WHAT WENT WRONG - Showgirls

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Think you enjoy nudity in films? Think again. This week, Chris & Lizzie autopsy the collateral damage of Paul Verhoeven’s cult classic, Showgirls. Topics covered include the dynamics of aquatic intercourse, the paradoxical task of marketing an unsexy NC-17 movie, and why lead actress Elizabeth Berkley was left holding the (Verhoeven-filled) bag.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to What Went Wrong. I am your host Chris Winterbauer along with my co-host, Lizzie Bassett. How are you doing tonight, Lizzie? Oh, doing great. Can't wait to talk about what we're about to talk about. I am so excited. This is a movie that I have looked forward to. It was part of a trifecta of films that when I went to Hollywood video as a child,

I sought out their covers like endlessly to just be able to like look at them. And the other two were it was flash dance, strip to you. Interesting. And then the movie we're talking about today, showgirls. The 90s bomb, which I watched last night for the first time, I absolutely loved it. I am not surprised. No, but for all the reasons you would not expect. Sure.

I kind of want to start just speaking for myself in terms of what I thought this movie was going into it, which I actually think is the crux of the issue in terms of what went wrong. thought that this was going to be, you know, a boobs out trash fest that is just like cheap and really just for teenage boys to ogle these women. And that was my expectation. That was my understanding of what it was prior to watching it. Well, it's a it's the boops out part. Oh, there. Yeah. They're out. That stands. But it looked, the movie looks amazing. Yeah. The budget must have been through the roof. They shot it beautifully. It's as if they staged this grand, almost Shakespearean epic behind the scenes in Las Vegas, but then they filled it with the most like

gutter level, you know, problems, people in dialogue, and then made everybody basically do oftentimes full frontal nudity for little reason to the point where actually the movie is so unsexy. Yes. By 30 minutes in, you're just like, please keep your clothes. Like I just don't want to I don't want to see anymore. And I, as a someone, I've always loved Paul Verhoeven's work, and he does insane things in movies to poke fun at trends. And so when I was watching it, I was thinking about how in Starship Troopers, he makes the military seem like this insane, you know, rah, ra, you know, go forth and conquer endeavor.

And he's obviously criticizing the military industrial complex. I had a harder time nailing down what the satire was here. Yeah, not sure who the target demographic was. So I think you just hit the nail on the head. I think it has saved us a 35-minute episode, Chris. We can wrap it up right now. That is, in fact, what went wrong, is that I think they did not know who or what their target audience was,

and it was marketed to very much not the people that was going to enjoy this. So I want to just dive in with a little bit of background on this for anybody that doesn't know. We are talking about the first and only NC-17 film to receive. wide release in the U.S., which is showgirls. I believe that is still the case. That was the case as of a couple years ago. It was released September 22nd, 1995. As Chris mentioned, it is directed by Paul Verhoeven,

written by Joe Esther Haas, starring Gina Gershon as Crystal Connors, Kyle McLaughlin as Zach Carey, Gina Rivera as Molly Abrams, and of course, Elizabeth Berkeley as No Me Malone. And she's going to be a lot of the focus of of our episode today because basically what happened and honestly one of the only ways I even knew about showgirls was that oh show girls is that movie that the saved by the bell girl

Elizabeth Berkeley did because she wanted to be quote unquote edgy she took all her clothes off it ruined her career that's what you get for doing nudity in a film and being trash you get treated like Elizabeth Berkeley and yeah there was a big like slut-shaming narrative yes I even remember coming off of it. So she is a potentially naturally gifted dancer. We hear different people say different things about how good she is as a dancer throughout the story, who makes her way to Las Vegas at the beginning of the story and ends up in a professional and romantic love triangle with Crystal, who is an experienced, tasteful, topless dancer, and Kyle McLaughlin, who is a an MBA carrying

Cartoon villain. Hotel, yeah, cartoon villain, head of publicity. And the story follows their entanglements as Nomi makes her way through the strange Alice in Wonderland-esque world of Las Vegas behind the scenes dancing.

Perfect. So it was a massive box office flop and box office is the key phrase there because, as we're going to learn in the long run, it actually was not a monetary loss. But it generated only $37 million on a budget of at least $45 million, probably more, including marketing and everything as we've learned. So let's take it back to 1973, which is the year when a young Dutch filmmaker named Paul Verhoeven burst onto the international filmmaking scene with his second major movie called Turkish Delight.

It is a massive box office success in the Netherlands. It also gets nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1974 Oscars. It is highly sexually explicit. It also reportedly contains a very upsetting rape scene, which is also in the book, that it was based on and interesting in regards to showgirls, which also contains a very upsetting rape scene. So a little bit of background on Verhoeven. He's very, very smart.

