Hollywood Animal (94 page)

“We live in a town,” Guy McElwaine said to me, “where you don’t root for your friends to fail. You root for your friends to die.”

I wrote the
Los Angeles Times
this letter—a response to the barrage of criticism:

In his review of
Jade,
critic Kenneth Turan wrote: “And despite the writer’s recent protestations that his women are strong masters of their own fate, he once again hasn’t been able to come up with female protagonists who aren’t victims or hookers or, more likely, both.”

Every critic, of course, is entitled to his or her own opinion, although the opinions about my last two movies
, Showgirls
and
Jade,
have been … um, personal. Most critics have begun their reviews by analyzing my income as though deputized by the IRS. Then they go on to loftier things. A sampling:

“He is a troll-like man who wants to be Ernest Hemingway” … “He is an ape of a screenwriter” … “He is the Overwriter—overpaid and overweight” … According to Liz Smith, an upcoming episode of
Roseanne
will have a character say: “Every Joe Eszterhas film is his revenge against some girl who ignored him in high school. Having seen him, I’m sure he has a thousand more in him.” And Roger Ebert, who wrote
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,
wagged his finger at me on television and said, “He is afraid of women!”

Well … golly …

I
do
have long hair, although I’ve always considered Ernest Hemingway an insensitive boor who destroyed the lives of the people who loved him. I
have
always been fond of apes, especially silverback gorillas. Maybe I
am
overweight, but I’m trying to swim more. Some girls
did
ignore me in high school (and college), but others didn’t. I
have
seen myself in the mirror, and I don’t consider what I see
pretty.
And as far as being afraid of women—sure, some powerful women, like some powerful men, have scared the bejesus out of me—but it seems to me that if you are only afraid of men and not women
—that
is misogynistic
.

There is, however, a thematic echo (besides the dollar amounts) to some of the criticism that I feel compelled to address: it is Turan’s point that I write women who are either hookers or victims or both and that, parenthetically, my writing is misogynistic
.

The central tenet of
Jade
is that a wife whose husband cheats on her decides to cheat on him. She doesn’t want to fall in love with anyone, so she cheats with a series of men, once with each man
.

The central tenet of
Showgirls
is that a young woman turns her back
on
stardom rather than be spiritually destroyed by the corruption of the male-dominated world that she is in. She turns her back on the money, the glamour, the ambition—and goes back out on the road. Alone
.

In both movies, the women, Trina and Nomi, take action as a result of what men have done to them: Trina’s husband betrays her; Nomi’s male-oriented Vegas world betrays her. They refuse to be victimized and, strong women, they do what they have to do to control their destinies
.

It is a theme I’ve explored in other movies: In
Jagged Edge,
Glenn Close kills the man who manipulates her. In
Betrayed,
Debra Winger kills the man who wants to corrupt his own children. In
Music Box,
Jessica Lange turns in the father she loves to save the child she loves. In each case, it’s a woman who refuses to be victimized by a man who is using her. Indeed, the critic Michael Sragow called my script for
Music Box
the “ultimate feminist screenplay.” Jessica Lange was nominated for an Academy Award
.

I find it ironic that while one critic calls something I’ve written “the ultimate feminist screenplay,” other critics accuse me of misogyny, of writing of “hookers and victims.” The fact that I’ve had some of the best actresses of my generation—Close, Winger, and Lange—playing my characters (when they were submitted almost every other script in Hollywood) is viewed by the critics as not relevant. The fact that
Flashdance
was the inspiration for a generation of young women to pursue their own dreams and ambitions is also irrelevant
.

As far as writing women who are hookers is concerned, the point in
Showgirls
is exactly that while Nomi has hooked in the past to survive, she will not sell her soul and become part of the Vegas machinery. She has preserved a part of herself that is inviolate and pure no matter what she’s been through. When Cristal tells her that she is a whore, she not only denies it but the action she takes at the end of the movie denies it. In
Jade,
Trina doesn’t simply hook, she gets even with a man who betrayed her—in the exact same way that he betrayed her—with a series of one-night stands
.

