by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
The Last Showgirl | 2024
On paper, Gia Coppola's The Last Showgirl seems like a perfect comeback vehicle for an actress like Pamela Anderson - an elegiac portrait of an aging showgirl facing the end of her career as her long running show on the Las Vegas strip is forced to close for good. Anderson, a model who's primarily known for her time on the TV show Baywatch in the 1990s, has often been used as a punchline, a living caricature of a "dumb blonde bombshell" stereotype, and a self-aware dramatic role like this could have been the perfect way to reclaim that narrative.
Nearly 25 years after the release of the original Bridget Jones’s Diary the venerable romantic comedy franchise has yielded an impressive three sequels. Bridget has had her ups and downs over the years, having had Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fight over her (twice!), and been the center of a paternity mystery between Firth and Patrick Dempsey. Yet none of her indignities have been quite so egregious as seeing the latest entry in her franchise skip theaters to get unceremoniously dumped on the Peacock app for its American debut over Valentine's Day weekend.