He studied math and physics. in college and he actually got his big break as a filmmaker after joining the Royal Netherlands Navy because he started making documentaries for them. This was in the late 60s. So after Turkish delight, he continues to see success in the Netherlands. A lot of the work that he's doing is definitely pushing the boundaries of sort of what's risque and what's acceptable. But it's not until 1987 that he makes his entrance into Hollywood with what movie, Chris? Robocop. Yeah, Robocop. I loved Robocop. Nominated for two Oscars. sound and editing.

It was a box office success, although not enormous, but then he follows that up with Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone in a smaller part in 1990. One thing I like about Paul Verhoeven is he has a really good sense of humor, and so both of those movies are surprisingly funny at a lot of parts, and they poke fun at the absurdity of corporate culture, for example. There's a scene in Robocop where they're testing out a giant new police robot, and they literally can't get it to assume that the guy in front of him is no longer holding a gun.

And so it just kills like a corporate guy, you know, in the middle of a boardroom, basically. And I like that Verhoeven likes to take shots at these, you know, absurd corporate structures and whatnot. Totally. I think he definitely leans on satire and on things being pushed to the extreme at which they become funny. Yeah. In 1992, he teams up with a screenwriter named Joe Esther House for a little, film called Basic Instinct. This stars Sharon Stone in a truly star making turn and Michael Douglas. The movie becomes a cultural phenomenon, probably most known for which scene can you imagine, Chris? The scene where Sharon Stone opens her legs and briefly shows her genitals to the camera. That's the most disgusting description I've ever heard of that scene, but that is technically

accurate. It is definitely a blink and you'll miss it moment of female nudity. It is, It is used to make the men in the room uncomfortable. It's a power play by her. Basic Instinct is nominated for two Oscars, including Best Editing and Score for Jerry Goldsmith. It is a huge success, both critically and financially. So Esther House had quite a few movies under his belt at this point. Probably most notably was 1983's Flash Dance. Bet you didn't see that common, Chris.

I did not. Same screenwriter. But nothing like massive until Basic Instinct, other than Flash Dance, but he was a co-writer on that. So at this point, the two of them, good old Joe and Paul are Hollywood's dream team. They can basically name their price for their next movie. They can do whatever they want. According to Paul, he and Joe had actually had a falling out over the basic instinct script. It's not exactly clear what it was, but by the time the film aired, they were not on speaking terms.

Once the movie was a massive success, they do decide to put the past behind them and team up for their next feature, right? because it's, you know, but there's an indication here that there's a bit of a disconnect already between what's on the page and what Verhoeven actually wants to capture for the film. And I think that is a rift that ends up being a massive problem in showgirls. At a business lunch in Hollywood, and, you know, this is the 90s, so who knows what's going on. I imagine that 40 lines of cocaine have been started and 50 martinis have been drank by this point. the assumption because the sort of lore of this goes, I had a hard time confirming this, is that apparently Joe Estherhouse wrote the idea for showgirls on a like dinner napkin at

the table. As Joe Estherhouse tried to see Paul through the haze of cocaine between them, he fits the idea for showgirls. This is just a fantasy. We're not accusing either of them using any illicit substances. I'm sure they did a lot of cocaine on this movie. Anyway. Okay. So they're at lunch.

They're talking about this movie. He gives him three ideas. They said loose ideas, which I think meant he had, you know, a sentence on each. One of them was showgirls. The basic idea was just, it's about a girl who's starting out giving lap dances in Las Vegas, but ends up dancing as a showgirl in one of the big casino shows. That's it. That's, which is like technically still the log line.

But it does seem that it started. I think Joe Esther has his initial idea was like, I'm going to make the movie that every 14 year old boy wants to watch. Right. I want to give them that rags to ridges story, boobs. With boobs. I want to show them how the boobs go from rags to making dollars thrown at them. Showgirls is planned right from the get-go from these two guys to garner an NC-17 rating.

It's planned. It is planned. Oh, wow. Yes. And there's a reason for this. Evidently, Verhoven had fought extremely hard with the MPAA and also the studio on Basic Instinct to get the rating for that reduced to art. he did not want it reduced. He wanted it NC17.

Here's what Verhoven had to say about it. He said, The sexual elements of showgirls are extremely limited. It's more about the nudity. If you make a story about a lap dancer who becomes a showgirl, I think nudity is obligatory. It follows a storyline, but I wouldn't call that sexual.

