Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Last Showgirl And What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

In the new movie The Last Showgirl, a woman finds herself with few options as she approaches the end of her long career as a dancer in Las Vegas. The film marks a new chapter in the star-crossed acting career of Pamela Anderson. Directed by Gia Coppola, it tells a story about aging, parenthood, the underbelly of show business, and what happens when the world no longer buys what you're selling.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In the new movie The Last Showgirl, a woman finds herself with few options as she approaches the end of her long career as a dancer in Las Vegas. The film marks a new chapter in the star-crossed acting career of Pamela Anderson. And it tells a story about aging, parenthood, the underbelly of show business, and what happens when the world no longer buys what you're selling. I'm Ayesha Harris. And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today we are talking about The Last Showgirl on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is the host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, Brittany Luce. Hey, Brittany.

Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to have you. Also with us as podcast producer and film and culture critic Kate Young. Hey, Kate. Hi, I'm so excited to be back. I am delighted to have you all here. So, in the last showgirl, Pamela Anderson plays Shelley. She's a Las Vegas showgirl who's spent decades dancing for a French-inspired review called La Razzle-Dazel.

Shelly has become a kind of mother figure for some of the other dancers, but she's a lot of She's also estranged from her own daughter, played by Billy Lord. And her life is further complicated when her co-worker Eddie informs her that La Razzle-Dazel is about to close for good. He's played by Dave Batista. You guys, our show is legendary. It is, but La Razzle-Dazel, it's old. It's the last show. It's kind on the strip.

And if that's what makes it so special, the fact that it's the last one. Shelly could always become a cocktail waitress like her friend Annette, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. but the glamour of show business seems to be fading farther and farther from sight. The Last Showgirl was directed by Giacopola. The film is in theaters now. Aisha Harris, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of the last showgirl? So this is a movie that has, for me, at least, obvious parallels to Sunset Boulevard.

She is very much a Norma Desmond type, but a modern-day version of it. She's lost complete grip on reality, if she ever had it to begin with, right, to the very last scene in this film. which seems to be pulled from some sort of fantasy or a mixture of fantasy and reality. And I dug it. I really enjoy this performance from Pamela Anderson. The first time around, I was really drawn in by it, but watching it a second time, it really struck me. You know, this is a simple story, but I like the simplicity of it. And I like what it's trying to say, even if it's very on the nose about everything it says, I like what it is saying about what it means to be a woman in show business and also what it means to be or can mean to be a mother to people who are not your own children, but also to

your own children. And so I just really liked it. And I think it was probably one of my favorite movies of 2024. And I'm glad to see Pamela Anderson doing something that just seems like a very out of the box for her, even though I think people who have been paying attention, they've known for a while that this is, there is substance there. So I really liked it. Okay. How about you, Kate? I also really liked it. I think this movie is kind of of a piece with two other films this season, The Substance and Maria that are both about women and aging and what it means for their identity, when the things that they've wrapped their sense of self around are no longer true. I think with Shelley in this film, she spent so long doing this job and understanding it as something that,

makes her special, that the idea that it's no longer available to her sense or into a tailspin, there is nothing that she has left in her life to show for herself, even her relationship with her daughter, is something that she sacrificed for this idea of beauty and glamour that originally was true, but no longer is. And I think that with her, we get to kind of see what it means when quote-unquote older women are faced with having to recognize what the world does and says to older women and what that means for their disposability. Okay. How about you, Brittany? I liked the movie.

I would say that I liked Pamela Anderson's performance more than like the movie itself. It's not a perfect film, right? Like, one of the things I wrote down was that all of it seems very likely. Like, if you seen a couple screen grabs and like even half of the trailer, you could guess

the characterization of all the characters. You could guess the turns in the plot. You can guess what's going to happen. But that still, to me, was a small matter compared to the depth and the quality of Pamela Anderson's performance. Now, I'll say also the casting overall in this film is kind of like a lot of like, good for her. It's like women that you've either followed for a very long time or someone like Brenda Song, who was a child actor who has really fought to get really meaty, interesting roles and really interesting projects. or even Kiernan Shipka, you know, Little Sally Draper. We've all literally watched Grow Up on Screen.

