Six of Paul Verhoeven’s most controversial moments | Little White Lies

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Six of Paul Verhoeven’s most con­tro­ver­sial moments

07 Mar 2017

Words by Nick Chen

Close-up image of a woman with curly blonde hair, wearing a sparkling blue costume, standing on a stage holding a pole.
Close-up image of a woman with curly blonde hair, wearing a sparkling blue costume, standing on a stage holding a pole.
From Show­girls to Star­ship Troop­ers, delve into the Dutch filmmaker’s provoca­tive back catalogue.

When Elle pre­miered at the 2016 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, it cement­ed direc­tor Paul Verhoeven’s knack for the unex­pect­ed by receiv­ing raves instead of boos. Still, the syn­op­sis – mul­ti­ple rapes, porno­graph­ic video games, vicious humour – sug­gest­ed a tick­ing think-piece time bomb wait­ing to explode. Not only has a back­lash not mate­ri­alised, but Isabelle Huppert’s sen­sa­tion­al lead turn has been earn­ing major awards recognition.

His­tor­i­cal­ly speak­ing, though, Verhoeven’s movies wreak hav­oc. In his native Nether­lands, Verhoeven’s box office tak­ings were only as big as the protests; flee­ing to Amer­i­ca, his sub­ver­sive block­busters struck a col­lec­tive nerve at the mul­ti­plex. But with Elle it seems audi­ences have final­ly caught up. So what else did they miss? Here, we exam­ine the mis­chie­vous auteur’s most con­tro­ver­sial moments and attempt to defend the indefensible.

The charge: Humans exter­mi­nate space bugs in a brain­less sci-fi that sup­ports the right-wing ide­ol­o­gy of Robert Heinlein’s source novel.

The defence: Many mis­con­strued Verhoeven’s satire of Amer­i­can jin­go­ism, despite the promi­nent death toll. In its espe­cial­ly fas­cist future, Earth faces an alien inva­sion and com­plete­ly dehu­man­is­es its ene­my (“the only good bug is a dead bug”). That par­al­lel should’ve been enough.

The mil­i­tary – who look like they eat Bre­it­bart for break­fast – are cheer­i­ly pre­pared to die for their plan­et, which seems to be one sin­gle pro­pa­gan­da-lov­ing, Nazi-uni­formed nation. When asked why the anti-war mes­sage was a slow-burn, the direc­tor rea­soned, Per­haps Iraq has made it more understandable.”

The charge: Homo­pho­bia and misog­y­ny in a mali­cious tale of horny motorcyclists.

The defence: A provo­ca­teur at heart, Ver­ho­even wit­nessed the mon­strous main­stream suc­cess of his Dutch films, and Spet­ters was him prod­ding the bear. It led to the Nation­al Anti-Spet­ters Com­mit­tee, which denied him fund­ing for future projects and oust­ed him towards America.

But Spet­ters dares to explore the depths of human­i­ty, and – right­ly or very, very wrong­ly – audi­ences lapped it up. Until Steven Spiel­berg saw it, Ver­ho­even was alleged­ly a fore­run­ner to direct Return of the Jedi. Verhoeven’s expla­na­tion: I sup­pose he was scared that the Jedi would imme­di­ate­ly start fuck­ing each other.”

The charge: Upon a leak of the script, LGBT activists pick­et­ed the pro­duc­tion for its depic­tion of bisex­u­al women as sociopaths.

The defence: Verhoeven’s erot­ic thriller know­ing­ly toys with genre stereo­types. Plus, Sharon Stone comes out on top (fig­u­ra­tive­ly and lit­er­al­ly) as a femme fatale con­fi­dent­ly express­ing her sex­u­al­i­ty. Her one-lin­ers are sharp­er than an ice pick, and she reduces men to a sweaty mess by sim­ply adjust­ing her sit­ting position.

As for the famous leg-cross­ing inci­dent, things start to get a lit­tle murky: Stone insists she was tricked into believ­ing her pri­vate parts would not be exposed, where­as Ver­ho­even claims it was pre-approved and thus shot with­out the male cast in the room.

The charge: Eric forces him­self upon his ex-girl­friend, Olga, with whom he lat­er shares a roman­tic reconciliation.

The defence: As with Elle, the fram­ing of sex­u­al assault here is more lay­ered than a one-sen­tence sum­mari­sa­tion, and wide respons­es to the film reflect the gulf between Hol­ly­wood and Euro­pean cin­e­ma. In Amer­i­ca, Turk­ish Delight played in porn theatres.

It is, aston­ish­ing­ly, the biggest film in Dutch his­to­ry. Its full-frontal nudi­ty cer­tain­ly helped, but Ver­ho­even fre­quent­ly – and delib­er­ate­ly – damp­ens the mood. Eric is not por­trayed as a like­able lead, and there’s no upbeat nar­ra­tive (unless you mis­in­ter­pret the pri­or pro­jec­tile vom­it­ing, mag­gots and harassment).

The crime: Youths of the World War Two Dutch resis­tance, includ­ing real-life fig­ure Erik Hazel­hoff, aren’t paint­ed as clear-cut heroes.

The defence: Biopics don’t have to be syco­phan­tic. We see – and are made uncom­fort­able by – the human­i­sa­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tors (includ­ing a Dutch teen who assists the Gestapo to res­cue his Jew­ish girl­friend), while Erik enjoys a tan­go with a Nazi. With­out these nuances, the dra­ma would be redundant.

If any­thing, Ver­ho­even felt he was too restrained: Star­ship Troop­ers cul­ti­vates the anti-war theme, and Black Book dives fur­ther into taboo World War Two romances. Erik Hazel­hoff was not anti-fas­cist,” Ver­ho­even has clar­i­fied, he was still going to Ger­many to pick up nice Ger­man girls.”

The crime: A flab­ber­gast­ing, trashy mess that sex­u­al­ly humil­i­ates Jessie from Saved by the Bell.

The defence: With its lurid colours, OTT direc­tion and unsexy hedo­nism, Show­girls is a ven­omous attack on Vegas (and Amer­i­ca at large), a cesspit where every­thing is about mon­ey. To dis­miss the film as soft porn would be to ignore its bleak­ness: the main cur­ren­cy is sex, women must sell their bod­ies to make rent, and Mol­ly (the only kind-heart­ed char­ac­ter) receives the dark­est end­ing of them all.

Amer­i­ca want­ed mind­less nudi­ty; what it got was a stern telling off. Two decades lat­er, the sev­en-time Razz­ie win­ner is now con­sid­ered a clas­sic. Giv­en that delayed appre­ci­a­tion, Show­girls is now con­sid­ered by many to be the defin­i­tive Ver­ho­even film.

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