Speaker 3:
[07:15] Yeah. If you can call them that. I worked at several different strip clubs over my tenure as a stage performer. And unfortunately, there just aren't enough anymore. So you're hard pressed finding a good one that really captures the full breadth of what's necessary to make a dollar in those places.

Speaker 1:
[07:37] Oh, my gosh. A tragedy. Crystal, what is your relationship with Showgirls and why is this a movie that you are eager to bring to us?

Speaker 2:
[07:48] Yeah. How long have you got? I must have seen this first probably on TV after midnight with a friend. I would probably saw the HBO cut where they had added bikinis on to everyone.

Speaker 3:
[08:03] Oh, my God. It confused me to no end for years.

Speaker 2:
[08:07] Do you know about this, Alex?

Speaker 1:
[08:08] That's horrifying. No.

Speaker 3:
[08:11] Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2:
[08:12] Yes. They digitally added black bikinis on everyone whenever there was tits out.

Speaker 3:
[08:17] And it was done on like Miss Paint. So it was terribly sketched out sheet of print bikini on top of Elizabeth Berkley's side kicking What's His Name.

Speaker 2:
[08:31] It's what the movie deserves.

Speaker 1:
[08:33] My God.

Speaker 2:
[08:34] It didn't deserve more. Or maybe it did. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[08:36] I was shocked while watching this. How much nudity there is in this movie.

Speaker 2:
[08:40] Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 1:
[08:42] Like for a movie that came out that people talked about, I was like, it's hard to find a scene where there are not several Ariel is up in it.

Speaker 2:
[08:51] So then my next viewing would have been in my 20s when I had a boyfriend who was really into like camp and counterculture and he was like, you need to watch this movie to be a good gay person. I then became a drag queen and kind of named myself after Crystal Connors. And I've seen this movie so many times. This used to be the movie that I would like show to anyone when I first met them to be like you need to see this magnificent masterpiece. I've participated in screenings of it that are live. The only thing I haven't done is actually feature it on my own podcast because I actually kind of don't know where to begin. So this is like a good way to do it.

Speaker 1:
[09:27] Trial run.

Speaker 2:
[09:28] My relationship with it has evolved over all of those years and it's gone from being something I just love to something I kind of view a bit more critically, but we can get into all of that as we go on.

Speaker 1:
[09:38] Ariel, what's your relationship with Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls?

Speaker 3:
[09:43] The low-budget colligula. I think the first time I saw it might have even been on TNT or TBS or something.

Speaker 1:
[09:52] Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:
[09:53] Yeah, probably not TBS. That doesn't seem apropos, but it was definitely on cable television because we didn't have HBO. And it was the heavily edited version. And it fascinated me because it was so beautiful. And Elizabeth Berkley was so gorgeous. And Gina Gershon was so gorgeous that I didn't really even grasp what the movie was about. I just liked looking at it and aesthetically, it made me so happy. And then when I got older and realized, oh, wow, there's a touch of sex and nudity in this film that I thought I had known and I was able to appreciate it. It just boggled me why people thought it was a bad movie. It didn't make sense to me because I just thought, you've got all this stuff going on and it's all so beautiful. And then they're just like fucking each other all over the place. Like who doesn't like this stuff? It just didn't make sense to me. And ever since then, I've just tried to get every lowly creature to watch this movie. That means so much to me because I just think it's so wonderful. It plays with so many different archetypes. You've got like the all about Eve aspect of it. And you've got like this very campy over the top performance, like Busby Berkeley almost situation, but with tits. It's just so fun. I just love it.

Speaker 1:
[11:22] Beautiful. I was surprised to find that I have never watched this from start to finish. This is something I have only caught, I think, similarly butchered on cable. Maybe have watched like part of it over time. And they're all parts that I knew about, but then had never watched it. And what really made me happy was as a huge... What's the movie that had Kristen Stewart in it that came out a couple years ago? The bodybuilding movie.

Speaker 2:
[11:46] Love Lies Bleeding?

Speaker 1:
[11:47] Yeah, totally. I love Love Lies Bleeding so much. I didn't realize how much of it was partial homage to Showgirls. So it was very nice going there.

Speaker 3:
[11:55] I never even noticed.

Speaker 2:
[11:56] Yeah. Wow. I cannot wait to hear your first impressions on some of the excellent Joe Esther House dialogue.

Speaker 3:
[12:06] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:07] I wish I could hear some of those lines for the first time again.

Speaker 1:
[12:10] Yeah. Some of the like, I mean, just like the children in the dressing room was such a big piece and how profanity, just like the contrast between profanity and sort of incredible nudity. Her boss saying, it must be weird that when they don't come on you, like the whole movie.

Speaker 2:
[12:28] He says that and there's like a tender score that comes in. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[12:32] It's like her dad.

Speaker 2:
[12:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[12:33] Her dad and her mom came by. Her mom whose tits forcefully pop out of the dress all the time. Her daddy talks about cum. The lines are great, obviously, but I am so taken by whatever character direction each character got. Because I don't know what Elizabeth Berkeley is going through at any given moment in this movie. And I love that.

Speaker 3:
[12:57] Yeah. She wanted to be a grown up version of Jessie from Saved by the Bell. So she said, I've just got to be on edge. I've just got to be so full of angst.

Speaker 2:
[13:06] Caffeine pills.

Speaker 3:
[13:07] To break this character. I thought she was terrific.

Speaker 1:
[13:12] I thought so, too. I thought so, too. I think any crap she got, I feel like, was misguided because I think she did what she was asked to do extraordinarily well.

Speaker 2:
[13:22] Yeah, I mean, it all should have ended up on Paul Verhoeven's lap, who is on record as saying, like, go bigger, go bigger, go bigger to her constantly.

Speaker 1:
[13:30] And she did.

Speaker 2:
[13:31] And telling her she was doing great.

Speaker 3:
[13:33] So, wow.

Speaker 1:
[13:34] Nailed it. All right, I'm going to try. And Crystal, you as an expert in this arena, please jump in wherever necessary. But I'm going to try to sum up what happens here. Nomi Malone, that's her name. Great name.

Speaker 3:
[13:52] Baptismal. What's her baptismal name?

Speaker 2:
[13:54] They don't make names like that in movies anymore.

Speaker 1:
[13:57] They don't. They don't. Nomi Malone goes to Vegas. She's on her way to Vegas. She gets picked up as a hitchhiker by a man who steals her stuff. And then she meets Molly, who becomes her roommate and inexplicably is nice to her. Not inexplicably the first time, but she continues being nice, despite the fact that Nomi is like a trapped tiger in a house at all times.

Speaker 2:
[14:21] Even the first time, like, I'm sorry, if you see someone beating up your car and then nearly falling into the road and then throwing up, it's the first thing like lesbian tension want to move in. It's a baffling choice for Molly.

Speaker 3:
[14:38] You got to start somewhere. Yeah, it was before Tinder.

Speaker 1:
[14:43] Yeah, you used to have to pick people up by intervening upon them beating up your car in Vegas.

Speaker 3:
[14:49] That's how I met my first husband.

Speaker 1:
[14:54] We I do want to revisit most inexplicable places. I have to pick people up, but that's for the conversation.

Speaker 2:
[15:00] Nomi has this orbit. If you meet Nomi, you will become obsessed with her. You will orient your whole life around her, and that happens to basically every character in this movie. So Molly's just the first victim of Nomi's strange appeal.

Speaker 1:
[15:13] Nomi is like a Linchean character. She has a weird power over everybody. I mean, Kyle McLaughlin being in this doesn't help that sort of the desire to that character comparison, but she does feel like she drifted in from a Linche movie. Yeah. So yeah, everyone you're right. Everyone is taken by her. Molly takes her in and is like, hey, be my roommate, and also work with me at Cheetahs in Vegas. There is a Cheetahs in Vegas, right? Is that not made up?