Yeah, and we should note Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song both play younger dancers in the movie. Yeah. So there was a lot of like good for her. And of course, Pamela, as somebody who watched VIP, the show that she did after Baywatch, like in real time back in the day. I've been rooting for Pammy for a long time. I agree with you, Aisha. I think it's a simple story that in many ways is well told. Sometimes I felt like the filmmaking was drawing too much attention to itself.

But like I said, for me. me that was still a smaller matter in comparison to just how good Pamela Anderson is in this role. Even after I felt like she gave so much, at the end, I was like, okay, Pam, what are we doing next? I still wanted more at the very end. I wish I liked this movie more than I did. This movie felt like a character sketch in search of a movie. It's kind of giving you a sense of who she is and what situation she's in. And it's the kind of movie that I often really, really dig, you know, where you're showing me the inner life of somebody who doesn't ordinarily get depicted on screen. It's very much about this idea that, you know, the entertainment industry,

like a lot of industries, has a way of chewing people up and spitting them out. And I'm very interested in this story of kind of what happens to someone once the world has no particular use for you anymore. Like, that's a really interesting story. But to me, I didn't feel like there was much of a story here. Everything on screen is just this kind of look at who she is. It's not terribly plot forward. There are several kind of long digressions that feel like they're there to pad the runtime more than tell a story. And it's rough because, like Brittany, I had this reaction of rooting for everyone on screen.

I think this movie really understands that the audience is watching. And like, we're rooting for Pamela Anderson. Yeah. We think Pamela Anderson's gotten a raw deal in a lot of different ways. And, you know, you were mentioning several of the supporting players. There's a lot of like, oh, wonderful, that's a good role for Jamie Lee Curtis. Oh, wonderful. That's a good role for Brenda's song.

But I didn't necessarily feel like the movie, whether it was the script or just the whole package to me didn't cohere into anything more than just a sense of like, here's this person. There's kind of a plot reveal that like couldn't be more telegraphed. Oh, yes, yes. Like, that's kind of the extent of there being any particular story to it. Well, I disagree so much. I mean, I do agree that the film isn't particularly plot-driven, but to me, across these female characters, it's about their different relationships to that disposability and what that means, right?

Kieranhip's character is very young. She still thinks it's fun and glamorous and, like, and just an interesting thing to do with her life. And she eventually comes to realize that, like, it's a lot more serious than that, and people have thoughts about it. that means that you don't get to choose your position as you continue in this path. With Brenda Song, she's approaching it as someone who just recognizes that this is a job.

It's one or the other. It's a paycheck. Yeah. It doesn't matter to her because she just needs to eat and that's all she cares about. And to me, with Jamie Lee Curtis, she's what Shelley is trying not to become. She's Grizzabella in this one. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm glad you mentioned the substance earlier, Kate, and Maria. I saw the substance pretty closely to the first time I also saw this film. And so those things were very much in the back of my mind, this idea of women being disposable. And I think there's a key scene between Shelley and Eddie the De Battista character where she just says, like, I'm paraphrasing here, but she's just like, look, I loved doing this show. It made me feel beautiful. And that was power. She has a very kind of like funky relationship. that idea of like beauty and power and the fact that this is what she's traded her life on.

The fact that there are people who have judged her, and I think what I liked most about this movie is that, you know, I think it walks a very fine line of her character being relentlessly optimistic versus being delusional. Yes. Sure. Very delusional. But also like to some extent you can kind of, I at least could understand or sympathize with her pushback. You know, she's worked at the same job for over 30. years. Years and years, yeah.

