The Onion’s “A.V. Club” is my vote for best light criticism on the internet, a lofty perch amongst a thick market1. For the movie nerd, one of the most intriguing features the AV Club offers is “The New Cult Canon,” an article that usually gives due illumination to an older film that deserves it. While some of these retrospects can be misguided in topic2, the reviewers usually do an excellent job of pointing out flaws, random points, and absurdities with a vigor that should be applauded (these articles make my articles look like the fortunes from a cookie in length). More refreshing is simply seeing a force out there sticking up for bona-fide film classics like Wet Hot American Summer or Sexy Beast, films most of us would not find unless given a suggestion or really, really stoned and bored at Blockbuster. For the month of July, in honor of the month that spells over-night camp for many unappreciative tikes across the country, the theme of all the “The New Cult Canon” articles revolve around ‘camp’ movies.
When I hear the word ‘camp,’ one person comes to mind: John Waters. For those not familiar with the pencil-thin mustached auteur from Baltimore, you are probably familiar with some of his films, which vary from social commentary with Hairspray (the original film, not that thing with Travolta embarrassing the flawless legacy of the powerful Xenu) to darker comedy cult classics like Serial Mom. His association with the word has little do with his niche film-making, it actually has to deal with the character he played in the “Homer’s Phobia” episode of The Simpsons. In the episode Waters plays (novelty alert) John, proprietor of Cockamamie’s, an antiques collectibles shop in the mall where one can find things such as 50’s laser guns and other items whose lack of quality gave them an “ironic” value. Surprisingly rational Homer, stunned by all the revenue generated by sub-standard junk, questions John:
John: But this is the Rex Mars Atomic Discombobulator. Don't you just
love the graphics on this box?
Homer: No. How can you love a box, or a toy or graphics? You're a grown
man.
John: It's camp!
[Homer stares nonplussed]
The tragically ludicrous? The ludicrously tragic?
Homer: Oh, yeah. Like when a clown dies.
So, you just read that paragraph and lines of dialogue for a simple definition which I could have just as easily described as “gay dude from Simpsons thinks ‘camp’ means intentionally stupid,” but shitty thing for you is that I rarely use the delete button.
With a firm definition of ‘camp’ in hand, I bring you:
Versus Number Eight: Showgirls versus Blue Velvet
Now, before you start assuming that I will pick Showgirls automatically as a way of poking a hole in the mass perception that Blue Velvet is a masterpiece and Showgirls has scenes like this in it, let me assure you, Blue Velvet is a considerably better film- perhaps the best film of the 1980’s3. That being said, both films are absolutely fucking ridiculous- which seems like a good enough reason to me for them to weigh them against one another.
Story: If you ever want to know why I think Jiminy Glick Goes to Hollywood is an unsung comedy classic, it mostly deals with Martin Short’s handling of David Lynch, the director/writer of Blue Velvet, one of the strangest people to grace the planet since Rasputin, although his responsible-for-death count is only about a quarter of the size. Blue Velvet revolves around Jeffrey, a relatively innocent, Heineken-swigging college student who comes home to care for his ill father in their smaller suburban neighborhood. After finding an ear (yep, an ear) in an idyllic yard4, Jeffrey finds himself neck deep in a world of kidnapping, corruption, rape, sado-masochism, murder, and Dennis Hopper huffing some unnamed gas that must remind him of off-time on the set of Easy Rider. Realizing that my plot synopsis is vague, I will say that hinting at any other plot points will ruin the movie. That being said, the end’s over-the-top cynicism of “everything turning out alright” can only be interpreted as a pointed belly-laugh at a dumbed down Studio system’s narrative structure. The film as a whole is like a noir-film on acid yet at the same time its setting retains a logic that makes it much comprehensible than some of Lynch’s other works (ahem). This film is Lynch’s masterpiece, but describing it does it little justice (“Hit Me! Hit Me!” loses some of its resonance when blogged about as opposed to when heard screamed by a dead-inside damsel)- just see it- you may not like it, but you won’t forget it.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Showgirls, a film whose story is so simple one must feel it is playing off the aforementioned Hollywood clichés. Our story begins with Nomi Malone a.k.a Elizabeth Berkely a.k.a. Jessie Spano5, a down-on-her-luck girl whose ultimate dream is to become a dancer- a certainly achievable, if difficult wish to fulfill for a girl of her bountiful assets6 and always-handy switchblade.7 Instead of going the route of classical dancing and perhaps going to a Moscow, New York, Paris, or even Los Angeles, Malone decides the best place to pursue an art form defined by grace and eloquence is…. the same place you can have a steak dinner for a dollar and get an STD quicker than you can say the three letters8. Shockingly, there are few opportunities for the classically-trained dancer around the neon-lit strip, so Nomi in an attempt to subsist to the best of her ability, decides to go work for the local strip club, awesomely named “Cheetah’s.” Through various connections, Nomi befriends Molly, a seamstress lesbian who takes in Nomi for the occasional when-she’s-asleep-I-might-as-well-smell-her-panties. Somehow, Molly gets Nomi an audition for Stardust, an erotica-show that the movie insists would be a hit in Vegas but what really looks like the stage-version of the pornos that used to be televised on Cinemax in the early 1990s. Nomi quickly battles with Cristal Connors, the HBIC of the production, which eventually leads to Cristal being pushed down stairs by an ultra- jealous Nomi. Long story short, Nomi rises to fame (surprise!), realizes its not all its cracked to be (surprise!), and decides to move to greener pastures (surprise!), in this case L.A. to pursue an acting career, because, you know, Southern California has never been considered anything but the zenith of respectability. The original script, written by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct), was a $2 million piece of shit or brilliance, depending on to whom you are talking. Oh, and there is a rape scene in it that is twice as sickening as Clockwork Orange, surprisingly a no show in memorable horrifying movie moments.