Speaker 3:
[15:38] There's a Cheetahs everywhere. My mother worked at Cheetahs. It's a kind of just blanket name. It's a common name. I don't think any of them are really affiliated with each other.

Speaker 1:
[15:48] Got it.

Speaker 3:
[15:48] But there are publicly traded strip clubs now, which is cool.

Speaker 1:
[15:52] It's really amazing.

Speaker 3:
[15:53] So you can actually have stock in a strip club now.

Speaker 1:
[15:56] But I love it.

Speaker 3:
[15:57] Yeah. I'm sure that there's like a few Cheetahs in Vegas.

Speaker 2:
[16:01] Have you ever been to the Cheetah?

Speaker 3:
[16:03] I don't think so.

Speaker 1:
[16:04] Well, I've been to the LA one a bunch.

Speaker 2:
[16:06] Right. Okay. No one's ever been to the Cheetah in Vegas. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[16:09] I don't think so. I'm never really there when I'm at the strip club. You know, I don't know who that person is.

Speaker 1:
[16:19] We could talk about that for an hour.

Speaker 2:
[16:22] I don't know what you're good at, darling, but it ain't dancing.

Speaker 3:
[16:27] If you work at the Cheetah.

Speaker 1:
[16:29] Oh my gosh. So yeah, she goes to work at Cheetahs, which is run by Al. How would we describe Al?

Speaker 2:
[16:36] Greasy. Sweaty.

Speaker 3:
[16:39] Authentic.

Speaker 1:
[16:41] Authentic.

Speaker 3:
[16:43] Transparent.

Speaker 1:
[16:45] The first time we see him, he communicates by snapping both of his fingers and pointing to the room and that shuts everybody up. That's Al. He also suggests that your life will go easier if you give him a blowjob.

Speaker 3:
[16:56] Doesn't it always.

Speaker 1:
[17:00] So she goes to work at Cheetahs, where she learns pole dancing. And then time passes sort of wildly in this movie. It's kind of hard to tell how long any of this takes. But into the club comes Gina Gershon's character, Crystal. Right. And Kyle McLaughlin, who I will only call Kyle McLaughlin. Like, that's just what I'm going to call him. And that is his name in this movie. And she has been announced already as a famous showgirl who's going to lead a show.

Speaker 2:
[17:29] No, so we've already seen the show. Nomi's gone with Molly to work.

Speaker 1:
[17:35] Oh, yes.

Speaker 2:
[17:35] And she saw the show. She saw Crystal come out of the volcano. And we learn we can already see in Nomi's face that she wants that. She wants to be a dancer. She's already mimicking the motions that Crystal's doing on stage. And we see the fire in her eyes. We see the hunger. She wants what Crystal's got. And then they have that interaction in the dressing room where Crystal implies that she's a sex worker, not a dancer. First of many references to nails. And then we cut to the club. And Crystal's come to check out Nomi.

Speaker 1:
[18:08] Well, what's important also about that, and I'm glad that you brought us back to that scene, is what's important about that scene is Nomi in her perpetual illustration of a total lack of chill is visiting her friend at work, essentially. She's like, her friend is like, come see this show. It's gonna be awesome. And Nomi cannot help herself but to be a total fucking asshole to Crystal backstage. Even though Crystal was an asshole first, I just love that she has no bedside manner, just she'll burn you down.

Speaker 2:
[18:37] She's such a self advocate.

Speaker 3:
[18:41] I was gonna say she's probably from Ohio, but yeah. That too.

Speaker 2:
[18:48] No, I'm sorry. We know where she's from.

Speaker 1:
[18:50] Which is?

Speaker 2:
[18:52] Different places. Different places.

Speaker 1:
[18:58] Earlier, I can't. Has she yet met the dance guy? What's that guy's name?

Speaker 2:
[19:04] That guy's name is James. And no, she has not met the dance guy.

Speaker 1:
[19:10] The first half hour of this movie, 17 things happened, and I could not tell you what succession they happened in.

Speaker 2:
[19:15] I think I might have just gotten it wrong, actually. But it's fine. We're close enough.

Speaker 3:
[19:20] Well, she's wearing the pink fringe. That's like after they see the show, no?

Speaker 2:
[19:24] Yeah. She calls in sick to work, says she's got her period, and they go to the club and they're dancing to David Bowie. And she meets James. There's a fight and she knees him in the crotch.

Speaker 1:
[19:37] Yeah, because he says that she can't dance accurately. He accurately assesses that her Lane style dancing is not ideal, which he later takes back so hard in like 10 minutes. Also, the soundtrack to this movie is incredible.

Speaker 2:
[19:55] Susie and the Banshees, Prince.

Speaker 1:
[19:57] My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult.

Speaker 2:
[19:58] David Bowie.

Speaker 1:
[19:59] Incredible.

Speaker 3:
[20:00] What was the other movie he had just done before this one, like in classic big budget?

Speaker 2:
[20:05] Basic Instinct.

Speaker 3:
[20:06] There we go.

Speaker 2:
[20:08] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[20:09] So they trusted him. He had the budget.

Speaker 1:
[20:12] Yeah. And James, despite the fact that she needs him in a fight that she essentially starts at the club that he works at. James is always working some odd job where he interacts with her. James bails her out and is like, you want to dance? I'll teach you to dance. And then he's like kind of her Jiminy Cricket. He's like her sex negative Jiminy Cricket, her sex worker hating Jiminy Cricket. That's what he is. I can't tell what the morality of this movie is and it might not matter. Yeah. She's now at the club. Crystal and Kyle show up. Crystal takes the initiative to buy a dance from Nomi for Kyle that she's going to watch. And the energy and acrobatics of this dance, how would we describe it?

Speaker 3:
[20:56] Inaccurate.

Speaker 2:
[20:57] Frenzied, flopping.

Speaker 1:
[20:59] Yeah. Is it inaccurate, Ariel?

Speaker 3:
[21:02] You know, well, I mean, that's a lot of room you've got to have to hit those moves, you know? I've never danced in a bathroom that big, but I've never danced at the cheetah. Just the fact that the dance ends with coming in the pants is so bizarre to me because he is, he must, there's something wrong with him. There's something deeply wrong with this man. He obviously is a premature ejaculator, chronically. There's nothing erotic about the dance, which is confusing to me.

Speaker 1:
[21:36] She like two hours later says, I liked it when you came.

Speaker 3:
[21:41] Beautiful, young love. But his dick must have been broken off by the end of it. There's no way to receive any joy from that lap dance.

Speaker 1:
[21:51] Yeah, she's dancing like she's on a pogo stick.

Speaker 2:
[21:53] Oh, absolutely. It's the harpooned dolphin.

Speaker 3:
[21:58] Ouch.

Speaker 2:
[22:00] Yeah, it would be really hard to get someone to come in their pants from a lap dance anyway, I can only presume. But the fact that it happens from that, that man is kinky or broken.

Speaker 1:
[22:14] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[22:15] Then you've got Crystal Connors just doing blow and being incredibly predatory in the corner, and it's a perfect scene.

Speaker 3:
[22:22] I thought it was supporting.

Speaker 1:
[22:23] Crystal Connors is perhaps the sexiest character I've ever seen or experienced in any movie. She's psychotic. She's she's heavily on drugs. She is always trying to touch someone's tits. Like, I love her so much.

Speaker 2:
[22:42] She's goals.

Speaker 3:
[22:43] Yeah, legit.

