Revealed by the cult series of the 1990s, Baywatchwho devoted her undisputed sex symbol and whose zeitgeist she perfectly embodied with suggestive swaying and ultra-scanned swimsuits, Pamela Anderson has remained frozen for decades in this stereotype.
After the role of the attractive rescuer Casey, Anderson struggles to be taken seriously: after four seasons in V.I.P. and a publicly tumultuous relationship with Tommy Lee, the actress is relegated to the status of reality TV candidate, as in Dancing With The Stars. Her return took place, however, in the 2020s: in 2022, she got on Broadway boards, surprising the criticism, then three years later, she returned to the cinema with The Last Showgirlthe last film of Gia Coppola.
The Last Showgirl takes place in Las Vegas. Shelly is a dancer in an emblematic spectacle of Sin City, Le Razzle Dazzleheir to the tradition of the Lido of Paris, now reduced to a relic of the cabaret. At the age of fifty-six, Shelly has been part of the troop for thirty years, occupying various roles. And if the announcement of the closure irritates the dancers covered with rhinestones and jewelry, for the heroine of Coppola, the advance of modernity and the end of the show mark a brutal confrontation with reality and a real existential crisis.
-Shelly is bounded and shiny at the same time: it’s a showgirl, the embodiment of a now forgotten world. She perceives herself as an artist: elegant, versatile, sensual, never vulgar. And when her daughter-a photographer in the making that she did not raise-accuses her of having abandoned her for a vulgar striptease, Shelly retorts strongly, defending bec and nail his status as a dancer. She likes her golden cage, and claims it until the last show.
The return behind Coppola’s camera seems more successful than its previous attempts: despite the limits of independent cinema, and the occasional superficiality or inconsistency of the film, the choice of 16 mm works particularly well, effectively restoring the aesthetics camp of boas and glitter of the glitter of the Razzle Dazzle. After the very clumsy Palo Alto (2013), which seemed straight out of a page TumblrGia Coppola this time seems capable of carrying out the story with confidence and effectively directing her casting, in which we find, among other things, an incredible Jamie Lee Curtis.
We can easily identify parallels with another great return of the season: that of Demi Moore in The Substance. In both cases, these are actresses that challenge the same Hollywood system that locked them in ideals of eternal beauty and youth. But here, the subject is discussed through a more intimate look and, if Shelly and Anderson share this same fluette and melodious voice, to the point of sometimes merging on the screen, Pamela Anderson proves, once and for all, how captivating she is – and far from the superficiality of the stereotype of the eternal stubborn doll.
