The Wonderful, Horrible Films of Paul Verhoeven

by Dan Streible

How do you tell a fascist film? Or does it matter anymore? Can a contemporary Hollywood movie traffic in both Nazi iconography and fascistic philosophy and still pass as harmless entertainment, noted only for its great special effects and its use of more rounds of ammunition than any film in history? And is the presence of "men with guns" a required signifier for a film either to encourage a fascist point of view or to be symptomatic of a culture listing to the right?

Such questions were raised in 1997 with the well-hyped release of Paul Verhoevenπs $100 million adaptation of Robert A. Heinleinπs 1959 ≥classic≤ science fiction novel Starship Troopers. All of the films Verhoeven has directed since his arrival in Hollywood have generated controversy. His work has alarmed cultural guardians with its extraordinary levels of gruesome violence [Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990)] and graphic sexual exhibition [Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995)]. Comparatively, however, Starship Troopers received only a modicum of critical chastisement. This despite the fact that -- in addition to the gory, flesh-ripping gunplay -- the film offers up what its producers called a ≥fascist utopia.≤ [1] Its top-gun, teenage warrior-heroes are showcased in a glossy display, steeped in Nazi aesthetics. They embrace a rousing militarism that deems democracy a failure and a martial state a success. Our young S.S. Troopers casually but willfully endorse the ideals of the Federation that teaches them "violence is the supreme authority." In short, under Verhoevenπs helm, the position affirmed by all of the principal characters fails to differentiate itself sufficiently from, say, the ideology espoused by certain well-known orators captured on film in Nuremberg in September of 1934. A major studio release that doesn't just allude to, but looks, talks, and walks like Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935)?

The release of Starship Troopers prompts a renegotiation of the critical debate around the issue of incipient fascism in contemporary Hollywood cinema. The film also represents a distressing shift in the ability of Paul Verhoeven to intervene from within the system as a potent postmodernist who makes blockbusters that knowingly ridicule the violent, action extravaganza mentality. Rather than critiquing such projects, Starship Troopers falls into a political incoherence that potentially enables viewers to entertain the idea of a fascistic military state as a viable future. While the machine gun and other firepower remain fetishized in the imagery of this high-tech movie, men with guns do not necessarily rule the day. The "Morita"[2] rifles the troopers wield against hostile alien insects allow them to display a degree of bravado and power on the battlefield, but their guns do not win the war. In a cinematic age in which Texas-sized meteorites bombard the earth, guns ultimately become a symbol of impotence rather than power. However, in Starship Troopers this decline of the gun's dominion does not indicate a failing of the future warrior-state. Rather the film suggests that power derives from the lens of a camera rather than the barrel of a gun. The power of fascist force comes less from its military superiority than its ability to captivate minds with its commanding, monumental imagery, its corporative ability to create group-think.

Given the troubling political implications of Starship Troopers, Iπd like to examine how such a film came to be, how it was positioned for reception and how it was received. My conclusions are based on an examination of movie trade journals, promotional materials, journalistic reviews, and on-line discussions -- both critical and fan-based. As secondary resources I consider Starship Troopers in the light of what critical film studies have previously suggested about cinema and fascism. The key text remains Susan Sontagπs 1974 essay ≥Fascinating Fascism,≤ which sought to define the aesthetic markers that abetted fascist, or at least Nazi, art as evident in the work of Leni Riefenstahl.[3]

Also important is the way in which Verhoeven figures into the symptomatic readings of key films from Reagan-era Hollywood, particularly those by critics such as Robin Wood, Michael Ryan, Douglas Kellner, David Denby, Susan Jeffords, Stephen Prince and others. Their perspective has noted how both patently conservative films (Red Dawn, Rambo, Schwarzenegger vehicles) and mainstream fantasies (the Star Wars, Rocky, and Indiana Jones series) betrayed tendencies that had disturbing parallels with fascist culture. "Vengeful patriotism, worship of the male torso," "military spectacle" and weapons of overkill were making U.S. commercial cinema into a showcase for what J. Hoberman called in 1985 "The Fascist Guns in the West."[4] In the decade following, Hollywood continued in a similar vein, with big-budget spectacles ranging from Bruce Willis action pictures to jingoistic sci-fi shootouts like Independence Day (1996). Yet cries of fascism diminished in critical circles. This was also a period when Verhoeven directed his acclaimed Robocop and the dense, complex Total Recall -- two conspicuous blockbusters that retained the big guns and special effects while seeming to subvert the political inflections of the genre.

Given this context, the contradictions of Starship Troopers require explanation. How did a Hollywood film with such in-your-face fascist imagery appear at a time when concerns over quasi-fascist tendencies in popular cinema had become muted? Does the film undo Verhoeven's previous reputation as a thoughtful if audacious social commentator?

