Delving into Verhoeven’s filmography quickly transformed from feelings of dread to enjoyment. The idea of spending hours with the likes of Schwarzenegger and other men of his ilk as well as the overindulgence in gore and women’s naked bodies was not entirely enticing. However, I quickly fell under his spell. Robocop was the most surprising in its delightful takedown of corporate-owned America through the sympathetic cyborg and his spunky female sidekick. In fact, Verhoeven’s depictions of women are the most fascinating aspects of his films for me in all their frustrations as well as elations. Women always play a key and active role in these films, which is not always common in the action adventure tales. What is so fascinating is the play between exploitation and elevation. On the one hand, the viewer sees the breasts (and often much more) of just about every featured actress in his films. I am not of the mind that nudity should be avoided at all costs, but one could see some Girls Gone Wild comparisons in several of his film sequences, especially those involving a communal shower scene.  On the other hand, these same women are intelligent, witty, strong, brave, inventive and often save the leading man’s life at some point in the proceedings.   This dichotomy is even apparent in an early Dutch film of his that I was able to scour up, Katie Tippell (1975). Surprisingly, there are many echoes of Katie’s story in Nomi’s sordid tale. This is a story of a poor but strong-willed young woman who has just moved to Amsterdam with her parents and siblings who hope to find a better life. Tippell’s story is a depressing one rife with prostitution, rape, familial problems, poverty and ill health. In the end, she inadvertently finds her place with a wealthy young man and lives happily ever after, though Verhoeven gives us no view of that part of her life (this is based on a true story). Katie’s body is continually used, abused and discarded. There is a brutal rape scene (similar to the extraordinarily violent one in Showgirls) where Katie is attacked by her boss. She obviously does not return to that job so she is forced into prostitution by her mother in order to help support the family. An artist spots her and asks her to pose for a painting (happily without any ulterior motive) and it is through him and his friends that she begins to escape her hard life.

So, here in an early film is another example of Verhoeven’s knack for simultaneously exploiting and heralding a young woman. We all saw Nomi clawing her way to the top despite huge hurdles, defending her friend’s honor in beating up her vicious rapist, having some amount of morality in refusing to pimp herself out to an investor, etc. However, in between all these acts of nobility or courage she was naked about 80% of the time exploiting her sexuality for money and proving to be less than intelligent. Similarly, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct uses her sexuality to manipulate everyone she encounters, male or female. However, she is in complete control of her own exploitation. And on another note, Denise Richards in Starship Troopers is a highly skilled pilot who often saves her fellow “civilians” but she does so with vapidity and iciness. She is a shell of a person. What exactly is Verhoeven’s opinions of these women? It seems there is some attempt to demonstrate the ways that these women and women in general are constantly being taken advantage of in one form or another, as well as constantly being underestimated. However, the only solution Verhoeven seems to offer is for them to sexually exploit themselves or to resort to violence. Perhaps in the end, it’s as simple as sex and violence sells movie tickets, who knows. But there is something very intriguing going on in Verhoeven’s choices when it comes to his leading ladies.

And as a quick aside, Nomi in the form of Elizabeth Berkley is the hardest for me to take because it seems that he was intentionally directing her to act badly – her performance is so consistently frenetic and manic that I cannot imagine it was not intentional on his part. I would love to hear her story on how she and Verhoeven collaborated.