Characters (only 3 a piece)
Blue Velvet
- Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan)- Deep, interesting character. In the first fifteen minutes one think he is nothing more than a bland concerned son and yuppie, until one realizes the obsession with which he pursues that which he is searching. His disgust with the grotesque underworld quickly becomes a perverse attraction, seen by his willingness to perform some unsavory love acts. While a moving scene of self-reflection shows that Jeffrey is not one of the seedy customers that inhabit Blue Velvet’s world, the movie’s conclusion shows he is not about above it either.
- Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini)- Characters like this are why David Lynch will always have a job in the film industry but never will be as financially successful as the Brett Ratners9. The wife/ mother of a kidnapped husband/ son, Rossellini’s character could easily by a doctorate dissertation in psychology in of herself. Her obsession with pain, sex, and loneliness makes her completely collapse on herself like a celestial body. The femme fatale of the film, she plays the role helplessly as opposed to seductively, a trait that clearly separates her from the more classic noir dames, whose confidence amongst chaos always felt, well, fictional.
- Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper)- One of the best thought out, terrifyingly executed, nefarious, vindictive, vulnerable characters in film history, this was the role that saved Hopper’s career from years of excess. Frank Booth’s vernacular makes Jules from Pulp Fiction seem prude by comparison. His recklessness with violence as well as his completely joyless attitude towards sex seem to convey a vision from Lynch’s America which is focused on hate and destruction, not surprising considering many left-leaning filmmakers during this time viewed Reagan as some sort of Hell-beast with the blood of Soviets and minorities pouring through his gills. Simply Put: “Fucking PBR!”
Showgirls
- James Smith (Glenn Plummer)- The one man that believes that Nomi is more than a stripper, but rather has the skills to be a dignified dancer. Until you see this “dignified dance,”10 which made the smooth moves of You Got Served look like the awkward white kids at Cotillion- the dance is literally her thrusting her pelvis in his face for about two minutes. Then the viewer finds out that James isn’t just all choreography and good intentions- in fact, he uses the “dignified dance” line to all the strippers! He even gets one pregnant, and disappears from the movie. This is the genius/ stupidity of this film- his character is entertaining and morally corrupt, but is not consequential at all to the overall film. Like much of the film, he could have been edited out and no one would have been the wiser.
- Zack Carey (Kyle MacLachlan)- Ah, MacLachlan, you show up again. If his character in Blue Velvet is about the typical American’s secret obsession with the darkness inherent in our nature, his character in Showgirls is about being a coke-blowing asshole yuppie who is the man. Zack is the entertainment manager of Stardust and dater to every hot piece of quasi- lesbian ass to come through his casino. His character, and this is the sign of every great villain, just looks like a dick- like he’d sell you and three like you to a Burmanese11 gorilla squad for Thanksgiving. He also has the three traits of every great movie villain (even though he’s not really a villain per se, he’s just a dick): he’s not loyal, he does cocaine, and he is implicit in a rape. The only thing that would have made him better is if after Nomi spat in his face he yelled “Yeah, well you’ll never work in this town again; and by the way, I wasn’t wearing a condom!”
