Austinist Interviews David Schmader: Host of Showgirls 2.0

I noticed that you had titled the commentary on the special edition DVD “The Greatest Movie Ever Made”…

They (MGM) actually did that. I always call it "The Most Misunderstood Work of Art in the 20th Century: An Inadvertent Comedy," so that title was their doing. I’m not against it, though.

Hilarious! Well, I was interested in that title because it seemed so academic. I know that the last time you were here in Austin was in ’02, so it has been quite awhile, and I’m not sure if you are aware that the Alamo Drafthouse has a series of commentary shows that they do in the vein of Mystery Science Theater 3000. They’re focused on skewering these wonderfully bad movies, while you chose to take more of a scholarly route to dissecting Showgirls.

I went that direction because it’s like when someone says “I’m going to tell you a really funny story,” and you brace yourself for that, whereas if someone just tells you a story and it ends up being hilarious, part of it is political, but mostly it’s that the movie is its own amazing punch line. There is no way that I could have ever improved on it, so the best way to approach it was to do this really pointy headed explanation. It’s an amazing thing to watch in a room full of other people, and really just to share the experience. I love doing the live show so much because whenever you are watching things this terrible you immediately want to turn to someone and say “Did I just really see that?” If there are other people there, then you know that you saw it, because they saw it too and then you can rewind it and know that you are not tripping. The pointier-headed I was about it the funnier the movie seemed, it just turned out to be a better comedy equation for me than just coming up with some wisecracks. The movie makes fun of itself in such an amazing way that just getting out of the way was all I needed to do.

Do you ever watch it by yourself anymore?

No, I save it for these screenings. I never want the viewing of Showgirls to turn into something that I am doing just because I have a gig. I want to truly be able to enjoy myself so that it doesn’t feel like work. I do it two or three times a year and that is plenty viewings of Showgirls. I did watch the VH1 version recently where they edited it for T.V.

With the pink bras and stuff?

Yeah, with the hover-bras, drawn right on the frame, floating on all of the women.

They don’t move at all, there is no sort of suppleness in their contouring….

They look like a pink lottery ticket, like you could scratch them off the screen with your thumb.

I actually saw that version at a bar once and it was the strangest movie watching experience, so I just ordered another drink and went with it. It was true comedy. Have you ever spoken to Paul Verhoeven about his intentions when he made Showgirls?

No, I have never had any contact with any of the principal talent. The closest thing I have heard to anyone mentioning me was from an agent friend in Los Angeles who met Elizabeth Berkley and somehow it was brought up. She apparently said something to him about me, but he is professional enough that he will never tell me because I work for a newspaper (The Stranger) and I would make fun of her. Well, actually, he didn’t even go that far, so I don’t even know the tenor of what she said. But, Elizabeth Berkley said something once about me.

Do you think Verhoeven wanted people to hate this movie?

It’s really hard to say. In the show I reference this book of essays that he released around the same time as the movie, which is the closest you can ever get into what the hell he was thinking, but he refers to it as a Christian morality tale and seems very serious about it. I think that he thought, because it was so explicit sexually, we didn’t like it because we were just being stuffy Americans, when really anyone with a brain can tell that explicit sex is the least of Showgirls problems. One of thousands.

Well, it’s just that in the last couple of years he has complained about not being able to make the kind of movies that he wants to make in Hollywood, specifically when referring to Hollow Man, but I wonder if he wanted people to hate this movie so that it would get a rise out of them.

Well, they (Verhoeven and Eszterhas) got a blank check based on the previous success of Basic Instinct, kind of what we see now with Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow, like, “Oh, they poop gold! Give them a blank check!” But, I actually do believe that those guys poop gold.

They totally do. Well, I find it hard to believe that Verhoeven would want anything to do with Christian morality, which is maybe why he made the directorial choices that he did. Eszterhas, who also wrote Basic Instinct, immediately denounced Showgirls when it came out, but all I can think is that he wrote these lines! Barring any stylistic choices made by Verhoeven, it just seems from the screenplay like Eszterhas really hates women.

Yeah, but in a weird way. It’s nothing as simple as so many other misogynists before him. He invented a cartoon woman, and then hated her. A weird new Muppet woman…

Right, one that has irrational emotional reactions to everything that happens in her life. Her two reactions are violence or sex and the two can cross-mingle.

I’ve heard more persuasive arguments on the values of Showgirls from critical thinkers than I have from Verhoeven, and they all say that this movie is exactly as vulgar as America. America is nothing but sex and violence. I would just hope for a little more finesse?

On the topic of finesse, let’s talk about breasts for a minute. The Pop-Up-Video-esque special feature on the DVD mentions that there are 170 bare breasts in the film. At what point do you think breasts become un-provocative. Is there a hard and fast number?

I don’t know what the number is but it is definitely reached in the move. There is a point about ¾ of the way through where Nomi (Berkley) does this slow strip of her top and you are like “You can not be pretending like we aren’t old friends.” You know?! Oh, those again? It’s such a numbing effect. I always ask straight guys and lesbians in the audience if they are even remotely turned on and the response is always no. It transcends any sort of recognizable eroticism.

There might as well have been meat strapped to their chest. They just become cutlets at that point, nothing at all interesting….

What about vegetarians?

Well, maybe if they had used large stalks of broccoli, then. I just think that would have been more appealing than more chest action. And then there is the pool scene, which I know you appreciate, but I don’t think that I have ever seen a scarier pair of breasts. They look like they might kill poor Kyle MacLachlan. Your thoughts?

