8 Times Movie Censorship Backfired

Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls is one of the most notorious movies from the '90s. Widely panned at release and yet also embraced as "high camp" cinema, the film has seen some enthusiastic reappraisals in recent years - reinforcing it as a cult classic.

Regardless of where you fall on the "Showgirls is good-Showgirls is bad" divide, however, one thing that I'm sure everyone can agree on is the hilariously bad TV edit the film received for VH1 (broken down here by Bustle). So wide were the changes implemented that Verhoeven's name isn't credited - the director is instead listed as "Jan Jansen".

In total, over 45 minutes of footage was excised for the TV broadcast of Showgirls. This includes all the sexual content (which is a lot of the movie!), with the film also receiving extensive overdubbing to remove all the profanity. Those on their own would've made Showgirls' TV edit an all-timer of a broadcast, but it gets better.

Anyone familiar with Showgirls knows that there's nudity. Like, a lot of nudity. So much so that the idea of a TV edit sounds mental. To get around this, VH1 simply pasted digital bras and undergarments onto all the nude actresses, with the clothes themselves seemingly being pinched straight from Toon Town.

It's a complete butcher job - one of those movie events where you can't help but laugh at how anyone thought this was a good idea to begin with. At the same time, it all kind of adds to the narrative of Showgirls, which makes it amazing.