- Nomi Malone- What can you say. I guess I might as well admit that I think that there is a genius to Showgirls, although it often fights itself to get out onto the screen. That being said, this character is evidently a metaphor for imbecility and naivety of the American dream. She reminds me of a bit on a David Cross album12 where he describes all of these millions of people in L.A., all of whom think they are the next Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, or Madonna, and the absurdity of thinking they even have a chance. Throughout the course of the movie, she is naked for about 15 percent of it, and as dumb as a fucking Extra reporter for one hundred percent. First move, she thinks she will automatically get picked up in Vegas because of her statuesque body and talent. Update: anybody that goes to Vegas has a breast augmentation at least, and when your real discernible talent is being able to imitate intimacy13, you are not exactly alone in your status in Sin City. Stupidity number two: pushes down Cristil in front of at least 200 people, and yet somehow gets away with it. Three: Breaks up Cristil and her boyfriend, but fully suspects for him to be faithful to her, even though he is a known womanizer and drug addict. Four: when head dancer of Stardust, a position that presumably would pay in the millions, she continues to live in a trailer. Five: she treats her stripper boss/ pimp and obese stripper friend as though family. At least when she does cocaine she has a little excuse as to why she is an idiot- but Freud argued it brought out one’s real emotions, so perhaps she really is as dumb as a rock’s dump. Berkley was paid $100,000 for the film (1/20 of the screen-writer), and when she asked for a $2,500 interview fee for the DVD, the producers declined.
Conclusion: So, why compare these two films when one is considered a modern classic and the other one is known for the amount of Razzie wins it got? Because I think both films are saying the same thing. Clearly, Blue Velvet is about the underbelly of American society that we try to turn a blind eye (or ear- high five!) to, and yet we are so intrigued by. If I’m talking to a group of coworkers or friends at lunch, everything unsavory be damned- drugs, prostitues, violence, etc. But, I would be lying if I were to say I’ve never been in a strip club, never shot a gun, never done drugs- and I am not the exception on this. Blue Velvet, at its basest, investigates this duality and how we as people somehow weave such much marvelous yarns to fool others. When I commented earlier about the overly perfect ending, it is because at the end of the film, no body seems effected at all by the events- Dorothy, who had been a sex slave and abused for who knows how long, is seen with a radiance of a woman in the “after” shot of feminine product commercial. Jeffrey and his girlfriend profess their love even though both had been exposed to some of the world’s ugliest realities. It’s an ending Lynch nails- because while everybody seems so content with their now “resolved” lives, there are clearly consequences coming from these actions- its like Lynch saying to Hollywood “look, you wanted this nice ending where the bad guys die and the nice guy ‘wins,’ I’m just going to film it suggesting that there is no feeling of finality that can be completely sincere- the past is always with us.” And this is where I see the similarities to Showgirls. Showgirls goes the more obvious route to hit this soul of darkness, merely by setting the film in a city whose nickname implies its OK to go ape-shit in a desert of immorality. It’s a place where the oppressed urges of Blue Velvet come to the forefront (Jeffrey could easily be Zack in ten years), but with lack of morality comes lack of understanding, and that is certainly one trait all the characters in Showgirls exhibit beautifully- arrogant ignorance. In the end, I think both filmmakers are alluding to the fact that these people are not only crushing their hopeless lives, they are also slowly chipping away at the moral fabric of America. Then again, that is a foundation typically criticized now because it is based in Judeo- Christian values which did a pretty good job of ostracizing plenty groups of people in the past. One of these camp films would do John Waters’ definitions proud- Showgirls is ludicrously tragic and tragically ludicrous but at an arm’s length way where we simply regard these things as so outrageous that they are under the breath funny; much like the laser guns from the 50s are funny because they show our love towards violence and our wild ideas about what the coming space age would be. Blue Velvet is just as ludicrous but does it in more of a subdued way reflective of the setting (suburbia versus burlesque dancing clubs of Vegas). Blue Velvet is clearly the better film, but both are certainly genius in their own right. Oh, and if you are counting, anytime there is a violent rape scene in a movie, its typically anti- American (and, hate to say it, awesome).
1 If you don’t believe my statement that the world of internet criticism is bloated, check out metacritic.com and see how many reputable entities there are, not to mention the bored-as-piss work drones like myself that try to add to this repetitive (“Wow! You thought No Country For Old Men was good too?”) journalistic genre
2 I still think Boondocks Saints was a pretty fucking terrible flick
3 Excluding, of course, the entirety of Van Damme’s films during this period, Back to the Future, Full Metal Jacket, and Raging Bull
4 Symbolism! Alright!
5 a.k.a. this movie would have been substantially more succesful if dreamy Tiffany Amber- Thiessen decided to show off her cans for this steamy showcase
6 Hi Yo!
7 Where does she hide that thing?
8 Vegas
9 Oh, I get it! Black people really like music, and their car stereos, so seemingly innocuous Asian people better not touch that man’s radio!
10 Sorry for the lack of clips for Showgirls, but youtube is usually pretty calm about the nudity, which the movie has a lot of
11 Sorry, been on a Rambo kick recently
12 Where he, surprisingly, wasn’t mentioning some sort of necrophilia
13 Which she is awesome at- I always thought Tori from Saved would be the rough one
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