What I fear happening, as a writer in the nineties, is this: if you depict women who are being abused and manipulated, you are accused of being an accomplice to that manipulation and abuse. Never mind the societal reality—never mind that in Vegas, for example, women auditioning to be dancers are put through exactly the kind of nightmare the movie shows. The audition scene in the movie was based, literally, down to some of the dialogue, on research. Never mind the societal reality that there are women in the world who, discovering that their husbands have betrayed them, decide to cheat themselves, to get even
.

Which leads to another point that the critics have made. It is a kind of satellite argument to the misogyny I am charged with: that the women I write are “angry.”

Considering the things that have been done and are being done to women in our society, shouldn’t women be angry? Shouldn’t men who care about women be just as angry? Of course Trina is angry in
Jade
that the man she loves betrayed her. Of course Nomi is angry about the way she is treated in Vegas and the way she has been treated in the past. Her anger explodes in a rage directed at the man who raped her best friend. But he is only a symbol of the Vegas world and, indirectly, of the male world. The violence she does to him is cathartic and freeing and justified
.

Writing angry women, writing a woman who carries a switchblade, does not mean that you find women threatening. It means that you share their anger, that you think there is a need for a woman moving in a certain part of the world to carry a switchblade. It means you don’t see them as victims but as people who will defend themselves and fight for themselves
.

Without movies showing women who refuse to be victimized, who confront and fight the forces trying to victimize them, we will be left with movies about women that are touchy-feely, Hallmark Moments filled with speeches about sisterhood and close-ups of hands holding
.

That may be what the critics want, that may be the view of a roseate, politically correct, nonconfrontational, Prozac-driven generation. But as many women will tell you, that’s not the real world. Pretending that it
is
the real world in the hope of creating role models doesn’t have to do with writing or with drama. It has to do with public relations and politics
.

Things are not rosy and feel-good out there and if we find reality as it is … in Vegas and in the privacy of the bedroom … hurtful, sleazy, and ugly, then we should work to change the reality instead of pretending it’s not out there
.

The critics can blast away at the messenger all they want, but sticking our heads in the sand will never make the world a better place
.

Responding to the criticism of
Showgirls
, Paul Verhoeven said: “I don’t think that the religious moralists or right-wing feminists are heartless or cynical, but I think that they are similarly misguided in their attacks on sex in movies. Fundamentally, they both argue that a woman showing her tits is being degraded, is being exploited, is being humiliated, and that the act of showing her tits contributes to the downfall of civilization.

“I don’t think that’s true. What that woman is doing is demonstrating our strong human instinct for procreation. Most heterosexual or bisexual men like to
see
tits and ass because those sights stimulate our sexual drives, our natural desire to fuck and create babies. Most women like to show off their bodies in skirts that reveal their legs or blouses that emphasize their breasts because they like to use their sexual power—they know that dressing this way will attract men who will ultimately give them babies. (Of course this is not a conscious process.) That’s the simple biology lesson of it all. We need to accept that we are just animals who are running around doing one thing rather effectively, which is to procreate.”

Showgirls
, Paul Verhoeven told the media, was influenced by
Flashdance
, the movie I co-wrote in 1983.

What Paul didn’t know is that before I wrote the
Flashdance
script, the director, Adrian Lyne, asked me to watch a Dutch movie he had just seen called
Spetters
, about a group of kids who dream about being motorcycle racers.

I saw
Spetters
and liked it and I’m sure it influenced the script of
Flashdance
, which then influenced the script of
Showgirls
.

Spetters
was directed by Paul Verhoeven.

It was fair to say then that Paul Verhoeven was the
original
original inspiration for
Showgirls
.

Heh heh heh
.