It didn't bother me that this is not very plot-heavy. It didn't bother me. It felt like a nice sort of counterpoint to the substance, which is also not subtle, but does have, to some extent, a plot. The substance goes a lot harder than this movie does. Few movies go harder than the substance. But I liked that counterpoint because you're either going to vibe with this kind of movie or you're not.

And we can quibble about some of the plot points. And I agree that there's that very obvious plot point, like as soon as you see these two characters in a room, you're like, oh, I understand where this is going. Despite that, I still found so much to really love about it. And I also think, like, a crucial turning point where Shelley is, like, absolutely dressed down, humiliated. It felt the closest thing to the substance. It's like, this is that in, like, a smaller indie vibe. Like, artsy vibe. That is just, like, really hard.

to watch. It's very cringy, but I liked it. I liked that it went there in that moment. I had the same note in watching this film that, like, I agree that the character of Shelley, the film sees where she's coming from, but also sheds light on some of her delusion and how her life was supposed to turn out or how she thought maybe it was going to turn out or that everything was going just fine. Even there were moments in her relationship with her adult daughter where even though Shelly's kind of delusional, I could kind of see where she was coming from, but I can absolutely see where her daughter was coming from. One thing I will say, though, I felt like I was missing why Shelly was so motivated to be an artist

and why she was so motivated to make great art. I'm not saying they had to explain like, oh, you know, she had to have some sort of like monologue about how she felt that first time she was in ballet class and kindergarten. I didn't need that. But I felt a little bit. like she would sometimes have these monologing moments where she'd say, oh, to be an artist and to be an art and to do this for your art. And I was kind of like, okay, Shelly, where is this coming from? Like, I get where it comes from on a human level. But I wish that the film had clued me into a little bit more of that aspect of her interiority. That was a place where I felt like the film failed, which was notable to me because I feel like Pamela Anderson in the past couple of years

as she's been having her Renaissance and like reintroducing herself. to the public as this fully formed woman in her late 50s who's like so cool and interesting and beautiful and smart. I felt like I wanted a little bit more of that from Shelley where I'm like, okay, this is a woman who has interests. She has taste. She has a point of view. She considers herself an artist. I'd love to know where some of that confidence and conviction came from because it takes that, I feel like in life in general to decide that you're an artist. And I'm like, What part of Shelley was holding that together? I'm glad you said that because I think this goes directly to the deletion portion of this, right?

Because I think that part of the issue that she's having is that she does consider herself an auntie. She does consider herself someone who brings beauty and glamour, that she's an institution. The Vegas showgirl is something that people looked up to, that people wanted to see, that they were flown all over the world. Like, to her in her mind, that is what she is doing all the time. She's never stopped doing that. But the world around her has changed significantly. Vegasher girl is nothing now. No one cares. And I think that, especially in that scene with her daughter, we get to understand that, like, her perspective on what it is that she's doing is wildly different to everyone else's. And I think that her inability to recognize that, like, no one considers this art. No one considers this beautiful, according to her daughter. It's just a nudie show, right? No one sees this as anything more than an attraction on the Vegas strip. For her, she, she, She cannot yet conceive of the idea that this isn't something that took meticulous work and planning and dedication because that's what she put into it.

And I think that her inability to kind of let that go is partly why she starts to unravel. Yeah. I mean, I think also, and this goes back to sort of what we've been saying about how this film is not, it's not afraid to sort of show her limitations. it is the fact that like we do actually see her perform her art at one point and it's not good. And so like it's like that moment in Pearl. Yeah. Where Pearls got to audition for the dance troupe and you're like, oh, sister, this was not going to work for you. Right. And so like the movie is not afraid to say like you can absolutely be dedicated to your art,