I would say showgirls is more anti-erotic than erotic. Oh, I think he nailed it then. He did. So right out the gate, he was like, nope, I'm not playing that game this time. I want this to be NC17. because I want it to be a movie about a lap dancer in Las Vegas. And if we're going to do that, she's going to be full frontal nude.

Right from the top, you get the sense everybody here feels normal being naked around each other. And so we're just going to make it normal that they're naked and everyone's going to be naked and that's the end of it. Yeah. And it also tells me that his intention with Showgirls was never to make it a quote unquote sexy movie. But that it was designed to show the seediness and sometimes sort of appalling reality of life for women in Las Vegas, which I think it does. I don't know that Esther House was on the same page with him about that. So here's what happens. Esther House gets paid $2 million, a $2 million advance by MGM to start the screenplay. So he gets the money. He starts working on it. Then there's

like kind of an extended period of time where Paul Verhoeven steps away from showgirls. And he decides that he wants to go make a movie called, I believe, Crucese. Sades. Oh, yeah. It was the Art of Troisnaker one that never got made. Yes, exactly. It never got made. When he comes back, he decides, you know what?

We're not doing this right. I want this to be a morality tale. And he wants to use All About Eve as sort of the backbone of the story, which if you watch it with that lens, it 100%. Tracks. Yes. It's almost a remake of All About Eve in some ways. For those who don't know, all about Eve is a movie from, I believe, the 50s.

It stars Betty Davis, and it is about an aging, somewhat aging star of the stage who meets a sort of sycophantic fan named Eve. Eve is obsessed with her, and over the course of the movie, Eve essentially takes Betty Davis' character's place as the new upcoming star. So this is his new push. He's like, I need you to restructure this. I want it to be around all about Eve. I want it to be a morality tale. They start interviewing some articles, say 30 to 40 people in the quote-unquote sex industry in Las Vegas. Others say upwards of 100.

He also wants the only moral person in the entire film to be a new character they're introducing, which is Molly, Nomi's friend. Oh, right. The costume designer. The costume designer. So they slap the script together. I'm not exactly sure how long it takes for, to come to fruition.

It seems like Paul Verhoven has a clear idea in his head of what he wants to do. It is not clear that that is reflected in the script yet. The hunt begins for their lead, a woman who would have to be able to dance, carry the movie, and of course, also show graphic full frontal nudity throughout, which as we've learned, is something Paul Verhoven is not willing, is non-negotiable. Other actresses who abide for the role. If you could guess sort of some 90s actresses that you think were up, for this part, who do you think?

I know the person who it almost went to. Which is who? Charlize Theron. So she was considered. I heard she pushed hard for it. She did. Yeah. Which we're going to get to in a minute.

There's a very interesting quote about her not getting it. That's all I knew. As I just knew Charlie Staron pushed hard for it. And then the joke was Elizabeth Berkeley jumped in front of the gun and took the bullet for her. 100%. And let her make a influx. Oh, God. So other actresses who vied for the role include Drew Barrymore, who was offered it and actually declined due to the amount of nudity requested.

She said no, because they wouldn't budge on it. Angelina Jolie, Vanessa Williams, Jenny McCarthy were all considered. Jenny McCarthy evidently got very far, allegedly got very far in the casting process, and then they realized that she could not dance. So the last person, it's a very young Charlize Theron, who evidently wanted the part really badly. but Verhoven in the studio thought that she was not well known enough at the time. And here is what Paul had to say years later about Charlize's not getting the part. Quote, she was very lucky that she did not get the part. I wish Charlize congratulations for that because it would have been a miserable 20 years for her.

End quote. Oh, man. Yeah. That's brutal. He's right. He's right. Look at that trajectory. Elizabeth Berkeley, you haven't seen since this movie basically.

And Charlie is now heading up superhero movies. on Netflix. Yeah, he's 100% right. I think his point is that this would have destroyed any woman that took this part. Right. His point is that it wasn't Elizabeth Berkeley's fault. No. So let's talk about her for a minute. According to Wikipedia, she loves dancing and she studies it for years throughout her childhood, jazz, ballet. It's dancing is her thing to the point where she thought she wanted to go to New York and be a professional dancer. After doing some modeling for elite models, however, she auditions for a sitcom called Saved by the Bell at 15 years old, which I just, like 15, that blows my mind.

She gets the part. She stars as Jesse Spano. Spano. I never watched Saved by the Bell. Spano. Spano. On the hit sitcom for four years until its cancellation in 1993. As I just said, I have never watched this show.