Speaker 2:
[22:44] You can push her down the stairs and she'll just ask you for a kiss.

Speaker 1:
[22:48] She's like, I taught you well, sweetie. Yeah, kiss up. I love her.

Speaker 3:
[22:56] Gina Garshon did an interview not too long ago where they were like, what do you think Crystal Connors is up to now? And she's like, she probably owns property. She's probably just like she did like a little club day and now she's just got a bunch of cats. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[23:13] I love her.

Speaker 3:
[23:14] She basically said she's Heidi Fleiss. But yeah, yeah, the way that she described her. Oh, she said she has a bunch of birds. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[23:25] Yeah, she's doing a Heidi in Vegas. So James, by the way, while this is happening, James just walks into the club and watches this occur. Next day, they are in a car together. She's eating a cheeseburger like I've never seen somebody eat a cheeseburger.

Speaker 3:
[23:41] Well, she's fight or flight, you know, she lives at fight or flight. So she doesn't want you to steal her cheeseburger.

Speaker 1:
[23:48] Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3:
[23:49] She has to protect it.

Speaker 1:
[23:50] That's right. Yeah, she's really going to town on the cheeseburger. And James reveals to her that she can dance. However, she fucked Kyle and Gina. Not literally, but the exchange that was happening is ultimately, she's doing sex work, which in this movie is bad. Like in the movie, it's like sex work is bad. And dancing and art is good. But you can accidentally get tripped up on getting to one via the other and things get messy. Like, that's what a lot of the characters believe. I don't know what the movie believes, and I don't think the movie knows what it believes.

Speaker 3:
[24:29] That's Vegas, baby. You know, like that's that's the movie. She gets in, fucks up, gets out. Did you win?

Speaker 1:
[24:41] I can't wait until we start talking about what the movie believes that it's saying, and I am excited. This is like maybe my new favorite movie, so I will be talking about this a lot in my life. I've texted so many people that you and I both know, Ariel, about this movie, and they're just like, welcome.

Speaker 2:
[24:58] Literally, we covered Total Recall on this movie, and you struck me as a Paul Verhoeven head, so I am just shocked that you've missed this. And I'm I'm so excited for you.

Speaker 1:
[25:09] I think I wasn't ready to go there with Jessie Spano yet.

Speaker 2:
[25:12] Fair.

Speaker 3:
[25:14] Yeah, very fair.

Speaker 1:
[25:15] We were too close.

Speaker 3:
[25:16] It's weird at first. It's really weird seeing her do all that stuff with her body. And she needs to be Jessie.

Speaker 1:
[25:22] I am not. I'm not kidding. I think like in the 90s, I was like, I'll be ready for this someday. But like Jessie and I, like we have a thing and I don't want to go there. Someday in 30 years, I will watch this movie. Yeah, I'm a real sweetie at the end of the day. So he's like, I'm going to teach you how to dance. And they do they fuck or do they get close to fucking? Like is it more because she doesn't fuck unless she's in love.

Speaker 2:
[25:53] Yeah, she's on her period. Also that he doesn't believe her. She says, check. He says, I've got towels. And she leaves without having sex with him. She can kind of tell he's a bit of a playboy that he's not really trying to teach her how to dance. And, you know, he can fuck her when he loves her.

Speaker 1:
[26:11] Yeah, like how do we feel about James as a character? He says he has a problem with pussy later, his words. And he is an artist. She's very concerned about his relationship with love and sex and marriage. Like she asks him sort of questions about this. Yeah. How do we feel about James?

Speaker 3:
[26:30] He's just kind of like an example of tragedy. Like the way that society has shaped men. He's very like traditional and certain aspects of his life. Like he wants a regular life, but he's still allowed to have his extracurriculars and he's a man. So it's totally OK. And he doesn't see the problem with it for him. But Jesse Spano is not allowed to the same luxuries, you know, because he's a man and he's allowed to.

Speaker 1:
[26:57] Totally. He's like at the end of the day, like you're not doing your art, you're just dancing, you're fucking, you're a whore. But like everyone who comes to his house to learn how to dance gets.

Speaker 2:
[27:09] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:10] James.

Speaker 2:
[27:11] I think the movie thinks that he's like the least bad, terrible guy. And potentially the movie kind of thinks he's a little bit the one who got away, but also he's his own cautionary tale. I think he's kind of showing that there isn't really a way out for Nomi in this world. Like it's either you end up with this guy and you have to work at a grocery store and you know, bag groceries, or you end up selling out in a different way. But James is a confusing character. And I think the movie doesn't really know what it thinks.

Speaker 1:
[27:40] I was like not so confused until we later go to his show.

Speaker 2:
[27:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:45] That Penny is in. And then I was like, oh, are we supposed to like James? Like I was confused.

Speaker 2:
[27:52] And if we are, why are we supposed to like him when he's just called his pregnant girlfriend a bitch?

Speaker 1:
[27:56] I was surprised. Anyway, James kind of doesn't matter. James is a stop along the way. James is the first person who is like, you could do more and believes that, but he's doing it for manipulative reasons. So Crystal, who has hired Nomi to bring Kyle to completion in the back room, she's ultimately the reason, right, that Nomi is invited to come work at her show.

Speaker 2:
[28:21] Yeah. Nomi gets an audition because of Crystal.

Speaker 1:
[28:24] In the audition, what is this guy's name? Is this Tony Moss?

Speaker 2:
[28:27] That's Tony Moss.

Speaker 1:
[28:29] Tell us about Tony Moss.

Speaker 2:
[28:31] Well, he's got a reputation for being a prick, and he's worked very hard for that reputation.

Speaker 1:
[28:36] He loves ice.

Speaker 2:
[28:38] He loves ice. He can't use you if you can't sell, he can't use you if you can't show, and he's got a topless show here for crying out loud. So let me see your tits. That's Tony Moss.

Speaker 3:
[28:50] He has one of my favorite quotes, which is, I'm a wrecked, why aren't you? And he's like, that was so beautiful. It's so sweet. He's such a helper.

Speaker 1:
[29:02] I read him as an evil gay until he gave that line. I'm still not convinced.

Speaker 2:
[29:07] Tony Moss is the mirror image to Al at the Cheetah. They're the same man, but one's got a bit more clout.

Speaker 1:
[29:14] One's got a nicer car.

Speaker 2:
[29:16] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[29:16] And he's got a whole process where he sees, where we see him selecting the women who are going to go forward in the show, and it just, it requires a good deal of verbal assault one after another. Highly personal verbal assault. Did any of that ring experientially true, Ariel?

Speaker 3:
[29:33] No, I never had to audition for anything. You kind of just show up in this industry, but it reminded me of the chorus line, just way more festive. Just so much sassier. I was great.

Speaker 1:
[29:48] Nomi gets into the show after much ado. For plot reasons, we realize in order to be in the show, she has to go to HR and give a lot of information about who she is, and this is where we start to see that she's clearly hiding stuff about her life. She reveals to Kyle that she loves Versace, which is probably iconic, I assume, based on the exchange.

Speaker 2:
[30:13] No one has ever said Versace correctly since.

Speaker 3:
[30:17] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[30:17] No gay person.

Speaker 1:
[30:22] She's starting to move up. She's with Molly and she sees some dress that she wants, and Molly is like, oh, I could make that for you. She's like, no, I actually want to buy this dress. She's starting to see some of the fruits of her labor and the abuse that she has to go through in order to get those opportunities. Yeah, so she's now in Goddess, which is great. This is the again, this is the show that Crystal is playing the lead in. She gets hired by this guy who has some relationship with Kyle McLaughlin that I don't really know what it is ultimately, who hires her to go to a trade show for $1,000. And literally anybody is like, obviously this is bad. She goes to the trade show for $1,000 and it is very clearly an opportunity to.