but that does not mean that you were actually good at it. And I think that question to me is so fascinating. And such an interesting thing to pose. And I could see a world where, like, she is actually like this great, you know, star. But, like, she has been in the same show for 30 plus years. And obviously there's many ways to be an artist, but a lot of people would argue that an artist does not do the same thing for that long. Well, and it kind of puts this film of a piece with other, unfortunately, I think, more interesting movies about artists who are committed to something that is not actually. great work, whether it's a movie like Ed Wood or a movie like The Wrestler, where I definitely had echoes of The Wrestler. Oh, absolutely. I immediately thought of The Wrestler

when I started this movie. Because that whole Mickey Roark, like, even the behind the scenes of like the Mickey Roark comeback. Right. And it's very parallel to Pamela Anderson. Like, we're reconsidering you now. Yeah. I think the meta-narrative is really important there. And I think that's partly why it's interesting to me

because Pamela in the last couple years has been able to kind of tell her own story for the first time in how many every years. And I think this role kind of reflects what happens when that isn't possible. It kind of brings me back to something that we've talked about a little bit in this conversation about kind of how limited her worldview is and how simple her worldview is and how she clearly locked into this idea years ago that this was the epitome of glamour and class. I think that stuff is really interesting.

I wanted to see it in a way it's like I wanted it to be a deeper character sketch, but it's hard to do a deeper character sketch of someone who has some. such kind of an inherently limited worldview and kind of such a deeply simplistic mindset about what her work means. It's interesting. Like we see images of her like kind of studying old glamour and kind of marinating in French culture and a lot of these ideas that informed the kind of what it means to be a Vegas showgirl. And that stuff is interesting. But for me, it just comes back to my issue with this movie over and over again, which is I really like it on paper, but just didn't much vibe with it while it was happening.

Yeah, I get that. I think there's also just like little touches here and there that they're not all, you know, verbalized. I think the fact that she, like, still wears a Walkman and, like, dances around with a Walkman on. Like, there's just these little touches that say, like, she, it's about, like, this whole glamour thing, but it's also just, like, in a way, it's a story about someone who is nostalgic for a past that doesn't exist anymore. And again, this comes back to sort of the Norma Desmond aspect of it all that really feels like any eternal, this is an evergreen topic of like not being

able to let go of the past. And I don't know, I think she embodies it really well. But I can also understand your perspective, Stephen, of like wanting more. Can we talk a little bit about Jamie like Curtis? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm not a particularly big fan of hers, but I was really, really impressed with this performance. I think she did fantastic work here. That character is such an interesting part of the story and I think a necessary part of the story because it really gives you the different perspective that Shelley has to this life, right? Like, Jamie Lee Curtis's character also has this kind of semi-delusional belief, but she's a little bit more attuned to the fact that there are realities that she has to deal with. She loses her house,

she's sleeping in her car. Like, she's not pretending that those things aren't happening. But she's very defiant about her sense of self and her self-possession. And she, in this one scene, she does a little strip tease, I guess, in the casino. And to her, that's what she does. That is what her art represents. And it doesn't matter if people are going to take it away from her. She's going to do it because she feels like she's good at it. It's what she does best. And it's how she identifies. Jamie Curtis's character was so physically well realized. If you knew a woman like that character in the 90s. And I did. The makeup and the hair was so spot on.

It helped me to really believe every person that I saw. And each individual character had hair and makeup choices that were so authentic to how they were supposed to come across. And in a film that's so much about looks and visuals and beauty, I thought it was just perfect in not prudifying, the characters, but also not lampooning them and taking them seriously. It was so, so, so perfect. And it made all of these women so much more real to me. Yeah. All right. Well, we want to know what you think about the last showgirl. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCH and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com

slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what is making us happy this week? Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's Making Us Happy This Week? Kate Young, I'm going to start with you. What's making you happy this week? So what's making me happy this week is Demi Moore's speech at the Golden Globes earlier this week. She won an award for the substance. And her speech was a really good encapsulation of the kind of career that she's had.