But the internet tells me that she was a straight-A student in it, somewhat neurotic, always spoke her mind, sort of an early feminist on TV. TV and very kind of straight-laced and buttoned up. Is that accurate? So after becoming a household name from the show, now obviously she's on the hunt for her next role, and she really wants to translate her career from TV to movies. And she wants to break the mold that she's set for herself. Yeah, I feel like Shia LeBuff did it with a nymphomaniac most recently a little bit. You know, I think Jennifer Lawrence took a lot of like interesting adult roles after the Hunger Games series. Daniel Radcliffe went and showed his everything in Equis following Harry Potter.

Too much acclaim, by the way. Yeah, he's excellent. So I think it makes sense. You've been associated with a younger audience and you want to break out to a wider, bigger audience. And it's we all want to be seen as adult, you know, when we pass that threshold into adulthood. So Elizabeth Berkeley fought hard for this part, like really hard. And Verhoven has said that, you know, oh, as soon as he saw her, he knew he had his gnomie.

But from Berkeley's description, she was calling producers and telling them that she was this part. She loved the script. She really went after it and she got it. It should also be noted that assuming this was filming in 1993 and 1994, she would have been 22 at the time. So filming begins with the rest of the cast in place, Gina Gershahn, who had a relatively established career at the time, as cast as Chris. Crystal Connors after Madonna allegedly declined.

So let's listen to Elizabeth Berkeley on the set of showgirls talking about why she loves the role. I've been preparing this for this role my whole life, basically. 12 years, two to three hours a day dancing. So I can't really put that into words except for it's in my blood. It's in my bones. It's in my heart. And I can't exist like, know me without dance in my life.

I'm just, I'm fortunate that I. I found something that gives me such joy and gives me such life because I know a lot of people don't ever find that one thing. Acting and dance does that for me, and I get to do both. So what could be better? It should be noted. She's having a blast. Like, she really did love making this movie.

Yeah. That's really, that's just tough. In regards to the nudity on set, it sounds like the actresses were not made to feel uncomfortable at all. I do think that shows in the final product, like you said, they don't seem uncomfortable with it. It seems natural. It seems like they're naked around each other. According to the IMDB trivia page for showgirls, the only time they did feel uncomfortable was during the scenes with the monkeys, who evidently would not stop staring directly at their nipples.

Oh, monkeys. Yeah, I was worried that scene was going to take a darker turn, but it did. Me too. Thank God. Let's listen to one more clip from behind-the-scenes interviews while they're actually filming the movie. Here is Gina Gershon on working with Verhoeven on this type of material, particularly when it comes to nudity and women. I really respect him. I think he's one of these directors who is so absorbed and fascinated by filmmaking and also by women. He's maybe it's because he's European,

but he's not afraid of women's sexuality. He's not afraid of their power. I mean, the more you have, the happier he is. And I think a lot of men are threatened by that. And he seems to, you know, kind of love it. I mean, he really, he really enjoys that. Interesting. It is interesting.

Yeah, I don't know. He's made a lot of movies that do feature powerfully sexual women. He made a movie recently called Elle. Elle. I loved it. Yeah, is great. And deals with sexual trauma and an older woman getting revenge. Isabel U. Pair, who we talked about in the Heavens Gade episode.

Exactly. So, yeah, that makes sense. And he does seem fascinating. He's obviously fascinated by power dynamics and is pretty unflinching. Yeah. I do think that he thought that he was celebrating the power of women with this project. And I think he thought that he was exposing some of that power in a way that we had not seen exposed before.

I think especially with Elizabeth Berkeley, he misses the mark a little bit. But I do think his intention was good. I think what he didn't realize and what he didn't take into account is how much he was using Elizabeth Berkeley. Right. Like, that's great that you want to make that and that you want to make this sort of weird camp film that nobody's really going to get. But like, please keep in mind that the star that you've just cast is 22 years old.

and that she is taking this 110% seriously, as you should expect her to. And I think that is the piece of the puzzle that in his blindness or hubris or whatever he missed. So something that is impossible not to notice in this movie is Elizabeth Berkeley's movements, sort of the way her character moves, the way that she dances.

It's like arguable that the dancing is not good. Like it's technically she's doing all of the moves, but it's so sort of thrashing and jerky and strange. Verhoven is adamant that this was actually completely his choice and his fault. So in that same Rolling Stone article, he says, quote, people have of course criticized her for being over the top in her performance. Most of that comes from me. I pushed her in that direction. Good or not good.

I was the one who asked her to exaggerate everything, every move, because that was the element of style that I thought would work for the movie. I think that captures exactly what we're talking about here, where it's like he had a very clear idea of what he thought would work. And I think to a certain extent, she was a bit of a puppet. As all actors are, and I think when a bad performance makes its way on screen, oftentimes it's the director's choice. More often than that, I would argue, especially if it's a big choice.