Speaker 3:
[31:04] That's totally reeled out.

Speaker 1:
[31:06] Yeah, right, right.

Speaker 3:
[31:07] That really happened. That's super authentic. That's not storytelling. That's documentation. That's documentary style.

Speaker 1:
[31:14] Yeah, I figured there was some some truths here. And it's a little bit maybe more of a straightforward broker situation maybe these days than 1995, but it's really hard to tell. And then she's disgusted that she, you know, she went in as a dancer and she went in as a as a model and they wanted something more.

Speaker 2:
[31:32] The innuendo here is Did you ever hear Caesar sing? Which will come back again later in the movie. But that's that's how the movie propositions know me. They're like, you ever hear Caesar sing? You'll love it. And Caesar is, I guess, a man who performs at, I don't know, at Caesar's palace. I don't know. But at the end of the movie, Caesar is there and he is singing.

Speaker 1:
[31:58] Oh, amazing. I'm glad that you are here because that is not a connection, I would admit. She goes to Kyle and is like, this is what happened. This is an outrage. Kyle brings the guy in, has a fake exchange with him in which he is like, don't do that. You're bad. You'll get fired if you do it again. Is it from this situation where she's like sort of dealing with this with Kyle that she uses this as an opportunity or he uses it as an opportunity to place her in the position of being Crystal's understudy?

Speaker 2:
[32:28] Yeah, that's right. So she's kind of impressed by him because he stands up for her, so she thinks. And so I think she thinks he's a genuine guy. So they have sex. And that's then he offers her the opportunity to audition for Crystal's understudy.

Speaker 1:
[32:43] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[32:44] So they have there's the whole pool scene.

Speaker 3:
[32:46] I was going to say, is this the pool scene? Yeah, because we're not skipping over the pool scene.

Speaker 1:
[32:50] Yeah, where she fucks his abdomen as hard as possible, the lower part of his ribs.

Speaker 3:
[32:55] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:56] The alligator, the harpooned dolphin.

Speaker 3:
[32:59] Yeah. The death clinch. Oh my God. It's just swirling.

Speaker 2:
[33:03] And it's her signature move.

Speaker 1:
[33:05] She goes down for his dick at some point, like she's shaking the hand of an old man first. That's how she starts.

Speaker 3:
[33:12] It's incredible. It's people like that who write porn. People who've never actually had penetrative sex before are the ones that are in control of how sex is portrayed.

Speaker 2:
[33:25] Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[33:26] Like we have no power, people who are actually good at it. We're just letting a couple of Mormons just jab fucking pelvises.

Speaker 2:
[33:34] Who, based on this movie, Joe Astorhouse, I can only assume has never had sex and never met a woman.

Speaker 3:
[33:41] Yeah, I like the, I like a woman's hole. It's the belly button, right? That's where it goes.

Speaker 2:
[33:46] I think they talk about nails a lot and chips. What would women talk about?

Speaker 3:
[33:52] I love Doggie Chow.

Speaker 1:
[33:54] We haven't even talked about Henrietta Bazoo.

Speaker 3:
[33:57] Bless her.

Speaker 1:
[33:58] Her jokes. I'm sure that'll come up later, but she's amazing.

Speaker 3:
[34:03] Heaven sent. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:04] Really? Yeah, totally amazing. I just like mechanics of the apparatus of the dress that's supposed to reveal her bare breasts many times over is my favorite. Like the backstory for this character, which we never get and never need. I love her.

Speaker 3:
[34:19] And they had an opportunity because did you know that they made a sequel to this movie?

Speaker 2:
[34:24] No.

Speaker 3:
[34:25] Called Pennies from Heaven.

Speaker 1:
[34:28] No way.

Speaker 2:
[34:30] Rena Riffle, who plays Penny.

Speaker 3:
[34:32] Well, there's Penny got her spin-off.

Speaker 2:
[34:34] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:34] You know, I was watching this movie and I was like, I'd love more of Penny.

Speaker 2:
[34:41] When we say they made a sequel, I think you'll find that Rena Riffle, who plays Penny wrote, directed and starred in a sequel.

Speaker 1:
[34:49] No, no.

Speaker 2:
[34:51] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[34:51] That's fabulous.

Speaker 1:
[34:52] That's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[34:54] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[34:54] That's beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[34:55] Maybe she'll come on.

Speaker 2:
[34:56] She also appears in Striptease the next year, playing basically Penny.

Speaker 1:
[35:00] Oh, that's good for her.

Speaker 3:
[35:02] That's a universe I want to be a part of.

Speaker 1:
[35:04] Get those pennies. Yeah, so they they fuck. She is high both on drugs and on life about this, goes back, sees Molly and Molly is like, don't let this take you under basically. You're getting too close to the sun. Arguably, I think this is probably the transition into the third act. This is where things are as high as they can be. Then in classic casino or Goodfellas fashion, we're just going to watch stuff fall apart at the seams. Pulling the strings in all of this is Crystal. Crystal is the one who organized for her to go to the trade show or set that situation up. I can't quite tell. Again, it may not matter what Crystal's motivations are outside of just like she's so horny all the time. I think her horniness drives her to puppet master interesting situations for her biggest crush in the world to get in, but I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[36:03] That's part of it. Then the other thing is that she sees herself in Nomi.

Speaker 3:
[36:08] That's what I was thinking.

Speaker 2:
[36:09] Yeah, she wants to show Nomi that what she's become is the only way for her.

Speaker 3:
[36:15] She's testing her.

Speaker 2:
[36:16] Yeah, she's putting Nomi in situations where she's like, I'm going to make you have to sell out because that's what I had to do, and you just need to grow up basically and realize that you are a sellout. We're all whores here. You just think you're better than us, but you're not.

Speaker 3:
[36:31] God, there's so many great quotes. We're all whores, darling. I mean, I've said that two times today.

Speaker 1:
[36:39] That's why you're here. I've talked about this a lot in the show before, there will be these times where I'll be close with someone or be friendly with someone who's like 10 years my junior. And I don't realize that I'm like being mean to them. And then I realize I'm being mean to them because they remind me exactly of me 10 years ago. And I think that I'm like teaching them something and I'm not. I'm just like taking shit out of my past.

Speaker 2:
[37:01] Right.

Speaker 1:
[37:03] Which is what Crystal's doing the entire movie, but in a much harder way than I ever have.

Speaker 2:
[37:07] Yeah, in a in a real bisexual way.

Speaker 1:
[37:12] So she is not again, she is not seen abreast that she has not immediately sort of formed an intimate connection with. And we love that about her in this movie in particular. And so, oh, and by the way, I was moderately shocked when this became a rape revenge film. And we will talk about that. Not an element of the movie that I knew existed. I'm bringing it up because we need I need to introduce this character. But I can't even tell like what the binary for this kind of character this this pop star is or this guy. He's like kind of Billy Ray Cyrus coated, but kind of maybe right. Like what kind of music do we think this guy makes?

Speaker 3:
[37:51] Yeah, it's like hair rock mixed with like, oh, dog.

Speaker 2:
[37:56] We hear his music. It's adult contemporary.

Speaker 1:
[37:59] No, like Brian Adams.

Speaker 2:
[38:00] Yeah, it's like Brian Adams. Yeah. No way. It's kind of Phil Collins. His song plays on the background throughout the movie constantly. It's always on the radio. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:13] And yeah, so this is what is this guy's name?

Speaker 2:
[38:15] Andrew Carver.

