A Good Movie To Hate

Lara Zarum reviews Adam Nayman’s It Doesn’t Suck, which disputes the conventional wisdom that Showgirls is a bad film:

Showgirls is not a piece of shit or a masterpiece—it’s a “Masterpiece of Shit,” Nayman writes, and the book’s embrace of both of Showgirls’ “two minds” is its greatest strength. It Doesn’t Suck frees viewers from the constraints of the guilty pleasure—because if you feel guilty watching Showgirls, you’re doing it wrong. As Kael wrote, “Movies—a tawdry corrupt art for a tawdry corrupt world—fit the way we feel.”

Showgirls may have initially been dismissed, but when I rewatched it for this review—twice, of course, in keeping with its doubling motif—I was surprised at how it made me feel: not angry or amused or dismissive, but sick to my stomach. Not because it’s a terrible movie, but because it’s such an effective one. Nomi’s full-circle journey from nameless drifter to star and back again really is horrific, filled with backstabbing rivals, conniving love interests, and brutal rapists. In its 128 minutes, it seems to encompass all the sleaze in Las Vegas and then some. And more importantly, you can’t take your eyes off it.

It Doesn’t Suck isn’t just a book about Showgirls, but about the way we perceive such films and how that perception changes over time. As an extended conversation on one of the most ridiculed films of the past two decades, Nayman’s book is a valuable gift. After all, the only thing more fun than watching a deliciously tacky movie is picking it apart with your friends when the lights go up.