Inside the Cabinet of Dr. Verhoeven

We must begin by reading Starship Troopers as part of the ≥wonderful, horrible≤ films of Paul Verhoeven. I appropriate the title of Ray M¸llerπs insightful documentary film about Leni Riefenstahl because Verhoeven seems a parallel enigma to her: an auteur full of self-contradiction whose work invites polarizing analyses, an artist who avows provocative artistic creation while disavowing political intention or social responsibility.[5] In the 1990s, Verhoeven became a bÍte noire, the director of horrible excess who pushed the limits of MPAA-approved violence and sex. Yet his films remain wonderful enough -- in box office terms and in stylistic distinctiveness -- to keep him on the major studiosπ A-list. In the 1980s, he also was lauded by analysts of pop culture politics. Retaining the edge of his Dutch films, Verhoeven was credited with critiquing the retrograde aspects of the Hollywood action blockbuster by making ultraviolent, effects-laden fantasies that ridiculed the conservative, militaristic ethos of Rambo and his cohort. If Sylvester Stallone could blow away his enemy with force of arms, Verhoeven would paint a world in which everyone was subject to gunfire. Like the Dutch masters of old, he put the anatomies of corpses on display. But his bodies were ripped by disorderly bullets, not scientifically vivisected by surgeons. [6]

Stephen Prince's perceptive book Visions of Empire (1992) epitomizes the critical valorization of Verhoeven. Prince discusses the director's work as part of a "dystopia cycle" of movies that countered the conservative trend in eighties Hollywood. Arguing that such films confront issues of political exploitation, corporate control and resistance to police-state coercion, he says such ideas "receive their most intelligent and deliberate working out" in Verhoeven's Robocop and Total Recall, the cycle's "two most outstanding exemplars." Prince calls the former a "grim indictment of Reagan policies" that is nothing less than " a thinking person's action film whose politics are left of center." Like other admirers of the movie, he interprets its satirical humor as granting viewers "the Brechtian distance necessary to see ties between their world and the film's future." While Total Recall is a more compromised critique, it remains a "cautionary fable" that becomes "one of the subtlest but most critical imaginative transformations of the political referents of the Reagan period." Arnold Schwarzenegger's proletarian hero of the future is a rebellious freedom fighter who overthrows a villainous corporate state (headed, as in Robocop, by a perfectly evil boss played by Ronny Cox). In Prince's estimation "one feels that Verhoeven would have gone much farther" in his political critique if not for the constraints of commercial production.[7]

Certainly one does not "feel" this when watching Starship Troopers. The cinematic provocateur, earlier hailed as a subversive satirist, instead made a movie that flirts closely with fascist ideas and images. He seems quite an unlikely candidate for such work. Or such were my impressions after spending a day with the director in November 1995. Although his inglorious Showgirls had just been released, he made good on his pro bono offer to meet with film students. With a Ph.D. in mathematics, Dr. Verhoeven was at home in the academic environment. He was engaging, bright, and unpretentious. He was glad to engage in debates about civil liberties, sexuality, censorship, art and morality. Clearly he took his work seriously, even if he was too often vague about why he engaged in such controversial types of representation. (Often he would say only it was because ≥that interests me.≤)[8]

Two items of relevance here arose during this encounter. First, Verhoeven described his preproduction for a big-budget, big-bug film called Starship Troopers, which had been greenlighted solely, on the basis of a short sample of computer-generated giant insects done by special effects artist Phil Tippett. Second was his frequent reference to his World War II childhood experiences as an explanation for his comfort level with violence and dismembered bodies. Born in Holland in 1938, he was socialized, he said, into a world where seeing Nazi invaders drag off the Dutch dead was commonplace.

With this in mind, Verhoevenπs rendering of ≥fascism lite≤ -- as Der Spigel called it[9] -- is all the more surprising and disconcerting. Why would a recipient of Nazi aggression make a film which permits a reading of fascism as a possible future that "works"? Even Verhoevenπs earliest cinematic credentials seem solidly anti-fascist. After learning filmmaking in the Dutch military (like Heinlein he was a Navy man), he made Mussert (1968), a documentary about the head of the Netherlandsπ Fascist Party during World War II. Soldier of Orange (1979), which led Steven Spielberg to invite Verhoeven to Hollywood, is his historical drama about Dutch resistance fighters who take on Nazi collaborators. Far from lionizing fascistic ideals of order, monumentalism, virile posing and perfect bodies, Verhoevenπs Dutch films undermine such values. His down-and-dirty seventies films are more at home with the work of the ≥degenerate≤ artists condemned by the Nazis. Irreverent, messy, vulgar. They also demonstrate sympathy for the outsider. The bohemian sculptor in Turkish Delight (1971), the gay writer in The 4th Man (1979), and the disenchanted motorcycle riders of Spetters (1980) are a far cry from the cardboard supersoldiers of Starship Troopers.