Speaker 1:
[38:16] Andrew Carver is Molly's favorite performer. And this scene would have been believable generally because of life and anybody you know. But like this seems like especially believable in the light of how much the upstein files of it all is happening right now, where it's like, you're like, oh, sure. Somehow my favorite band from 10 years ago is named to these. And then this we're going to we're going to get there. But I just want to make sure we're talking about Andrew Carver because he's about to show up. Nomi's on top of the world. Things are working well for Nomi. She's getting closer and closer to whatever her goals were, because we don't even know what her goals are. Her goals were to like escape her weird past. And now she's suddenly racing up a ladder. And is it before or after the Andrew surprise that she pushes Crystal?

Speaker 2:
[39:05] Before. So she's just been named Crystal's understudy. And then they have like a kind of confrontation on stage in that biker look. And Crystal's really taunting Nomi and Nomi's had enough. And so she pushes Crystal down the stairs.

Speaker 3:
[39:19] We didn't even touch on the pearls.

Speaker 2:
[39:21] I know.

Speaker 1:
[39:22] Tell us about the pearls.

Speaker 3:
[39:23] Well, I can't remember where chronologically it happens, but she kind of creates this bond. I mean, it's not even a bond. Everyone's real catty backstage and everyone's always fighting with each other. But then the gal with the suspicious hairstyle is particularly rude. Is particularly rude because she has a child, right? She's got a baby. And so the kid's acting up. And then one of the gals backstage is like, can you get your fucking kid out of here? A reasonable request.

Speaker 1:
[39:57] Yeah, totally. There should be signs up about that.

Speaker 2:
[40:01] Especially because those children are wearing so much makeup. They are contoured.

Speaker 3:
[40:08] But I guess that like kind of is the catalyst for, oh, I'm just going to fuck this bitch up. And down come a fistful of pearls, which sends that mouthy gal packing.

Speaker 2:
[40:22] That creates the opportunity for someone to audition for the understudy part.

Speaker 3:
[40:26] That's what it was.

Speaker 1:
[40:27] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[40:28] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[40:29] And also, while this is happening, Crystal exerts her power in some way that affects Nomi's work that I can't quite remember what is happening. And then Nomi goes and confronts her. And Crystal's like, I've changed my mind. Can you do my nails? Meaning like you're completely because Nomi called her old.

Speaker 2:
[40:46] Yeah, Crystal doesn't want Nomi as her understudy, which I guess I don't really understand why Crystal's so dead set against that, but she doesn't and she blocks.

Speaker 3:
[40:55] She's not ready.

Speaker 2:
[40:56] Yeah, she blocks Nomi and that's what leads Nomi to push her down the stairs.

Speaker 1:
[41:00] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:00] Which is also a test in and of itself because that's a recurrent theme throughout it. It's that there's always someone younger and hungrier.

Speaker 1:
[41:07] Right. And so one person sees or I don't even know what the gender events is, but Nomi obviously pushes Crystal down the stairs. Everyone has kind of turned on Nomi because of her ambition and it looks like she's fucking Kyle for the work. But to her credit, I think she's just fucking Kyle and gets the work. And also, I don't care. I don't care what you have to do. That is happening. And everyone's like, oh, obviously Nomi pushed her down the stairs. And then is it the woman with the questionable hairstyle?

Speaker 3:
[41:40] Suspicious hairstyle. Yes, it is.

Speaker 1:
[41:42] Yeah, this is suspicious hairstyle.

Speaker 3:
[41:44] We've got to stick together.

Speaker 1:
[41:45] Yeah, she's like, I saw it. Nomi didn't do it. And then later on at this terrible pool party is like, is there an opportunity for me to be an understudy? Which is basically like being asked, is there an opportunity for me to push you down the stairs?

Speaker 3:
[42:05] Elevator only. No more stairs for Nomi. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[42:11] And okay, so we're at the party.

Speaker 2:
[42:13] Nomi's been named the new lead.

Speaker 1:
[42:16] Yes. Yes, she's been named the new lead because the show must go on.

Speaker 2:
[42:22] They could have brought anyone into this show.

Speaker 3:
[42:24] They could have brought Janet, Paula.

Speaker 1:
[42:26] They said Paula Abdul's name in a way that made me curious that that was ever a possibility, the pronunciation they were using. I was like, have they heard of Paula Abdul?

Speaker 3:
[42:36] How did they say it?

Speaker 1:
[42:38] I can't even remember. I was just taking, it was that 80-year-old man. I was like, I'm not surprised that he is watching this. Maybe we'll play a clip here.

Speaker 2:
[42:45] Janet Jackson.

Speaker 3:
[42:46] Paula Abdul. Paula Abdul in my show.

Speaker 2:
[42:49] I'm not going to pay those kinds of salaries.

Speaker 1:
[42:53] But yes, she now has the role. She's there with Molly, her BFF, her person who has helped her get here. Molly for like six minutes was like, I'm worried about you because you're not the type of person who pushes your friends down the stairs. But also, I can't wait to come to this party with you and meet my dude, Andrew.

Speaker 3:
[43:09] Priorities.

Speaker 1:
[43:10] Priorities. It seems like it's set up where Andrew is ultimately going to hang with Nomi. And then Nomi is like, here's my friend Molly, who's your biggest fan. Molly is taken to a room by Andrew and like in a just a horrendous rape scene. There's a coordinated effort between these like four guys who essentially were led to believe gang raping. Yeah. And then she lands at the hospital where Nomi is there with Kyle. And Kyle's talking to the guy who set her up in the trade show situation earlier. He has a file clearly on Nomi that has her name in it and has her background. And when she confronts Kyle and is like, hey, why are the police not here? In a classic sort of Epstein files classic, he's like, we're all in the same team. Like we all work together. Like you work for this enterprise. This stuff happens. He works for the enterprise too. We have to cover that up. And yeah, not great. Woof.

Speaker 2:
[44:10] Really, really terrible. This is also where he reveals that, you know, her past, her real name is Pollyanne. She used to be a sex worker. She's been, you know, busted for drugs and solicitation. And basically is like things he has are over a barrel being like, I know the truth about you, but like, I'm going to let you stay at the Stardust and be a big star. You just have to forget what you know about Andrew Carver.

Speaker 1:
[44:37] Yeah. And that's I mean, it's just straight up Faustian bargain at the end of the movie is they're like, you can have it all. But here's this thing, which is like, I mean, not even not just here in the scene, there are so many people that we see get some level of power and attention. And it almost seems like someone has a file on them. Like it really does seem that way where they're like, remember who you work for. And Crystal, that's why I mean, that's why I so admire you. I've never seen someone get so much attention and then try to have it taken away from you at any given moment by way of suing the hands that feed you.

Speaker 3:
[45:12] Fabulous work.

Speaker 2:
[45:13] Thankfully, I'm not being fed by Lawrence Fox.

Speaker 1:
[45:16] No, I know, I know, but you know, it's like once they don't, no one likes to see that you fight back. And so I think that it's, I think the ambition and spectacle with which you have fought back is really fucking amazing.

Speaker 2:
[45:28] Nomi taught me well. What can I say?

Speaker 3:
[45:32] Smart person learns from their mistakes. A wise person learns from other people's mistakes.

Speaker 1:
[45:37] Oh, hell yeah. That's on one of Nomi's t-shirts.

Speaker 3:
[45:40] Nomi taught you everything you needed to know.

Speaker 1:
[45:45] That's a Nomi special.

Speaker 3:
[45:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:47] And then like she it's over and then it's over. Like she leaves.

Speaker 2:
[45:51] No. So then she.

Speaker 1:
[45:52] Oh, no, it's not over. Thank you. Please take it away.