If it feels like it's a small choice and it's a bad acting, then maybe it's just the actor. But, I mean, for example, in Oak Jaw, like, Jake Gyllenhaal is a very big performance in that movie. Some people hated it. Some people liked it. That was Bongchun Ho's choice. Like, he got exactly what he wanted, and Paul Verhoeven got exactly what he wanted here. There's not, when she delivers lines Elizabeth Berkeley in this movie that feel over the top, that's the line he chose. He could have on set said, no, can you just bring it down five notches?

Like even a bad director could, you know, get her to a smaller performance. He wanted something big. and it plays in her character. So that's not on her. That's her trusting him and giving him what he wanted. So this is another instance where there's not a lot of problems on set with this. People had a really good time, like a really good time. Well, we'll hear from Kyle McLaughlin a little bit later about how much he enjoyed it

and how he liked to go skiing on, you know, on the days that they were off because the snow was so good. Like this was a fun movie to make. So it comes time to market it. And, Chris, how do you think it's marketed? I have no idea. I have no idea how you would market this movie. I don't think the people doing the marketing did either. This is the VO from the original trailer.

From the creators of basic instinct, the last time they took you to the edge. This time, they're taking you all the way. So. All the way to the point where nothing is sexy anymore. All the way to the point where you're extraordinarily uncomfortable and you know. ever want to see anyone including yourself naked again. So the marketing makes a big deal about this being the first NC17 film to make wide release.

They make a big deal about the nudity. They make a big deal about it being about strippers. So they're selling the Esther House movie. Exactly. He was teasing this very much as this like tantalizing sexy like, you know, even if you're under 17, like sneak in. You're going to want to see this. Which if I had seen this.

movie at 14 years old, like I think I would have vomited on myself. I don't know, I don't know how you would react. My head would have exploded, but that's a different. Yeah, for sure. This is not for teenage boys. No, I mean, I don't know what teenage boys see nowadays just with the internet, but when I was, when I was this age, when this movie came out, it would have, I think we would have just been confused, too. We would have been like, I don't understand this is a movie, this is a real Maybe someone made this? Well, you hit the nail on the head. They are marketing the Joe Esther House sort of initial idea, but what it had become was

this weird, creepy, gross morality tale that Paul Verhoeven was trying to use as like a campy satire. So the only person who is like really going out early and doing full-fledged press is Elizabeth Berkeley. I want to play a little clip of her going on to the David Letterman show and doing promotion for this movie. Dave, have you ever been lap dance before? Technically speaking, what is a lap dance? Is it legal in most states?

Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, what is it exactly? Well, I would do it for you, but your censors would have me thrown off the show. So I'll just tell you that basically it's about seduction. And the woman basically, and it's about power, and the woman basically is being paid to seduce and to turn the man up. You sit on my lap. Is that what it is?

Yeah. Well, let me just show you one thing. Okay. I won't make you keep watching that because it just gets more uncomfortable. No, I'm going to finish it later. But so what frustrates me about this moment is, A, she's owning it. She's confident. She's been very, like, technical about it.

But she also, she's taking control of the situation, but he's destabilizing her by making it like, oh, you know about this taboo. thing that I don't know. Of course I don't know about because I'm a normal. He's just a little boy. Tell him about lap dances. He doesn't know. Blah, blah, blah. And it forces her to take the position of

I'm more knowledgeable about, you know, sex, therefore she's a slut, you know, basically. Right, therefore she's the tempteress. Exactly. So the movie premieres, after all of this press, all of this buildup to the hottest

sexiest NC-17 rated movie of all time. It premieres on September 22nd, 1995, and the reviews are bad. They are really bad. So I want to read a few excerpts from the New York Times review of the film by Janet Maslin. Quote, the surprise is that despite the intense steamyness of basic instinct, showgirls is in every sense not so hot. The filmmakers had declared they were bravely exploring new levels of licentiousness, but the biggest risk that they've taken here is making a nearly $40 million movie without anyone who can act. The absence of both drama and eroticism turns showgirls into a bare-butted boar. As for laughter, let's just say Elizabeth Berkeley, who stars in this film as a highly principled lap dancer named No Me will not be the next

