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She Works Hard for the Money: ‘The Last Showgirl’ Embodies Our Changing Attitude Toward Sex Workers
Pamela Anderson's performance reclaims the humanity of so many women, not so different from herself, who took on a role the world saw as "degraded."
And though she still talks in that breathy sex-kitten voice, in “The Last Showgirl” Anderson’s wrecked Marilyn delivery is an emblem of raw anguish. And it’s a sign of what a sharply drawn movie “The Last Showgirl” is that after Shelly’s estranged daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd), watches her mom perform in Le Razzle Dazzle, she dismisses it as a dumb nudie show; the film makes us feel like she’s right. The director, Gia Coppola, and the screenwriter, Kate Gersten, use Shelly’s story to deconstruct the history of what doffing your clothes for money really means: the toll it takes, the choices it reflects, the lure it represents.
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