Speaker 3:
[45:55] Oh, oh, God. No, the the redemption. No, it's all OK now. Everything is fine.

Speaker 1:
[46:02] Yeah, we have a real I spit on your grave at the end of this movie, which I love.

Speaker 2:
[46:06] Yeah, you do it, Ariel. What happens?

Speaker 3:
[46:08] Oh, my God. Nomi shows up in her leopard print front zip, two piece ensemble with cheetah print thigh highs, and she beguiles her way into the living quarters of Mr. Carver under the pretense that they're going to engage in eroticism on top of each other with such rousing, fabulous dance moves. She just starts karate chopping them and eating the shit out of this grown man with her tits out, which is so empowering. And it's beautiful. She kicks the shit out of him. It's bloody and fabulous. And then when she leaves, she's like, he's going to be resting for a while. You should leave him alone. Let's just saunter off. And it's so beautiful. And that means everything's okay now.

Speaker 2:
[46:55] Yeah. Yeah. And then Nomi leaves town hitchhiking off to LA to start it all again.

Speaker 3:
[47:03] But not before she says goodbye to her friend. The reason why she became a better person.

Speaker 2:
[47:07] True.

Speaker 3:
[47:08] You know, she left it all behind.

Speaker 2:
[47:10] And not before she sees Crystal Connors in the hospital as well.

Speaker 3:
[47:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[47:14] And they have a big old kiss.

Speaker 1:
[47:16] I love that. I love that it's not like I'm, there's no like, I'm sorry. There's no apologies.

Speaker 3:
[47:23] It's like, they're not sorry.

Speaker 1:
[47:24] No, I taught you well, sweetie. Here's a long, long, wet, wet Gershon kiss.

Speaker 3:
[47:33] She's just so good at those lessee parts. It's beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[47:36] It's amazing. This movie is amazing. Crystal, what's it saying?

Speaker 2:
[47:46] What's it saying? So I think this movie is a skewering of the American dream and of capitalism. You know, we've seen so many movies in this vein from Your Star is Born through to like Burlesque or Coyote Ugly of like Small Town Girl with Big Dreams. Can she make it? And she does make it. This movie twists that whole narrative and says, you can make it, but like, what are you going to have to give up on the way? And it's basically saying there is no American dream. It's all actually a bit of a lie. I love that for this movie. I think it's like the most successful thing about this movie because there's lots of things that aren't successful about this movie. But I think like Paul Verhoeven has a great eye for like understanding what's fucked up about America and like telling you a story about that.

Speaker 3:
[48:36] Beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[48:36] I love it. Ariel, what rings true to you about this movie?

Speaker 3:
[48:41] Crystal, you were saying something and it reminded me of a quote from All About Eve. And it's Margot Channing, Betty Davis, kind of reflecting on how her life is kind of falling apart and she says, It's funny how the things you drop on your way up the ladder you need on your way back down. And I feel like it's kind of a fun, fun, dazzling retelling of like all about Eve, but a little bit more feminist in my interpretation because I'm a cockeyed optimist. And I just feel like it's women inherently being forced to compete with each other and beat each other up in order to excel, but you realize all you have is each other. So you've got to defend one another. And I feel like there's this very knowing understanding with that final scene of like, do you see why we had to do things the way that we did? Because you weren't going to learn any other way. Some people only learn by doing things the hard way. That's why I don't tell anybody anything. I just let them make their own mistakes. But I just feel like it has a good message if you're looking for it, that it's not ultimately worth it if you have to beat each other up to get where you need to be. Because you're not going to be satisfied at the end. And hopefully Nomi just becomes a high-end escort in Los Angeles and then buys property. Because that would make me happy.

Speaker 2:
[50:04] Yeah, I think you're so right, Ariel. We have seen the woman versus woman thing so many times. Even something like Death Becomes Her, which is a couple years before this. The reason they have to be against each other in that movie is because one of them called the other one cheap and the other one stole the other one's man. Whereas in this movie, it's actually examined what is this industry, this structure that is forcing women to be competing with each other, and examining whether or not that's okay, and ultimately ending with the women are actually all cool with each other, and they've navigated their way through with it. I mean, we can talk about the rape stuff, which is a different conversation, but I totally agree with you that I think this movie is surprisingly aware about.

Speaker 3:
[50:49] In certain things.

Speaker 2:
[50:50] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[50:51] I also think it's interesting that sex is always used as a power thing, and every time someone has sex, there's a little bit of power exchange involved in there. The final breaking point for Nomi was, because she's been told being a prostitute is wrong, so sex is inherently just not great in her mind. It's all entangled, and then seeing men take advantage of someone who she cares about. She has no problem pushing women down the stairs, but now you're taking this thing that I already have problems with and you're making it so evil, now I have to beat the shit out of you. Now I'm going to scorch to earth, burn it to the ground, because that's more important to me than what you just did. I like that.

Speaker 1:
[51:38] In all of these stops along the way, Nomi has some period where when she gets to this level, she nostalgically revisits the last level. So when Al and Henrietta or Ms. Bazoum come to visit her, it's like why we're reading that scene so warmly where it's her family from the last place, as fucked up as that family is, is there to say as nice of things as they possibly can to her, and it reminds her of where she just was in a warm fashion after she's under the pressure of this. Molly ultimately is her first friend who gives her first kindness and it's not surprising. I mean, I think Nomi would probably kill or attempt to kill anyone who hurt someone close to her no matter what, but the fact that it's Molly feels like it's really significant. It's like they're all, her going to James' bad show, and being like, this is great, you're great. I think she has rose-colored glasses because she's like, this is not the hell I'm enduring right now. Yeah, I think that there are, I love the line about stuff that you're going to need on your way back down or however that way. It really is a perfect illustration of that phenomenon.

Speaker 2:
[52:48] Yeah, it's so nice.

Speaker 3:
[52:49] One of the big things I take umbrage with, is that the same guy that dropped her off in Vegas, that stole her stuff at the beginning of the movie? That's the one part I take umbrage with in this film because that's crazy. That wouldn't happen.

Speaker 1:
[53:03] We think that that guy just does loops, he just looks for hitchhikers.

Speaker 3:
[53:07] What a lovely life. I feel bad for him.

Speaker 1:
[53:10] Crystal, you are a camp expert. I mean, Ariel, you're also a camp expert, but Crystal, you're a devoted camp analysis expert. Maybe you can tell us why this movie works on that level.

Speaker 2:
[53:22] Well, for me, there's something obviously so delicious about watching someone aim for something so sincerely and to see it kind of flop. I mean, there's always going to be some queer joy in that. And this movie is like textbook that, you know, it was going to be a huge blockbuster that ended up with the most razi nominations of all time. Completely critically panned. And there's something delicious in that. The overacting that is throughout this movie is delicious. The batshit line dialogue about dog food and pushing down the stairs and nails, like it's all so over the top ridiculous. But then I think what's amazing about this movie is that it's coupled with like a really talented and competent filmmaker who's made a really beautiful looking movie. There are so many shots. I have two framed prints from this movie on my wall because I just think this, I think it looks so beautiful. And when you actually get into like the granular nature of the plot even, it's actually kind of surprisingly smart for a movie that is a surface level very stupid. And like the way that the plot mirrors itself, the way that Nomi's journey progresses and you see the choices that she has to make, it's surprisingly nuanced and considered. And so you've got these two extremes of some really good craft happening on one hand and some absolutely bananas bad choices happening on the other hand. And you put those two things together and it's just, it's such a delight.