Sharon Stone. With the open-mouthed, vacant-eyed look of an inflatable party doll, Miss Berkeley should have been well-suited to a film that treats its heroine like a shiny, new toy. But she has trouble even dancing alluringly in stiffly choreographed production numbers that suggest Michael Jackson videos and Oscar Knight Kitch. Just as she has trouble repeatedly insisting, I am not a whore. As declarations of integrity go, that one appears to rank with I am not a crook. Well, we've come a long way in how we don't slander people as personally as that review just did. I do think it's interesting

that Paul Verhoeven's name was not mentioned in that excerpt. I'm sure it was mentioned in the review at some point if just from an informational perspective. It is, but you are correct that the focus of the review is very much on her. So I think something that made people really mad and something that did generate a lot of the early,

very bad press for this, is that rape scene that you mentioned. because this was so heavily marketed as such a sexy movie, and that rape is so graphic and so upsetting. In some ways, I don't agree. I do not think it should be in the movie. I do think it derails the course of things. However, it is one of the more brutal rape scenes I've ever seen on film,

and it doesn't shy away from the parts that they don't generally show you in movies. In no way does it glorify it. In no way does it make it look attractive or sexy or as though she's enjoying any part of it. Like there's none of that. There's no 50 shades of gray. No, no, no, definitely. I guess to me it felt like though the classic example of we're going to take this very pure secondary character and we're going to brutalize her as a motivation for our hero to get their head out of the sand.

Exactly. It's really jarring. It's really upsetting. I think it made a lot of people really angry that they had been almost hoodwinked into watching this and seeing something they never wanted to see. So there's like a real,

there's a real visceral anger coming from people who have watched this movie. The terrible reviews coupled with the NC17 rating, which is already limiting how many people can even see it in the first place, result in a verifiable box office bomb, which of course the press then just takes even further as like this, you know, this bombed,

how terrible. Elizabeth Berkeley becomes a national laughing stock. Her agents called her almost immediately after the release of the movie and they dropped her. And that's insane. Like that doesn't happen very often. Like agents usually drop people now off, you know, bad behavior. Yeah. But not necessarily one bad role.

One bad role. You know, give a string, you know. And just dropped her. She leaves the country briefly and probably saddest. she completely stops dancing and said that she did not feel comfortable doing it, did not feel comfortable doing it for a role, certainly. Yeah. And it was not something that brought her joy anymore.

Interesting that Kyle McLaughlin, her partner in what you mentioned is one of the worst and least sexy sex scenes of all time. So to be clear, it looks like Kyle McLaughlin is attempting to drown her while she's having a seizure and they're both naked. I really had a moment where I thought to myself. If this is what sex is. Yeah, am I doing it wrong? I'm a virgin. Have I been doing it wrong this whole time? If I had seen that at an affirmative age of 12 or 13,

they would have, I would have, no. So I want to listen to a minute for Kyle McLaughlin talking about sort of the aftermath of showgirls. This is from his, you know, those GQ videos where they revisit their whole career. So let's hear what he has to say specifically about that pool sex scene we were just talking about. We did a scene coming back in Los Angeles in the pool, that whole sequence, which was a long night. It was like right near the end of the filming. It's the infamous pool scene. I was exhausted by the end of it, as you can imagine. And so cut two years later, or not years

later, but months later, I go to my first screening and I watched this movie and I'm like, oh my God, this is awful. I said, oh my God. But you know you have this hope? Like you watch the first scene and you're like, all right, now it's not so good, but it's got to get better. second one's like, I'm not getting any better. Okay. And I watched the whole thing. I said, I don't know what to say about this movie. I don't think I can talk about this movie. And so I didn't do any press, which didn't, you know, make any friends in the publicity department there at that time, but it was just too difficult. And now, of course, the movie's got this great life, you know, lives on in infamy, I guess, and it's sort of a crowd pleaser. But at the time,

it was, it was a pretty big embarrassment. You know, it's just like, all right, got to go forward from here, but I think my career definitely took a hit on that one. Yeah, and it's funny, it must have, because you kind of wonder where Kamaglachlan went for a while, because he was such a hot commodity off of Twin Peaks and Dune, and then, yeah, he kind of left at least my radar for a little while. He did. I mean, to be honest, for the most part, he continues to work. Like when he said that my career took a hit, it is, it is minuscule and compared to the absolute career ender. That's Elizabeth Berkeley experienced. Yeah, it took a hit as opposed to it was exploded and then launched into space.

Okay, so Kyle McLaughlin and to a certain extent, Gina Gershaw, they're able to kind of move on. Elizabeth at the time of release is 23 years old. Right. She has one major part under her belt, and that is saved by the bell. The film wins seven Razies, including two for Elizabeth Berkeley, worst actress and worst new star. And to anybody that doesn't know, the Golden Raspberrys are the satirical anti-Oskirts. that are, you know, given out to the worst movies every year. Yes, and Paul Verhoeven famously showed up to collect his Razzie for worst director.

