Well, actually, it concerns the three films Paul Verhoeven has made since Basic Instinct. In order, they are Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man. Think back to the time when Basic Instinct was released, and a sexually repressed American nation, despite the misguided and utterly stupid protests of gay activists, was acknowledging for the first time since the 1970s that sex is a natural, healthy part of life and nothing to be ashamed of. The so-called Erotic Thriller had become a new mainstream, and this is where Verhoeven's problems with the mainstream American media began.
As Hollow Man quickly demonstrates, the more mainstream Paul Verhoeven's films become, the more slated they get by the critics. Which is fair enough - the less it works, too. Starship Troopers toned down the sex to almost American standards (the sex scene is still far more stimulating than anything American directors have produced), and brought the violence up to a level more palatable to American audiences. It is a well-known statistical fact outside of America that parents in the USA are more comfortable with their children seeing other human beings torture and multilate one another than they are with their children seeing a decent, healthy act that forms the basic step in how our species perpetuates itself.
Critics in America attacked Starship Troopers as being facistic and shallow, when the reality is that the film was based upon the same propaganda films that were shown to young Americans in the 1940s. The critical misbalance was even more apparent with Hollow Man, Verhoeven's most mainstream film to date. Here he was, giving American audiences what they indicated they want, while lacing it with a morality play based on what happens when a man with Christianised morals loses his accountability, and the critics had the nerve to claim it had no story. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with American media in light of that.
Returning to the time when Showgirls was produced, the Erotic Thriller was the newest idea from Hollywood, and Basic Instinct brought a whole different audience to the theatre - those who wanted softcore porn and weren't afraid of the fact. Unfortunately, one of the minds who was responsible for creating this whole new sub-genre, Joe Eszterhas, is quite patently a sick, misogynistic, and repressed individual. Just like the gay activists protesting Basic Instinct unfairly charged Verhoeven with homophobia, ironically. If you don't believe me, I invite you to take a look at Eszterhas' two subsequent films, Sliver and Jade, then tell me that Verhoeven is solely responsible for the misogynistic flavour of Showgirls.
Of course, the difference between Showgirls and Basic Instinct is that when Basic Instinct was made, Eszterhas still had to sell his screenplays to studios, whereas he only had to say "I wrote Basic Instinct" when trying to shuffle his screenplays for Showgirls, Jade, and Sliver to studios. Seriously, watch those three together, they should be called "the misogyny trilogy".
Anyway, the whole upshot of this is that Paul Verhoeven is currently copping a very raw deal from the critics. While I wouldn't call his last two films faultless, even Showgirls deserves to have its artistic merits considered. Any film that is released in a repressive society like America and somehow manages to turn nudity into a uniform has got to have something going for it.
Frankly, I hope Paul does go through with the idea he was contemplating earlier - to go back to Europe and make films without the atmosphere of retarded, repressive critics and the Motion Picture Annoyance Association breathing down his neck. Maybe back there he can make films that portray the world as it really is instead of having to sugar-coat it for Americans who don't like having the mirror held up to their Christian sexual repression. Or better still, I hope his next project once again engages Ed Neumeier's services as a screenwriter.
As Hollow Man quickly demonstrates, the more mainstream Paul Verhoeven's films become, the more slated they get by the critics. Which is fair enough - the less it works, too. Starship Troopers toned down the sex to almost American standards (the sex scene is still far more stimulating than anything American directors have produced), and brought the violence up to a level more palatable to American audiences. It is a well-known statistical fact outside of America that parents in the USA are more comfortable with their children seeing other human beings torture and multilate one another than they are with their children seeing a decent, healthy act that forms the basic step in how our species perpetuates itself.
Critics in America attacked Starship Troopers as being facistic and shallow, when the reality is that the film was based upon the same propaganda films that were shown to young Americans in the 1940s. The critical misbalance was even more apparent with Hollow Man, Verhoeven's most mainstream film to date. Here he was, giving American audiences what they indicated they want, while lacing it with a morality play based on what happens when a man with Christianised morals loses his accountability, and the critics had the nerve to claim it had no story. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with American media in light of that.
Returning to the time when Showgirls was produced, the Erotic Thriller was the newest idea from Hollywood, and Basic Instinct brought a whole different audience to the theatre - those who wanted softcore porn and weren't afraid of the fact. Unfortunately, one of the minds who was responsible for creating this whole new sub-genre, Joe Eszterhas, is quite patently a sick, misogynistic, and repressed individual. Just like the gay activists protesting Basic Instinct unfairly charged Verhoeven with homophobia, ironically. If you don't believe me, I invite you to take a look at Eszterhas' two subsequent films, Sliver and Jade, then tell me that Verhoeven is solely responsible for the misogynistic flavour of Showgirls.
Of course, the difference between Showgirls and Basic Instinct is that when Basic Instinct was made, Eszterhas still had to sell his screenplays to studios, whereas he only had to say "I wrote Basic Instinct" when trying to shuffle his screenplays for Showgirls, Jade, and Sliver to studios. Seriously, watch those three together, they should be called "the misogyny trilogy".
Anyway, the whole upshot of this is that Paul Verhoeven is currently copping a very raw deal from the critics. While I wouldn't call his last two films faultless, even Showgirls deserves to have its artistic merits considered. Any film that is released in a repressive society like America and somehow manages to turn nudity into a uniform has got to have something going for it.
Frankly, I hope Paul does go through with the idea he was contemplating earlier - to go back to Europe and make films without the atmosphere of retarded, repressive critics and the Motion Picture Annoyance Association breathing down his neck. Maybe back there he can make films that portray the world as it really is instead of having to sugar-coat it for Americans who don't like having the mirror held up to their Christian sexual repression. Or better still, I hope his next project once again engages Ed Neumeier's services as a screenwriter.