Speaker 1:
[54:52] I think the hard thing about good or bad choices in something that is coherent camp from start to finish, it's like it starts to not matter, right? It starts to not matter if something was a good choice or a bad choice. And it starts to become difficult to know where intention lies in good or bad choices. And I feel that way. But again, when I said earlier, as I would love to know what the character direction was for Elizabeth Berkeley, it's like, I think that alone, like she's acting again, the Lynch character, she's acting like Frank from Blue Velvet. Like she's so unpredictable and kind of scary and like and hot in a weird. It's not a weird way in this movie. She's like very directly hot. But there's just like, she's a force of nature. And just like that performance alone would have made this movie iconic. And somehow everything else around her also works at that level. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[55:43] Like Gina Gresham just giving full, a full drag performance. Yeah. The lesbian subtext and just regular text throughout this movie, which was pretty wild for the time as well. Like, and then, you know, you just add a lot of breasts on top of that. Like, it's yeah, it's a perfect, perfect recipe.

Speaker 3:
[56:02] Covered in red paint for some reason. Yeah. They painted their Ariolas on babe for some reason.

Speaker 1:
[56:07] I thought she was going to poison him. I thought she was poisoning him.

Speaker 3:
[56:11] Oh, just bizarre.

Speaker 1:
[56:12] Because she's like, how could he not put these in his mouth immediately?

Speaker 3:
[56:14] And of course, oh, God makes no sense. It's beautiful. I love it. I love it so much. It's things like that that just kind of make it stick. And you just remember those little details. There's also like an earnestness and a heart that's behind it. And I know people, generally speaking, think it's kind of like a terrible movie. That's so bad. It's good. But like that dog food line, I mean, if you come from hard times, I just ate milk bones when I was a kid. When I heard that, I was like, oh, I feel seen. Oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[56:48] You know, like, I know for a fact my father did when he was younger.

Speaker 3:
[56:52] It's just kind of like, there's so many different components that you can just see yourself in certain characters or you can identify with certain dynamics or you kind of put yourself like, oh, if I was in that position, it just you become invested in it because you're immediately suspending disbelief. Right off the bat, you're like, okay, I can't. This is just crazy talk. And you're able to like really just let go and enjoy it for what it is. And I feel like that's why it wasn't received well at first because people weren't able to suspend that disbelief and really be taken. It takes time for a classic to become camp. Yeah. Anything that goes out of its way to try and be camp isn't camp inherently because you're missing the thing that makes it special. And it's something that you can't catch in a bottle. It just is. You know, it's so good.

Speaker 2:
[57:42] Yeah. I would just also add, like as a young queer person watching Crystal Connors be this like sexually confident, liberated, no-fucks-given character, that was just so empowering to me. Like as someone who's, you know, when you're reckoning with your own sexuality and trying to figure out what space you're allowed to take up, like seeing that kind of somewhat villainy represented where it's like, she's gone through the other side and she doesn't give a fuck anymore. It's so exciting. It's so empowering. It's so, yeah, it's so aspirational. And like, for some of us, unfortunately, a little too aspirational and then you end up naming yourself after them and becoming a drag queen. But that is also just incredibly camp. I could spend ages just talking about Crystal Connors.

Speaker 3:
[58:26] The characters themselves, you just want to love. I just love all of them. Henrietta and Crystal and Nomi, they're all just so colorful and you're so invested in them and you pattern looks after them. And that's what makes the film so iconic is it's just, you just fall in love with these people that are so deeply involved and that you don't like really while you're watching it. But they just stick in your brain and they've made an impact with their performances, the individuals and I just love it. I love it so much.

Speaker 1:
[59:01] And if you read it literally, you just read it for the text of the movie. All the bad people are bad people. It's like, yes, there's a competition and a forcing of woman versus woman in the movie by way of the structures around them. But the work they're doing is not what makes anyone inherently bad. What makes people inherently bad is they work for the power structure above them. They hide violent and terrible crimes as a means of maintaining and keeping that power structure. But we're never led, again, if you just read the text of the movie to believe that Nomi is in the wrong. Nothing Nomi does. I mean, she pushes Crystal down, but Crystal is like, You did good, girl. You pushed me down like I taught you.

Speaker 3:
[59:44] She wanted her to. She wanted a break.

Speaker 2:
[59:47] I got a big settlement.

Speaker 1:
[59:51] I would love someone to push me down some Vegas stairs. I would love it.

Speaker 3:
[59:55] I mean, that's probably why it has such staying power, because queer people are so fucking in love with the movie, and queer people love that beautiful balance of good and evil in a character. All of the greats that we've patterned our looks after, we're more than often not villains, and it's because we see the heart, we see the motivation, but we also see reclaiming your power and just being so divinely feminine, and that feminine rage is a huge motivator for me as an artist with what I do. This movie is a perfect example of that. Feminine rage and writing the story that you want to be written, not allowing the man to tell you how it's going to go.

Speaker 1:
[60:41] In one thing that I do want to be thankful for is that, I mean, Ariel, I feel like you and I maybe have seen each other in Vegas more than we have in LA, which is where we would likely see each other more often. And I am so grateful for some just like film documentation of Vegas in the 90s. Because it's a decidedly different place. Like it is a fundamentally different place. I actually just saw because of Rose Byrne's, you know, sort of recent successes, a photo shoot of her and Heath Ledger in Las Vegas sometime in the late 90s. And you just see all that like 90s Vegas backdrop. And I'm so grateful for like a movie that takes place in the Vegas 90s because it is a place that I want to go to so badly.

Speaker 3:
[61:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[61:28] Yeah. I used to go a bit in like the mid 2000s for work and I would do trade shows, but I did get the chance to see a vampire-themed topless dance show. And it was called Bite and it was incredible. And it was basically Goddess, but a little bit lower budget. And I still think about it. I was like, oh, this world does exist. And I'm not sure it existed at the level where you would push someone down the stairs for a spot because I'm not sure things were ever really that heightened, but it is a representation of the world that is there. And that's lovely. Can we talk about the rape scene a little bit though?

Speaker 1:
[62:08] Of course.

Speaker 2:
[62:08] I think that's the one thing in this movie that I think needs reckoning with.

Speaker 3:
[62:12] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[62:13] Yeah, please.

Speaker 2:
[62:14] Whenever I've been involved in screenings of this, that scene either gets skipped over, or maybe someone will bring out an actual stripper and they'll do an amazing strip on stage instead of watching that scene. The problem I have with this scene is that it is incredibly graphic. It's totally really off with the rest of the movie, which you're spending a lot of time feeling fun camp vibes and then this horrific thing happens. I think I could forgive all of that just as like the point the movie is trying to make, but the actress who plays Molly, Gina Rivera, was also horribly traumatized during the filming of this scene. She's been on record saying like, when you film something like that, the body doesn't know whether it's real or not. And she's only seen the movie once and she left before that scene happened. She's never seen it. And for all of Paul Verhoeven trying to make a point about sexual violence and the price of the American dream and all of that, he actually ended up kind of doing the exact same thing to someone else who didn't have the power and was exploited. So I think it's a real shame about this movie. I mean, Joe Estherhouse has also said it was a huge mistake to put this in. You could have achieved all of the points of this movie without traumatizing an actress and doing something so horribly graphic, I think.

Speaker 3:
[63:27] Totally. I mean, Hitchcock was able to make people scared without ever showing blood, you know? It's crappy storytelling. It's men having a little bit too much power and not enough female voices in the room, and I mean, pre-intimacy coordinators, obviously. But yeah, it's like you said, it's just distasteful and tacky and completely redundant. You could have done so many different interpretations of the same thing. I mean, we are so invested in that character, seeing that happen obviously just makes the juxtaposition even more intense, but it's redundant.

Speaker 2:
[64:02] Yeah. And it also falls into this trope as well of like the gay best friend who's only there to serve the narrative of the white protagonist. And she basically gets fridged and it's like her rape is a...

