The strange scenario surrounding the nude scene in ‘Starship Troopers’
Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven is known for mixing explicit violence and sex on screen. The early 1990s saw him delve deep into the latter with erotic thrillers Basic Instinct and Showgirls. The former is now considered a landmark in sexuality on screen, pushing the boundaries put in place by Hollywood. The latter was poorly received but has since gained a cult following.
Following his mixed success with on-screen erotica, Verhoeven moved into the sci-fi genre with the release of Starship Troopers in 1997. Starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey and Neil Patrick Harris, the futuristic film follows an organisation called the United Citizen Federation as they find themselves at war with aliens.
Verhoeven somehow managed to sneak a nude scene into his outer space action film. The scene takes place early on in the film, following the soldiers of the United Citizen Federation as they get to know each other in a group shower. Though it might seem a little out of place at first, it’s an unsurprising move from the director known for his sensationalist on-screen sexuality.
The weirdest part of the shot actually took place behind the scenes. In an interview with Empire, the director recalled: “One cast member said they would only get naked if we did.” This stipulation led them to film the scene with the whole cast and crew unclothed. Verhoeven continued to explain, “Well, my cinematographer was born in a nudist colony, and I have no problem with taking my clothes off, so we did.”
The director acknowledged the strangeness of the scenario but also took the opportunity to argue that violence is more acceptable than sex in cinema: “Americans get more upset about nudity than ultra-violence. I am constantly amazed about that. I mean, I haven’t seen any sex scenes in American film that are anything other than completely boring. A bare breast is more difficult to get through the censors than a body riddled with bullets.”
Verhoeven also recalled the inclusion of nudity in his iconic 1987 sci-fi RoboCop a decade earlier. He stated, “In fact I’d done that in RoboCop too, but nobody seemed to notice. If you look when he is still a human being and they go into the police locker room, in the middle of the scene there is a woman there topless. No one seems to notice.”
He continued to joke, “I thought, ‘In RoboCop nobody noticed, so in Starship Troopers, I’ll make sure they do.’ The idea I wanted to express was that these so-called advanced people are without libido. Here they are talking about war and their careers and not looking at each other at all! It is sublimated because they are fascists.”
Though some might argue that Verhoeven uses nudity and sexuality in a thoughtless or sensationalised fashion, his explanation looks to validate the scene as a criticism of fascism. Throughout his discography, he has often used social satire to justify the use of nudity.
