‘Showgirls’ Star Gina Gershon Was “Offended” by Controversial Scene

Gina Gershon plays confident and seasoned performer Cristal Connors in the 1995 cult film Showgirls, but she wasn’t always so sure about the source material. In a podcast appearance promoting her new memoir, AlphaPussy, she recalls how there was one scene that shocked her to her core: the brutal rape of Molly, the roommate of protagonist Nomi Malone and a costumer designer for the “Goddess” show at the fictional Stardust Hotel.

In the film, Molly attends an opening night party for her roommate where she meets musician Andrew Carver, one of her idols. Carver takes her to his room, where he and two security guards proceed to beat and rape her in a violent and disturbing scene. Molly stumbles out of the room with blood dripping down her legs before she is eventually hospitalized. Nomi, played by Elizabeth Berkley, later attacks Carver in his hotel room as retribution for her roommate’s assault.

In an interview with The Julia Cunningham Show on Sirius XM’s Radio Andy on Tuesday, Gershon said the vicious scene was hard for her to process, leading to a back-and-forth with director Paul Verhoeven:

“We argued a lot, as you can tell in some of the stories, but I remember when I saw that rape scene, I’m like, ‘Are you insane? You have to take this scene out.’ I was so offended by it, and he’s like, ‘No.’ But going 30 years later, 25 years later, a friend of mine, a writer friend, she said, ‘No, you don’t understand how great Showgirls is.’ I’m like, ‘I guess I really don’t,’ but when I saw it from afar, not being in it, and all of a sudden I’m like, ‘Oh my god.’

“It was really a comment on ugly America and on capitalism and power struggles and dynamics and all those things that of course that rape scene has to be there. It’s the grossest thing in there and the powerful men, they’re all protected and, you know, so that’s why it’s exciting when she kicks the guy’s ass. It’s hard to get there, but I finally understood it, and I’m like, ‘Oh, he does make comments,’ but I mean, whether he was trying to or not, I wish he had just clued me in saying, ‘This is why this is there.'”

Gershon said that making Showgirls was a “good lesson” in making the best out of a job, adding that her vision for the film didn’t exactly match up with Verhoeven’s work on set. Verhoeven is known for science fiction and action films like RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers, as well as the erotic thriller Basic Instinct, released just three years before Showgirls hit theaters in 1995. But Gershon thought Showgirls would be more akin to the director’s Dutch films, which are “a little bit seedier, a little bit darker, and I think his American films, now that I’ve kind of studied it and I’ve stepped out of it, I mean, they’re really interesting comments on America and fascism.”

Showgirls was widely panned when it came out, with criticism for its over-the-top acting, as well as its overwrought, melodramatic and sometimes sexist script, written by Flashdance and Basic Instinct writer Joe Eszterhas. Nevertheless, the film was profitable in the home video market, thanks in part to its NC-17 rating and generous nudity. It has since achieved cult status, with screenings regularly selling out as fans scramble to reassess the unfairly maligned film. Now, Gershon says she’s able to see the good in the movie:

“I couldn’t watch it for years ’cause I was like, I was too, a little bit of PTSD, I think, in a very slight way, no disrespect to real PTSD, but I would get very tense and anxious when I thought about certain things and stories, and so I never really watched it again, and I would kind of use the excuse of like, ‘Well,’ and it was a real excuse, like, ‘I can’t deal with my accent,’ ’cause I had to lie about my accent.”

Apparently, Verhoeven was keen on Cristal having no accent, something that didn’t make sense to Gershon considering the character’s vocabulary. “I’m like, ‘Dude, I say darling, every other word,'” the actress said.

That hasn’t stopped fans from riding for the Las Vegas-set erotic drama, which continues to pull in more viewers every year thanks to the viral potential of its campy line reads and social commentary. Showgirls is available to stream for free on Tubi and Pluto TV, as well as on MGM+ and Amazon Prime with MGM+ subscription.