Female Fantasy: Imagination and Perspective in The Last Showgirl and Anora
Home for break with little else to do, I found that by the end of the first week I had watched two different movies on the subject of exotic dancing, with my mother no less (it’s ok she’s chill about that stuff). The films in question, The Last Showgirl and Anora, both released in 2024, are honestly vastly different, yet nevertheless complementary in terms of their portrayal of gender, objectification, performance, and the female imagination.
The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as Shelly, a dancer in her late 50s who has devoted her life to performing in an increasingly obsolete Moulin Rouge-esque show on the Vegas Strip. Anora, on the other hand, presents the story of Anora (who goes by Annie) a young Brooklyn sex worker, played by Mikey Madison, who impulsively weds the son of a Russian oligarch. Though the premises and aesthetics of the two films differ significantly, the lives and professions of the protagonists are comparable–performative, sensual, lending themselves readily to reverie and irrationality. Fundamentally, both movies explore not only what it means to live in and carry out a fantasy but the ways in which this exercise in imagination is shaped and affected by gender and environment.
Among the most notable features of The Last Showgirl are its perspective and the composition of its cast of characters. With the exception of a singular male figure, Eddie, the manager of the act, the film displays exclusively the lives, interactions, and perspectives of female characters. Thus, Shelly’s profession, though inherently sensual in nature, is not presented in the context of male desire, enjoyment, or imagination. The protagonist performs out of passion and considers dancing an extension of her femininity and sense of self. She clings to the antiquated act, the last vestige of a former culture of entertainment. In her fantasy she is both artist and artifact, creator and spectacle.
It is not as though her behavior is rational or pragmatic. Rather, it is absurd and costly, as she enjoys neither financial nor domestic stability. Her adherence to her creative fantasy renders her lacking both the skills and funds necessary to retire or embrace her age in accordance with societal expectations. Furthermore, the film gradually reveals the ways in which her lifestyle has impaired her relationship with her daughter, who resents her mother’s dedication to what she perceives as a degrading, meaningless activity.
However, while the film certainly demonstrates the costs of Shelly’s sacrifice and the objectively irrational nature of her perspective, it also honors and reflects her fantasy. In its narrative, cinematography, and aesthetic—hazy, vintage shots of the Vegas strip washed in sunlight underscored by violins, piano, and the distinctive rasp of Miley Cyrus—the film enacts the wonder Shelly still finds in a washed-up act of plastic American entertainment. The Last Showgirl exposes and celebrates Shelly’s perspective, ultimately portraying her not as pathetic but beautiful. Her performance, particularly the dance she completes at the end, is intimate, moving, and most notably offered to the audience not from the perspective of an aroused man but of a woman, of Shelly herself. The crowd, though sparse and unenthused, is rarely shown and thus plays little role in establishing the tone of the scene; furthermore, Shelly and her fellow dancers are shot from a variety of dynamic angles rather than strictly from below as viewed by audience members–the inconsistent perspective indicating that Shelly performs for herself, free from perception and external evaluation.
By contrast, in Anora male characters far outnumber female, Annie’s work is more overtly sexual in nature, and unlike Shelly, she performs deliberately for men and appeals almost exclusively to the male gaze. She bares her breasts in private rooms and exclusive clubs, performs sexual acts with confident servility, and suggestively sheds clothing while her client regards both her emerging form and the video game battle playing out across his outsized screen. As strands of tinsel seamlessly woven through her dark tresses catch club lights, she is beautiful, confident, expensive, commodified.
Annie is well aware of the nature of her profession, and while she revels in seduction and confidence, she does not cast her labor as artistry. However, she is equally vulnerable to fantasy, which in her case is that of the Cinderella narrative: the notion that her beauty could conceivably be saved by wealth and status, and that sexual attraction could evolve into love and commitment. In contrast to The Last Showgirl, Anora does not act as a celebration of its central fantasy. Rather, it exposes the fairy tale to extreme stress, conveying its abject absurdity. More generally, the movie demonstrates the ways in which serving and internalizing the male gaze has impacted Annie’s identity and psychology. As a result of performing for men and commodifying her sexuality, she struggles to express her emotions or comprehend the association between sexual and romantic attraction. Annie is denied the cinematic, impassioned declaration of femininity and desire that constitutes the climax of many films concerned with the female experience (think Barbie, Little Women, or even The Last Showgirl). Instead, her demeanor is at times animalistic, as her pain and desire translate only into rage and sexual activity.
The central conflict of the movie, therefore, arises not merely from the unrealistic nature of the Pretty Woman-like premise but from the psychological turmoil it engages. It is not that the film invalidates the promise of love or romantic connection (I won’t spoil the ending, but for those who have seen the film it represents an unexpected revitalizes the fantasy) but that it calls into question Annie’s ability to realize her own imagination given her environment, socialization, understanding of herself.
The ambiguous conclusion of Anora is, admittedly, an imperfect comparison to The Last Showgirl, which is simply less complex. However, both films undoubtedly suggest a connection between performance and imagination and investigate the costs and benefits of fantasy. While Anora and The Last Showgirl have differing relationships to the fantasies they portray, when examined in conjunction they both suggest an inextricable entanglement of imagination and perspective (present in the characters themselves and in the films at large). Risking oversimplification, The Last Showgirl presents a fantasy enabled and celebrated by the female gaze while Anora suggests the ways in which its fantasy is threatened by class differences and the objectification of women in accordance with the male gaze. In both films, the ability (or inability) of the protagonists to embody and realize their reverie is dependent on their self-perception, which is developed and presented in the context of their understanding of gender and performance.