Speaker 3:
[64:14] Yes, and at her performance...

Speaker 2:
[64:16] .is a narrative device to further Nomi's plot, which is pretty grim.

Speaker 1:
[64:20] Yeah, no, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, it is tonally... I was confused initially, like sort of when we just see his body language in the room, and then it's like sort of a cascade of realization about what is happening and then it is very happening. It was a lot. And we've celebrated in this show many times that we haven't covered it somehow. The movie Revenge, who came out in 2017. It's a French... How do we pronounce this filmmaker's name who made the substance?

Speaker 2:
[64:47] Coralie Fargeot?

Speaker 1:
[64:49] Yeah, this was the movie that that filmmaker made before. And as a genre, I don't typically love a Rape Revenge movie, because usually there is a scene like this in it. But that movie pulled off not having this scene.

Speaker 2:
[65:01] Right.

Speaker 1:
[65:01] That's part of the reason why it's celebrated. So, yeah, I I'm glad that you spoke to that and spoke to its history because I was not both aware of the history or even aware that it was coming because of how tonally out of place it is.

Speaker 2:
[65:13] And it's also very Paul Verhoeven. Like he loves graphic violence. Most of his movies include someone throwing up. Most of his movies include someone being raped. And most of his movies include someone exploding. And you know, he does it to be provocative, to be shocking. I guess it's yeah, I don't know. I'd rather watch someone get blown up.

Speaker 1:
[65:37] Yeah, or throw up. Yeah, I'll take both.

Speaker 2:
[65:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[65:39] I'll take a twofer over this. Are there any other things that we feel have been, I mean, I'm sure there are many things that have been unsaid, but are there any other things that we feel that we have to say about this movie before we wrap up?

Speaker 2:
[65:52] The only other thing I would say is justice for Elizabeth Berkeley, because again, the strange real life parallel that this movie has is, you know, what's the price of going after your dreams? And Elizabeth Berkeley went into this wide-eyed bushy tailed and was so excited to do it. It destroyed her career and, you know, the man involved got away, got free and got to carry on making big blockbusters. But Elizabeth Berkeley's career wasn't so lucky. And it's just, it's so disappointing that a movie dealing with that exact topic kind of enacted it on its main star.

Speaker 3:
[66:29] It is weird that she was the only one that suffered for it. And she's still literally playing Jesse Spano on the Safe by the Bell spin-off still.

Speaker 1:
[66:36] Oh my God.

Speaker 2:
[66:37] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[66:38] You know, I feel like if you like this movie, you should watch Myra Breckinridge. That's one of my favorites. And it's another one that was just so bad. It became good. And it also has a rape scene in it. But I feel like if you're going to do one, the way that that one was handled was, they definitely served the plot in a different way. It wasn't redundant. It actually drove the narrative.

Speaker 1:
[67:02] I've never seen Myra Breckinridge. I'm excited to check this out.

Speaker 3:
[67:06] You certainly should. You should read the book and then you should watch the movie.

Speaker 1:
[67:10] I read the book. I didn't until you said it. I didn't know that there was a movie as a result. I was a I was a Gore Vidal teen.

Speaker 3:
[67:16] Oh, yeah. OK, cool. It's a little different. But yeah, it's great. It has this plot device where you know how on like YouTube shows, people will like throw in little clips to like drive a joke home. Yes, they were doing that in the 70s with this movie and it confused people so intensely that they just said, this movie is an absolute schizophrenic nightmare. And I hate that. But that's what they were doing. They would play like little Laurel and Hardy clips after a joke to try and like push it, like punch it like, oh, double entendre. No one got it. Everyone hated it. I loved it.

Speaker 1:
[67:49] I'm fully on board. We'll have to have you back to talk about that movie specifically.

Speaker 3:
[67:53] I can't wait.

Speaker 1:
[67:54] All right. Well, we asked this question at the end of every episode. Ariel, you're new to this, so I'll have Crystal take it first. And the point of the question is for you to interpret it. However you want to interpret it. Typically, the way we frame it is we say we know that so-and-so is a father who is the daddy, but I don't think that there's any fathers in this movie.

Speaker 2:
[68:11] I think it's a fatherless universe.

Speaker 1:
[68:14] Yeah, this is a fatherless universe. Not surprising considering I think that that is common in Verhoeven universes. But we know Nomi's father was a tragic figure. Who, in your view, Crystal, is the daddy of Showgirls?

Speaker 2:
[68:29] Oh, I'm trying to think of something more interesting to say than Crystal Connors, but I just have to go there. It's Crystal Connors. She is the uber daddy of us all. We should all be more Crystal Connors. Aspirational figure. She's got your back. She's going to show you the ways of the world. And you're going to take some hard knocks from her.

Speaker 3:
[68:46] Literally.

Speaker 1:
[68:47] I love it. I'm going to say, in any other world, I would say it's Kyle McLaughlin for being him. He's always the best. And he somehow is so good that he pulls off being just like in a feet villain in this movie. I'm not going to name him, but he always looks delightful. I'm going to say Al, not because he's deserving of the title. He's a real piece of shit. Al is. But I love that this movie puts him in the role of if this was any other movie, she'd get a visit from her neglectful dad and her weird mom. And in this case, the movie is selling Al as daddy. And so I'm going to go with that. He deserves to go to jail, but he is framed as the daddy. Ariel, take the question however you want. Who is the daddy of this movie?

Speaker 3:
[69:36] Well, I am unlike a lot of people. I have a good relationship with my father.

Speaker 1:
[69:40] Beautiful.

Speaker 3:
[69:41] Yes, I'm very fortunate. And the only person throughout the movie that reminded me of my dad was Ms. Bazoom.

Speaker 1:
[69:51] No wonder you have a good relationship.

Speaker 3:
[69:54] Well, yeah, my dad was always shirtless growing up. It didn't affect me at all. But yeah, I just think that she's the one that's kind of teaching. I mean, she's arguably the oldest female in the movie, and she's still in Vegas and she still has a smile on her face and she's still being a very parental figure in all of their lives. She teaches what I think to be one of the most important life lessons is if you're not smiling, you're crying, you got to laugh through the pain. People have been through horrible traumas in their life and one person will interpret it this way, and one person will interpret it that way. Personally for me, I find laughing is the best way to get through it, and she encapsulates that as a character, even though she's on screen for so little, she's still my favorite. Yeah. I mean, look at what she has to deal with every day. She's not exactly a Crystal Connors, but she's still on that stage, and she's still making people entertained in a very difficult environment, you know? So I like her.

Speaker 2:
[71:00] And she gives Nomi the best compliment. She looks better than a 10-inch dick and you know it.

Speaker 1:
[71:05] You know it.

Speaker 3:
[71:06] And that's a compliment.

Speaker 2:
[71:08] The kind of thing you can only get from your father.

Speaker 1:
[71:22] All right, everybody, that's it for this week's episode of You Are Good, a feeling podcast about movies. Thanks so much to Crystal. Thanks so much to Ariel Demure. Thanks so much to our producer and editor for today's episode, Miranda Zickler. Thanks to y'all for being here. Thanks to Fresh Lush for providing the beats to make our episode sound so sweet. Thanks to everyone who supports us on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions. We appreciate you. We can't do it without you. You get all that stuff in return, bonuses, extended cuts, so on and so forth. I'm so glad that you're here. I really appreciate you. And I can't wait to do another one with you all next week. Don't forget, we get a couple bonuses coming up this month. So it's a good time to join, I think, if you're not supporting us over there already. All right. That's enough for now. We'll talk with you all next week.