Dance Movies

Step Up

Showgirls

Alright, dear readers, 5678—let’s begin! I’ve been feeling energized since last week’s Nic Cage double features, and I’ve got a little extra pep in my step now that I’m finally over COVID. So in the spirit of feeling energized and exuberant and delusional, I wanted to explore a corner of cinema that is never taken as seriously as it deserves to be: dance movies. To be clear, I am not talking about musicals—where singing and dancing are not necessarily a part of the plot line but rather, a way of singing and dancing it out. I’m speaking of strictly dance movies, where the main action and characters and story all revolve around the art of dance. There’s been only one dance movie on this blog so far—Bring It On—but I’m actually a big fan of dance movies. You wouldn’t know it from my mostly movie-watching physique but I used to dance—for a good ten years I did ballet and a handful of other broadway-adjacent-style dance classes and I loved it. Well, I clearly didn’t love it enough to stick with it, but that’s mostly because I was in middle school and gaining a new sense of low self esteem that made me feel extra dumb for caring about any hobby or extracurricular activity. But I still remember the feelings dancing provided—the joy of completing a step physically that may be hard to describe verbally, the anxiety of auditioning in a room full of some of the most talented and intense people, the exhilaration of being in The Nutcracker and standing in the wings at Bass Concert Hall awaiting the cue to go on. Though my serious dancing days are behind me, I’ll always feel proud of that time of my life, and I’ll forever cherish the memory of wearing my mouse costume for The Nutcracker and getting to dance at the capitol for all the dudes that just acquitted Ken Paxton (a deeply unserious government.) I don’t dance like I used to, but I’ll always love it. And once I was old enough to drink and gain access into the clubs in Austin, I would Dua Lipa dance the night away on multiple occasions—some more memorable than others. But even if I never danced in any capacity, I still think I’d be entertained by dance movies. I am not immune to the magic of the Magic Mike series, nor can I resist the drama and glory of Black Swan, Suspiria, Saturday Night Fever, Burlesque, and Dirty Dancing. I weirdly kind of hate the movie Footloose, but that’s another dance for another time. Being the dance movie fan that I am, I’ve been needing to watch two major films of this category for quite sometime, and tonight I’m finally stretched and rehearsed and ready to let loose about them. Both of tonight’s films revolve around two things: dancing, and scrappy white leads who are reliant upon their black friends. Up first was a film that inspired four sequels and the marriage of Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan: Step Up. This 2006 dance classic was the directorial debut of choreographer and dancer Anne Fletcher (perhaps best known for directing romcoms like 27 Dresses and The Proposal), and it was co-written by Melissa Rosenberg and Duane Adler (the latter of whom wrote the other famous dance film of the early 2000s: Save the Last Dance.) Set in the dancing streets of Baltimore, Step Up follows a young Channing Tatum as Tyler, a foster kid who’s grown up poor and surrounded by people of color, but who thankfully doesn’t adopt a blaccent (not fully at least.) After breaking into a prestigious performing arts high school with his buddies—his friend Mac and his little brother Skinny—Tyler takes the fall and must complete 200 hours of community service as a janitor at this school. Inundated with bougie singers and artists and dancers who think they’re better than him, Tyler begrudgingly works after school to complete his community service, but he is unable to hide his dancing abilities when Nora (Jenna Dewan) is in need of a replacement dancer for her senior showcase performance. Tyler makes fun of the uptight art of ballet dancing, but he is, of course, incredible at it. And while Nora only plans to use Tyler as a rehearsal partner until her original partner’s ankle heals, the chemistry between these two is undeniable, and the sparks begin to fly before the choreography even begins. I’ve always been a fan, but I’m only just now beginning to fully appreciate the sex appeal of Channing Tatum, and how he can seduce literally any person on the planet with his dancing. I don’t care if you find dancing boring, I don’t care if you’re not attracted to men, something magic happens when that buzzed-headed boy starts to dance—I know it, he knows it, and Zoë Kravitz certainly knows it. And seeing the early makings of this monumental mover and shaker was quite impressive considering the fact that Channing was the least-experienced dancer on set. You can feel the connection between Channing and Jenna when they dance, when they talk, when they spew slightly-profound dialogue about the haves and have nots at each other. I’m not sure how deep Step Up was intending to go, but I was pleasantly surprised by its portrayal of class, and how privilege plays a role in how one is allowed to dream and plan for their future. Less deep, but still impactful, were the differences between Nora and Tyler’s approaches to dance. She’s classically-trained and therefore precise, even rigid in all of her movements, and he’s far more fluid and less controlled—which is how these two dancers operated in real life as well. I couldn’t help laughing at some of the dance fashion in this film, as someone who was also dancing in 2006, I did get a few war flashbacks when I saw Jenna Dewan wearing her capri tights and ruffly long-sleeved shrugs and leg warmers. (I didn’t even realize that this film was set in the fall until I saw the glorious Baltimore foliage on display, but this just further underscores my totally unhelpful but niche psychic timing of double feature selections.) I was thoroughly compelled by the choreo and the dance drama, and it was nice to see Drew Sidora in a role where her love interest didn’t actively hate her. My only grievance with Step Up, was the use of a highly-unnecessary tragedy toward the end of the film, which I did kind of see coming, but did not see the benefit of. For a silly, sweet dance movie like Step Up, the only drama should’ve been on stage or on the dance floor, but nope, they had to go add a superfluous horror story of sadness alongside what was otherwise a carefree, perfectly fun little movie. In all of the discourse surrounding sex scenes these days, where some (notably, younger) people are arguing that they do not further the plot, I’d like to know how, exactly, the half-assed, haphazard tragedy of Step Up adds to its plot, because I did not see the point of it. This same kind of last-minute, unneeded tragedy was also