And I really loved that she was able to kind of say to us and to the industry that she always thought that this was the kind of thing that she couldn't strive for, that she was a popcorn actress and that she, was never going to do anything that was worthy of awards. 30 years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a popcorn actress, and I made that mean that this wasn't something that I was allowed to have, that I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn't be acknowledged. And I bought in, and I believed that. Having her be able to win this award, not just for Fantastic Burke,

but for The Substance specifically, is a really, really fun. an interesting part of her narrative for this season. And I think that this is such a fantastic story and a fantastic arc for her. And I'm really hoping that she will be able to kind of ride this wave into a career renaissance. So that's Demi Moore's speech at the Golden Globes from this past Sunday night. Thank you, Kate Young. Brittany Luce, what's making you happy this week? All right. I just finished a book that I started in 2024, but I just finished it early this week in 2025. It is by one of my favorite romance authors, Emily Henry.

It's a novel called Funny Story. It came out last year, and I didn't get to read it in the spring, but oh, my gosh, reading it over the holidays. I was like stretching it out to savor the experience. It's about these two characters named Daphne, who's a librarian, and Miles, who is a bartender. They are forced to live together in a very romance novel way. when their ex-partners become Beyonce's. Oh, dear.

This book is so funny. It's so sweet. It's incredibly cute. There are so many times where I just had to put it down and just chuckle to myself because I'm like, why am I sitting here? 37 years old. Kicking my feet and grinning like a goofball because the book is so darn cute. But overall, it was just a delight to be. read. So if you are having some post-holiday doldrums or maybe need to pick me up for other reasons,

this would be a great book to cure that. So I highly recommend what's making me happy this week, Emily Henry's funny story. So good. Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you, Brittany. Aisha Harris, what's making you happy this week, buddy? Well, we were just talking about a movie that is very much a character study, obviously, last show girl. And what's making me happy is a different very different kind of character study. This is Hard Truths, the movie directed by Mike Lee. This movie stars Marianne Jacques Baptiste as Pansy, this woman who makes Ebenezer Scroo look like Little Orphan Annie.

She is this like super prickly, irritable, angry, condescending toward everyone, her family, her dentist, retail worker, literally everyone she comes to contact with. But it's not just that. this movie eventually zooms in on the source of all that iron pain. And I think we get a very fascinating character study of misery and also like how it affects and infects different relationships that you have. And, you know, obviously lots of people are talking about Jean-Paptiste's performance here, which is absolutely incredible. It's amazing. But I also want to single out the performance of Michelle Austin, who's playing Chantelle, Panty's Sister, who is like her complete opposite.

She gives such a stunning performance. It is fantastic. It was another one of my favorite movies of 2024 that is hard truths. And it's in theaters now. And I feel like we're going to be talking about it during award season, hopefully. Nice. Thank you, Aisha Harris. So I have reached that time in every year where I'm starting to close the book on the previous year in music, digging through albums I'd meant to spend more time with, that sort of thing.

And I just got absolutely knocked out by a record that came out almost a year ago that I managed to miss. By a band I keep forgetting I already love. The band is called Middle Kids. They're from Sydney, Australia. They play big, deeply relatable anthems, and I just adore them every time one of their songs kind of pops up in my life. And way back in February of 2024, they put out a terrific record called Faith Crisis Part 1. Let's hear a little bit of the song, Highlands. That is very much my jam.

Okay. Thank you. This is weapons grade Aisha Corps. It's that kind of like, my heart is big and I want more. It's just kind of one of those songs. The whole song is just a burst of big-hearted restlessness. I love the vocal from Hannah Joy. She's fantastic.

This song is already a soundtrack to my life in 2025, even though I came to it like a year late and I've known about it for like two days. So that is Middle Kids. Their fantastic album is called Faith Crisis Part 1. That is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter.

That brings us to the end of our show, Kate Young, Brittany Luce, Aisha Harris. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Huf Safathema and Lennon Sherburn and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy, and Hello, Come In, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next week.