What I have to say about the pool scene is that I am really glad that this movie wasn’t a hit, or even a cable hit, where it would have been something that an entire generation of kids would see at some point, because it could have really damaged expectations of sex. It would have a really negative influence on what kids thought grown ups looked like when they were having good sex. We would have many young women who were paralyzed by trying to mimic that. People stomp their feet and go crazy during that scene because when she is done with her erotic insulin fit, they gaze lovingly into each others eyes and we are supposed to ignore that she almost just died.

I saw something on torture and waterboarding recently and all I could think when I watched the movie again is that Elizabeth Berkley was being waterboarded and that I was very concerned for her safety.

Waterboarding is always wrong.

She was being tortured for pillaging pelvic-town. But yes, waterboarding is always wrong. Moving on, Nomi is obsessed with her nails, and I understand the whole theme in the movie of a stripper trying to “claw her way to the top” of a “legitimate” stage show, but do you think that the filmmakers though that Nomi would literally claw her way to the top?

One of the things that touring around with this has brought is that I meet lots of different people and someone I met at a show gave me the original shooting script and her nails actually had a bigger role in the movie before the final cut. In the jail scene after the fight at the club, Nomi is hit on by this “lesbian” and Nomi rakes her nails down the girl’s face. The next morning you see her with these five blood-streaked scabs down her face. Oh, also, in the script she punctures the character Andrew’s eye with her nail during the scene when she is kicking his ass, so I think you may be on to something.

I actually think that would have been better left in. I can appreciate a good eyeball gouging, and if they were going to make this movie in the manner that they did, they might as well have made it gory. But, wow, I can’t believe that her nails were written in as a character.

They were, and a really mean character. (David makes mrawr-hissing cat fight noise.)

There are a couple of characters in the movie that seem to escape the magical spell that Verhoeven had over say, Elizabeth Berkley, like Gina Gershon and the girl who plays Molly. Do you think that they were in on some sort of cruel joke?

I think they are just more intelligent actors with deeper imaginative reserves to bring to these lines. Gershon really nails whatever aspirations her character is supposed to have and I think she did a good job, so I’m glad to see that she has gone on to bigger and better things. In the book that Eszterhas released, he relays a conversation that he had with Gershon, who basically said that Berkley is really sweet, but she cannot act. Everyone was really surprised at the casting of Elizabeth Berkley as the lead, but they were introduced to her as the star of the movie and Verhoeven’s girlfriend at the same time, so everyone was just like “Ok, no arguing with this.” Basically taking someone from Saved By the Bell and immediately expecting them to be able to carry a feature film, especially one directed by the person they are involved with is a dangerous thing to do.

Definitely, especially when that director is Paul Verhoeven. Do you have anything special planned for this particular screening?

Nothing special, so to speak, but it will be the greatest night of your life, particularly if you have never seen the film. You never knew that adults could make so many bad decisions in a row.

With all the bad decisions, do you think there is one scene that is the most off?

Yes, and it is my favorite scene as well. It’s when Henrietta “Mama” Bazoom and Al the strip club manager come to visit Nomi, and it is supposed to be this tender reunion scene with underscoring, which is sickening enough, but then as they are leaving, Al turns around and says, “It must be weird not having anyone cum on you.” Is that supposed to be played for tears? That is the moment where my brain melts. No one responds in any way that I would believe to be true.

I thought the same thing! Is this supposed to be touching? It’s just so bad. I bet that a lot of people walked out at that point. Have you ever walked out of a movie?

Oh, I walk out of movies all the time, but I have been trying to make better choices recently because who wants to pay $9 for something that is terrible. The first movie that started my realization of my right to walk out was Sling Blade. He (Billy Bob Thornton) looked like he was kidding. It seemed like a Mad TV sketch that wasn’t funny. But I am more than willing to watch the world’s worst movies at home for research on this follow up piece that I am doing, so I have actually walked out of much better movies than the ones that I am watching now, like Look Who’s Talking Too.

Dear Lord, are you doing a commentary on Look Who’s Talking Too?

It’s actually one of many films that I am taking clips from. I searched to find one film that could hold up to the kind of scrutiny that I give to Showgirls in one viewing, but I just couldn’t find one. Most movies are bad and boring, which is the miracle of Showgirls – that it’s bad and thrilling - so I am taking clips from all the runners up to the Showgirls throne, the big ones are Gigli, Roadhouse, Duets--you know the karaoke drama with Huey Louis and Gwyneth Paltrow? Karaoke bloodbath!

You know, you are going to anger a lot of people with that one, because people actually do love Duets.

People also love Empire Records and you can’t believe it! Everyone in that movie is a walking issue and then they bring out the girl who cuts herself. Oh, and all of the Madonna movies, an entire overview of Madonna’s inability to behave like a human. She is such a good photographic subject, but I could go on and on about her acting.

True, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Who’s That Girl – I love that movie! I think it was the draw of Madonna that got me to watch it so many times, and of course, the red lipstick, and I knew at an early age, because I’m a redhead, I would never be able to wear lipstick like Madonna.

There is actually a little bit of Madonna’s character from Who’s That Girl in Nomi, like when she punches the guard at the prison on her way out.

I could see that. Well maybe they will make another Showgirls for you to study, because towards the end, I think it is actually the last scene of the movie where Nomi hitches a ride away from Vegas, they show a sign for Los Angeles. I believe there was talk of a sequel at one point, and I found the name of it online, but if you had to make a movie about Nomi in L.A., what would you entitle it, or christen it, if you will?

Blood Feast? I don’t know! I want to know the real one! I’ve never heard it.

The real proposed title was Bimbos: Nomi Conquers Hollywood, or something like that.

How about Showgirls 2: Vaginal Boogaloo?