implemented into the next film that I watched, Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 film Showgirls. Showgirls is not only Michelle Visage’s favorite movie of all time, it is also considered by many to be the worst movie of all time. Critically and commercially, Showgirls impressed no one upon its release, and it, in fact, offended many. It is a salacious tale surrounding sex and the selling of sex, and yet many critics argued that it was all a waste of eroticism, with one writer at the LA Times writing that it “somehow managed to make extensive nudity exquisitely boring.” Roger Ebert, who famously will forgive any bad movie if it has titties in it, wrote “It contains no true eroticism, however, and that's why I think it reflects a grounding in sexual fantasy: Eroticism requires a mental connection between two people, while masturbation requires only the other person's image.” Nearly every aspect of this film was made fun of: its odd-looking poster, its bizarre script, and especially, its lead actress Elizabeth Berkley—who’s career was ostensibly ruined by this film. Knowing that it was a movie about Vegas showgirls written and directed by two men, I didn’t necessarily go into Showgirls expecting it to be a feminist triumph, but I did have some hope that it would at least be campy, girly fun—and it only kind of was. Showgirls follows a young drifter named Nomi Malone, who, after being ditched by a ride she hitched, finds herself out of luck and money in Las Vegas. We don’t know where Nomi comes from or who she is, we only know that she wants to dance, and when she is miraculously saved by a kind stranger and costume designer named Molly (Gina Ravera), Nomi’s luck begins to turn around. Nomi crashes with Molly, and while she’s forced to work as a stripper at the not-so-classy Cheetah’s, her home life (more accurately, trailer life) with Molly actually seems quite blissful. One day before work, Nomi accompanies Molly at her gig at The Stardust Casino, where she makes and tailors costumes for the dancers on the show “Goddess”—led by their star dancer Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon.) Nomi witnesses the madness backstage at this Las Vegas show: the last-minute fittings, the catfights, the monkeys that belong to another act that sometimes get loose. She also sees the madness on stage of this expensive, highly-elaborate, highly-flashy show: where all of the male and female dancers are practically naked, but dance in the most impressive, elegant ways. They all work on the same strip, but the dancers at The Stardust are esteemed, respected, and protected, which is not the case at the low-budget strip showcase at Nomi’s work. Once Nomi witnesses the world outside Cheetah’s, there’s no stopping her from making it on stage at The Stardust, and thanks to a little help from Cristal—who either wants to fight or fuck Nomi the entire time—this mysterious dancer finally gets her chance in the spotlight. At every turn, Nomi is hypersexualized, tormented, and ridiculed, but this doesn’t discourage her from getting what she wants—it only lights a greater fire beneath her aerobicized ass. I’m no dance expert, but I was a bit surprised by Elizabeth Berkley’s abilities—not necessarily in dancing… but in things adjacent to dance like flexibility and endurance. Many other actresses were considered for the role of Nomi Malone like Pamela Anderson, Denise Richards, Angelina Jolie, and Charlize Theron—but between the intensive dance schedule and strict demand for full-frontal nudity, Elizabeth Berkley was the only actress willing to go the whole nine yards. How insulting it is, then, that Berkley was so criticized for her role in this movie. It wasn’t her fault that the script was a half-assed version of All About Eve and that the dialogue was rife with cringe and that the entire product was doused in exploitation (even for an NC-17 film, the nudity felt excessive and unearned.) If anything, we should be praising Elizabeth Berkley for having survived this film, and what sounds like a grueling filming schedule and post-production nightmare. The male lead of this film, who is at first Cristal’s love interest but quickly becomes Nomi’s, was meant to be played by Dylan McDermott (who inhabits sleazy roles so well, which I say with the utmost respect) but instead we got the bright-eyed beauty with bad bangs Kyle MacLachlan—who did a fine job as a scumbag, but still seemed incredibly out of place. For every gloriously gorgeous aesthetic element of this film—like the bedazzled hair and makeup and costuming and set design—there was a very strange, very disorganized element—like when Nomi and Cristal bond over the fact that they both used to eat dog food…(this is a real scene.) In terms of the dancing parts of this movie about dancers, I wish there’d been more! Because each gigantic, grandiosely-costumed dance number was full of smoke and skin and fire and enough theatrics to make you lose interest in how good anyone is actually dancing. I wish there’d been more dancing, and less cringe. More production and less performative sexiness. I love a sexy movie, but Showgirls is probably the least sexy movie with most nudity to ever exist. There’s plenty of titties, ass, more titties, and you even get to see Kyle MacLachlan’s ass, and yet I still feel nothing about this movie. I almost wish that I hated it like so many critics and viewers have over the years, because then maybe I’d have something interesting or clever to say about it, but honestly the fact that this movie is so universally shit-on got my hopes up that it would be a truly unwatchable film—and this just wasn’t the case. Showgirls is fine, even fun at times, but not as shockingly bad or good as I was expecting, given how polarizing it is. In more recent years, the film has garnered newfound appreciation, but I’m not sure if I even found it entertaining enough to consider it a campy, fun experience. More than it being mid to me, I was most disappointed by Showgirls’ attempt to give our protagonist a bleeding heart at the very end of the film, by subjecting her black best friend (who changed her life for the better) to some of the most horrific and unnecessary trauma. To include this as a plot point at all felt weird, but to shove it into the last ten to fifteen minutes of the film proves just how uncalled for it was. And for this dramatic, comedic, explosively vulgar film to grab my attention so much, only for it to end in such a fizzle, is beyond lame. If tonight’s films were dancers then Step Up would be a bit off-beat but enjoyable, like a drunk dance at wedding, and Showgirls would be whatever the current dance trend on TikTok is: high production value but shallow, and slightly confusing. Thanks for dancing along with me this week, dear readers, cha cha—I mean, ta ta for now!