Yes. A move that seemed to show that he was in on the joke and, you know, taking it all in stride and is something that people have done since. Whereas Verhoven is certainly able to recover and continue with an incredible career to this day, Elizabeth Berkeley is not. It completely derails her career and she never really recovers. Are you ready to hear what she was paid to do showgirls? God, I bet you it was so low.

She was paid $100,000. Oh, my God. That's horrifyingly low. And it ended her career. Yeah. As the lead of a $45 million movie, that's the lowest. She was paid less than to work on that movie, I would guess she was paid less than a lot of the below the line crew members,

which I'm not saying they shouldn't have been paid as much as they are. I'm just saying, like, as the face of the movie. You know, she got paid less than probably the gaffer on that movie, realistically. That's insane. I mean, I think a big part of it is... And her agent took 10% of that, by the way. Yeah. I mean, I think a big part of it is that, you know, she wanted it so badly.

I... She had no leverage. Right. Yeah. Later, when asked to do an interview for the DVD commentary, she requested a $2,500 appearance fee, which is honestly still very low. she was denied the appearance fee and did not appear. They wouldn't even pay her $2,500.

It should be noted that Berkeley had one high-powered cheerleader after the industry completely dismissed her, which is someone we have discussed on at least two other episodes before now, and it's Sherry Lansing, CEO of Paramount. Evidently, she became something of a mentor to Berkeley, I think recognizing that what had happened to Berkeley was not fair, and led her to her first bigger role after Showgirls, which is a smaller supporting role in the first wives club. Oh, that's right.

I forgot she was on that show. Yeah. So Sherry Lansing. Seems like an all right lady. Seems great. Where did we land with Elizabeth Berkeley? Well, I have some happy news. It only took almost 20 years,

but she was able to regain her love for dancing and even appeared on Dancing with the Stars in 2013. She didn't win, but she made it to the quarterfinals. She also spent years working on a program called Ask Elizabeth, a self-esteem building program from middle school and high school girls. Yeah, and I want to listen to a little clip of her talking to her dancing partner on Dancing with the Stars about what it felt like to sort of lose the right to dance after showgirls came out. With that time came a lot of doors that slammed in my face where it was very frustrating to not be able to perform for people and dance for people. And it was painful. it hurt. This was a part of me that kind of went, oh, maybe I won't get to do this thing that I love.

And that's okay. I have other blessings. You know, you kind of reconcile with things. Sorry. I got really good at pretending everything was great. And there were times where it was really hard for me in the industry. I kept working, but I had to just hold, you know, I'm really good at holding my head up and acting like it's all good. So I feel like some sort of sentence was lifted, if that makes sense. Hey, but isn't that a great feeling? Of course it makes sense. Anyway, should we dance?

Yeah, I think it brings me to kind of one of the reasons I wanted to make this podcast to begin with was after having made one movie, I'll oftentimes be home and I know a lot of people that work in the film industry who have the same experience and we get questions, comments along the lines of, can you believe how bad this is? How come there are so many bad movies? How like, you know, even a movie that's good, it's just complain after complaint. And I get it. It's, it's, it's, it's, you're using your valuable free time to consume something that we're trying to convince you is worth it. And when it's not good, it feels like you've been swindled in some way. But it is impossibly hard to make these things. And beyond that, it's, there are still

people on the other side of that screen that are vulnerable. And when somebody, you know, becomes the public target, you know, following a mess like this. Think about what is the worst day at work that you've ever had. Now, imagine that it got you fired and then unable to work in the industry that you were trained for and had spent your whole life training for. And then everywhere you went, people would laugh at you because they had been sent video footage of you doing the thing that supposedly was so awful, even though your manager told you. you. You were doing a great job the entire time that you did it. That's what happened to Elizabeth Berkeley. She got to work every day, did her job. Did exactly what she was asked to do. And did exactly

what she was asked to do. There was never a complaint about her performance on set. She reported on time. She did the dance moves. She did the nudity. She gave Paul Verhoeven the performance that he wanted by his own admission. But because the movie was not understood, was not well-liked, was not particularly well-constructed in terms of being a satire, she was eviscerated for it. And I'm not saying, you know, she deserves some glittering Hollywood career. My point is she lost the ability to work,

and on top of it, she lost the ability to do something that she loved and cared about because we so relentlessly bullied her over it that we took it away from her. Yeah. I do think a big part of this and a big part of why people felt like it was okay to do that was I, I come back to the fact that I think people were really angry that they had been tricked into they thought they were going to get a fun, sexy movie where they were going to get to watch this girl that they had watched as a high school girl, by the way, and Saved by the Bell. This was the enticing part of this, and I think it's a big part of why they cast her. you know, oh, this pristine star of Saved by the Bell, you've watched her as the tight, you know, tight-laced high school girl. She is going full frontal nude. This is the hottest, sexiest, most shocking thing you've ever seen.

