It Doesn't Suck Showgirls [Paperback]

A new edition of the first book in the acclaimed Pop Classics series

The Worst. Movie. Ever. is a masterpiece. Seriously. Enough time has passed sinceShowgirlsflopped spectacularly that it’s time for a good hard look back at the sequined spectacle. A salvage operation on a very public, very expensive train wreck,It Doesn’t Suckargues thatShowgirlsis much smarter and deeper than it is given credit for. In an accessible and entertaining voice, the book encourages a shift in critical perspective on Paul Verhoeven’sShowgirls, analyzing the film, its reception, and rehabilitation. This in-depth study of a much-reviled movie is a must-read for lovers and haters of the 1995 Razzie winner for Worst Picture. 

This expanded edition includes an exclusive interview between the author andShowgirlsdirector Paul Verhoeven, as well as a new preface.

In his essay “Beaver Las Vegas,” critic I.Q. Hunter writes that “Paul Verhoeven’s lap-dance musicalShowgirlsis that rare object in cultural life: a film universally derided as ‘bad.’ No one seems to like it. At a time of alleged cultural relativism and collapsing standards of aesthetic judgment,Showgirlshas emerged as a welcome gold standard of poor taste and worldclass incompetence.”1

It is a film that, previously universally derided as “bad,” is now widely suspected of being “good.” (It even received a single, lonely vote on that aforementionedSight & Soundpoll, from Greek director David Panos, who slotted it alongside Andrei Tarkovsky’sMirror[1975] and Orson Welles’sTouch of Evil[1958].)2 Film canons are built and guarded as sturdily as fortresses, but intruders sometimes slip through the back door. Once a ratified anti-classic to rank with the likes ofPlan 9 from Outer Space(1959) orValƒg