In a review of Susanna Moore’s novel
In the Cut
, Nancy Pate of the
Orlando Sentinel
wrote: “I can’t help but think that because Moore is a woman who writes highly polished prose, people are calling
In the Cut
‘daring’ and ‘provocative.’ Whereas, if Joe Eszterhas, say, were the author, those adjectives would be ‘sick’ and ‘exploitative.’”

The
Los Angeles Business Journal
did a front-page story asking industry people what they thought would happen to my career:

An anonymous executive: “He’s a member of the club. He’s a tacky and repulsive man, but if he writes a good script we’d love to have a chance at it.”

Steve Cesinger, an entertainment specialist at a Los Angeles–based investment bank: “Nobody knows if a movie is going to be a hit until it’s released. When you have a name writer attached to a film, it’s like an insurance policy. It eliminates one of the biggest risk factors. You don’t want an untested, no-name writer.”

Gene Corman, producer of
F.I.S.T.:
“He’s the golden lion. He believes in the work ethic and Ernest Hemingway. Keep the sentences short, the characters strong, and the story readily identifiable.”

Jerry Bruckheimer, producer: “Joe is a conceptual guy who understands big entertainment. As an ex-journalist, he understands deadlines and stories that
are
very dramatic and easily understood. We all go through peaks and valleys. He is an enormous talent.”

Frank Price, producer: “Joe is a tremendously talented writer who has great originality. He takes chances. Remember, Babe Ruth was the home run king who also had the strikeout record.”

Anonymous producer: “The secret is out. The bloom is off the rose. He keeps repeating himself.”

Anonymous screenwriter: “At the root of the Eszterhas phenomenon is titillation. There is a sense of danger about him, violence. For a lot of movie executives, who have no life experience, he’s exciting, exotic. They get a sense of danger by being in business with him.”

Bob Berney, producer: “Everybody wants to shoot down the top guy. He is a wild guy who has led a flamboyant life. He likes to get into trouble. He can be his own worst enemy.”

Jeff Berg didn’t renew Guy’s contract at ICM, putting Guy out of the agency business.

Had I not fired him, I’m sure Jeff would have picked up Guy’s contract.

I never would have fired Guy, though, had I not risked my career for him when I fired Michael Ovitz as my agent.

In that sense, Guy was yet another casualty of the Ovitz fallout … in addition to Irwin Winkler and Barry Hirsch.

My friend Don Simpson died. I smoked a couple of joints and did a double-bubble dose of Cristal in his honor.

I wasn’t as close to Don as some, I didn’t hang out with him as much as some others, but I loved the guy. I knew I could call him at four o’clock in the morning for help of any kind and he’d be there for me; I think he knew I’d be there for him if he called, too.

Don wasn’t really a producer; he was a rock and roll star. He was a fat, smart little kid from Alaska who, like Bill Clinton, a fat smart little kid from Arkansas … and so many others of us … grew up wanting to be a rock and roll star.

Don Simpson started in the music business, then took his outlaw rock and roll ethic into film—that’s probably what he was best at with all of his movies. He selected the music himself; the music was perfect for and perfectly drove each movie. On a personal level, he remade himself: the fat little kid was gone; he even redid the planes and contours of his face.

Sex, drugs, rock and roll: Don did as many drugs as Elvis and died Elvis’s death: collapsing to the floor from the toilet while reading a book … wearing the reading glasses he (and Elvis) never wore in public … Elvis’s book was
about
the Shroud of Turin, Don’s was about wannabe rock and roller Oliver Stone.

I have two poignant memories of him though the two are really one. It is a scene I’m sure Don played out hundreds of times; I just happened to be witness to it in two places, years apart.

In both, we are with slutty women we have met only hours ago—once in New York, once in Vegas—and both times Don is pouring his heart out to the bimbos he has just met, telling them about his strict Baptist upbringing and his strict parents.

The bimbos are listening, their smiles glazed, their lips puffed, their eyes even welling with icy tears. They are thinking about the part this big-shot producer will give them if they play their cards right.