People showed up. And her performance, I think, is designed to make you uncomfortable. It's designed to not be sexy. The entire movie is not sexy. Like, if that's what people were coming. for and they were, they are furious. Yeah. And I think that you nailed this pernicious aspect of entertainment, media consumption and the way that we look at women as consumers and then talking about men, which is this idea reflected in the title of that, you know, that barely legal, that she's

finally come of age, this, you know, I just have to wait and then this actress will do this nudity. But then there's this anger when they do it. Like that's, I think that's the interesting thing. As soon as the sort of image of the sweetheart is tarnished, there's a lot of anger, I think. And what's hard about watching it now is that you know what happens to Elizabeth Berkeley's career. And so you're just watching her fearlessly walk into the jaws of death, you know, in this movie. Yes. So there is a bit of a happy ending to this. Showgirls has entered the canon of Cult Camp Classics with Midnight Showings.

They even recut a version for television, which you may have seen flashes of as a child on VH1. This is where they actually digitally like animated black bras and panties onto all of the actresses, yes, so that you could see it. And they recut it for television. It becomes, as we said, one of if not the top selling DVD or VHS for MGM ever. Elizabeth Berkeley speaking to an audience in Los Angeles at a screening of Showgirls in 2015 for its 20 year anniversary had a really nice way of framing all of this. Let's hear from her speaking to an audience for one of the first times about this movie since she'd made it. I had the most extraordinary experience making the film. It was the greatest freedom. You know, when a dream is happening, it's unlike anything you can

ever imagine, which is why when the movie came out, it was more painful than anything you can imagine. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that moment, because because why do that? We don't live in the past. But I'm just bringing it up for a point to tell you that while in 1995, it was such a different time where taking risks like that were not embraced, they were laughed at, they were shamed publicly. And to be a young girl in the center of that was something that was quite difficult. But I found my own resiliency and my power and my confidence

not only through what I had to find out, but because of you guys. Good for her. Yeah. So I think that about does our depressing romp into the incredible mistreatment of Elizabeth Berkeley. Yeah, a different what went wrong. But what went right? Yes. The movie looks great.

And if you can watch it as camp, it's really fun. I watched it, and I immediately texted a friend, and I said, I want to make a shot for shot. remake of show girls starring John Early in the original in the lead role and it's just all the it's called show boys oh my god and it's just played it but you play it as if gender doesn't matter and I just think it would be incredible because I think the movie is just like it's just right for it that doggy chow scene it's just insane I want to see other actors do the doggy chow scene like it's yeah this should I wish they'd made me do this in acting school um would have loved to do the doggy

show scene. Yeah. The reason I, in terms of what went right to, you know, Elizabeth Berkeley took a big swing with this movie. Paul Verhoven took a big swing and I always have to give credit to anybody and anything that takes a big swing even if it's ultimately a miss. Cudos to them. Yeah. I will say I guess maybe what went right is the sort of, it's kind of both what went right and what went wrong in that I appreciated very much that he that they made an effort to show how gross the treatment of women could be in this scenario. Like you see the, the owner of the strip club she's first working at telling new girls like if you want to last more than a week, you have to give me a blowjob. And it's unclear whether he's joking or not. And like that is that is left unclear. And he's also painted as sort of like a friendly figure later in the in the movie in a way that I think. think is gross and is creepy and is also not entirely inaccurate. They tried to show how unsexy

parts of this sex industry are. And it's both sides of the coin for me. I don't think they fully pulled it off. But in some ways, I do appreciate the effort that was made. I do also want to shout out. I didn't get a chance to watch this prior to this, but I intend to watch it. There is a documentary available for rental, I believe right now, called You Don't Know Me, spelled N-O-M-I, which is actually about the critical backlash to showgirls and is an interesting deeper dive into this subject. It played at Fantastic Fest last year. Yes, it's supposed to be very good.

So for anybody that wants further information, I'm going to check out that documentary and you should too. Thanks so much for checking out another episode of what went wrong. once again a reminder send us any movies that you would like us to cover to what went wrong pod at gmail.com or on Instagram DM us at what went wrong pod go enjoy some doggy chat what went wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by lizzie bassett and chris winterbauer editing and music by david bowman with cover art from euthonioos