A Constant Visual Feast

It’s a trend in 2024 that several major sex symbols of my youth had starring roles in movies that make beauty standards, physical desire, and age their themes: Nicole Kidman in the superb Babygirl; Demi Moore in the fucking calamitous The Substance; Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl*. I do not want to create a hierarchy of misogyny and exploitation and neglect, where the amount of shit these women have put up with in their careers is ranked according to degree and scope. Instead, I’ll point to Anderson as the actress whose experiences resonate most in my memory; that sex tape business did her in and helped make her husband a bigger name. Seems unjust!

The Last Showgirl gives her some justice back by respecting her as a performer, and by giving her a character she can identify with on personal levels; the result of that equation is a lived-in and constitutionally ruffled performance, like Anderson is at home playing the part and as such is playing near-constant emotional defense from the world around her. 

You can read more as I dive deeper into the relationship between actress and role over at The Daily Beast.

*Each of these is directed by a woman, respectively being Halina Reijn, Coralie Fargeat, and Gia Coppola.