So by now my fellow film buffs and gay community, you've heard about the fiasco coming straight-to-video as a sequel (Showgirls 2: Pennies from Heaven) released two days ago, to the masterpiece that is Showgirls (1996). I was discussing this with a friend from work recently and he asked me if I love the film ironically or unironically, and I said I loved it unironically, it is truly one of my favorite films of that decade and I never tire of watching it. With a masterful director like Paul Verhoeven, this glitzy, campy, vaudevillian, T&A fatwa was just what the film industry needed back then, and kind of what it needs now with filmmakers taking themselves way too seriously (Are you hearing me Nicolas Winding Refn?)
the pool scene is utterly classic in it's over-the-top ridiculousness
There are also just classic film moments that will never be unetched from our memories. The pool scene for example, calling every Versace you see in a window a Versayce, spelling MGM backwards and so on. I mean the memories and moments that you carry with you from this film are priceless and the drinking games don't hurt either.
'Can you spell MGM backwards I bet ya can!'
Now on to my biggest point, to parody a parody is just so meta it's stupid. Showgirls is already basically All About Eve (1950) in Vegas with tits, and it works, why fuck all that up and tarnish its legacy. And there will be no cameo appearances by any of the principal cast which made the film which pisses me off, probably because they are all pissed off that this catastrophe has even been greenlit. You only catch lightning in a bottle once, and Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle Maclachlan, and Gena Gershon all knew that this was going to be something that whether you loved or hated, you remembered, and you'd probably tell you children about...shamefully, or not depending on the kind of person you are.
Speaks for itself.
The original is just so brilliant in so many ways, in effect it's an over-the-top campy story about a struggling young girl who just wants to break into show business no matter what it takes, it just pushes it to places that Burlesque (2011), Chicago (2002), and all the Step Up movies weren't able to go. This is mostly due to the fearlessness and devil-may-care attitude of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven who understood that any publicity is good publicity, and more importantly the 'worse' the film was and the more it aggravated and shocked people, the more chances it had of becoming a huge cult phenomenon...and it did. I mean, if you don't like this movie or have a problem with it, you're just an idiot in my book, and I'm sorry if that came out harsh but really. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
Showgirls FTW
My friend and co-worker was intuitive enough to post this to the website that I work for, which basically explains my whole point in GIF's. Here it is: 11 Gif reasons why 'Showgirls 2' will never be as good as 'Showgirls 1' (NSFW). And he's got a point, to really understand what I'm trying to say just go on iTunes and rent it just one more time. It's the Citizen Kane (1941) of cult classics, and it has stood the test of time brilliantly all the while doing an erotic dance on a stripper pole and then licking it. I'll leave you with some clips too, just to give you a taste of how good it once was. Go ahead and throw that viewing party where everyone has to come dressed as an incarnation of Chrystal or Nomi, but remember kids, I get to be Nomi...I even have a Versayce!
Clips below, go ahead and take your pants off and get nostalgic...or you know whatever.
Now that the grand innovator and genuine artiste Alexander McQueen is no more and Sarah Burton is basically butchering his legacy by dumbing down the fashions until it's not haute couture but something your grammy wore that now belongs in a consignment shop, it's time to look for that other British bad-boy designer who is going to revolutionize the industry and hopefully take enormous risks with an effortless fearlessness that makes us all stand up and take notice.
for inspiration, Pugh works with themes like cubism, bondage, and the Avant-Garde
British fashion never had a Jean Paul Gaultier, or a John Galiano, or a Betsy Johnson, but they did have iconoclasts like Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen who threw Burberry's tweeds and stripes right back into their face with their innovative designs and devil-may-care aesthetic. Now there's another bad boy of textile on the British scene who is setting the stage to bring the Brits back to the forefront of high fashion.
a dress made completely out of safety pins, a nod no doubt to Vivienne Westwood.
His name is Gareth Pugh, he's barely out of his early 20's and is killing it in every piece of clothing he lets walk the runway. His themes include androgyny, bondage, S&M, and what looks like every German Avant-Garde film from the 30's I've ever seen. Every one of his models looks like walking art and he is now being recognized by the likes of Lady Gaga (of course), Beyonce, Rihanna, and others. He is truly a force to be reckoned with considering 30 years ago, his clothes wouldn't even be legal.
Walking art. Don't you wish your man dressed like this? Well, every once in a while. It's like a viking and a pterodactyl went to an S&M bar together.
He invented the concept of inflatable clothing and yeah you might not wear it to the office on a Tuesday, but damn isn't that interesting. He's restored art back into fashion, and fashion back into the general folds of entertainment. He's shocking, outlandish, and creative, as well as being a completely genuine article.
Gareth's now famous inflatable clothing line.
I believe that his contribution to the British fashion idiom is as important as that of Vivienne Westwood who with a few safety pins and inline zippers completely changed the look of the whole country 30 years ago. Gareth Pugh is doing the same now. To look at his designs and think 'that's too much' is exactly what he's going for and I think that Alexander McQueen were he around today would be proud, not to mention extremely jealous.