Yet his futuristic war extravaganza was consistent with the turn Verhoeven took when he came to Hollywood. Since Robocop, his films have been marked by their excessive high gloss, splashy spectacle, and intense action. Each contains set pieces calculated to outrage middle-class sensibilities. Many turn disturbingly comical in tone. In Robocop, we see police officer Murphy tortured by drug dealers who make a game of shooting off his hands and arms. After he is resurrected as a cyborg, his first turn in crimefighting is to use his laser-accurate pistol to shoot a would-be rapist in the genitals. In Total Recall, the rebel hero fights off a series of machine-gun assaults, memorably using a human corpse as a bullet-absorbing shield. Basic Instinctπs infamous opening features an explicit sex scene that culminates with an icepick murder at orgasm.[10]

Starship Troopersπ deliberate flirtation with fascism, therefore, might be understood as just another wrinkle in the Verhoeven career: ironic deployment of dizzying violence, cold characters, outrageous political philosophy and allusion to Triumph of the Will -- all merely for the sake of provocation. However, this excursion into the postmodern politics of irony differs from its predecessors. Its irony is so "blank" that it can invite readings as a text that seems neo-nazi itself.

Fascism Light and Magic

How might a film be deemed "fascist" a half-century after Hitler? Does Troopers belong in this category? In the broadest sense, this special-effects fantasy is merely a part of the post-Star Wars "cinema of oppressive spectacle" of which so many critics (liberal, conservative, humanist) have complained. David Mamet, for example, spells it out in a lesson on screenwriting.

We, as the audience, are much better off with a sign that says A BLASTED HEATH, than with all the brilliant cinematography in the world. To say "brilliant cinematography" is to say "He made the trains run on time."

Witness the rather fascistic trend in cinema in the last decade.

Q. Howπd you like the movie?

A. Fantastic cinematography.

Yeah, but so what? Hitler had fantastic cinematography. The question we have ceased to ask is ≥What is the brilliant. . . cinematography in aid of?≤[11]

So it is with Troopers. The giant bugs look cool. The effects are fantastic. But so what?

As cultural historian Russell Berman argues in his analysis of fascist form, Triumph of the Will exemplifies the ≥fascist privileging of sight and visual representation≤ because fascism "transforms the world into a visual object, ... the spectacular landscape of industry and war.≤[12] Thomas Elsaesser points out in his assessment of Nazi-era commercial cinema, however, this matter can be overly stressed. To take this Frankfurt School view is ≥to propose that all popular cinema is potentially fascistic, if by this we mean illusionist, . . . using affect and emotion to overpower reason."[13] Clearly both Triumph and Troopers stand to abet a fascist politics with their visual objectification of masses, their overwhelming cinematography. But to lump them together with Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985), Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997), or Apocalypse Now (Francis Coppola, 1979) is to lose their more particular political meanings.

A discernment of fascist tendencies in recent cinema also occurs in Robin Woodπs reading of Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Wood identifies ≥Fear of Fascism≤ as part of a Spielberg-Lucas "syndrome," the potential for America to become a totalitarian state, for the individualist American hero to become indistinguishable from the fascist one, for the weak-minded to be taken over by a Vader-ian Force. Although George Lucasπ well-known reference to Triumph of the Will is more discrete than Verhoevenπs, Wood suggests that its presence in Star Wars is more than just a joke. The thrill of the Jedi military victory and the spectacle of triumphant troops assembled at the movieπs conclusion resonate with authoritarian overtones. He also reminds us that, historically, fascist cultures did not feed on overtly political propaganda films but on light entertainment that reinforced certain conceptions of the body, national identity, family, etc. Rocky Balboa and Indiana Jones are not protagonists in fascist films, but would be at home in a fascist popular culture.[14]

Starship Troopers puts fascist ideas on the table more explicitly than the Spielberg-Lucas films. Indiana Jones still knows a Nazi when he sees one. And he opposes them unambiguously. On a manifest level, these films don't encourage an understanding of a Nazi enemy -- however cartoonish -- as anything other than Other. Verhoevenπs futuristic fantasy treads on this dangerous ground by reversing this, inviting us to identify with the fascist protagonist.[15]

To be more historically precise, we can define fascism as a political and social system marked by authoritarian rule, military force, intense nationalism, expansionist conquest, demand for racial purity, the rhetoric of ånew order,π supremacy of the state, and obedience to a charismatic leader (the one element absent from ST). It values martial discipline, sacrifice, surrender of individual will to social order, glory in combat and death, youthfulness and a cult of the body sans eros. None of these alone is unique to fascist philosophy and I am not suggesting that Verhoeven is advocating them. But in bringing Heinleinπs novel to the screen, he creates a cinematic space where they are allowed to play amid a riot of Nazi mise-en-scene.

Heinleinπs book, as even its cult of fans admit, lacks strong plot or character development. It is remembered for its provocative political soapbox, in which the author argues for a conservative-libertarian social order built by virile citizen-soldiers. The book itself is often labeled a fascistic fantasy.[16] Despite the novelπs formal weaknesses, screenwriter Ed Neumeier (who also wrote Robocop) retained its comic-book plot and pared down the philosophizing.

Johnny gets his Gun

Starship Troopers combines Heinleinπs sci-fi war story with a Melrose-dramatic teen love triangle. Four friends are graduating from a high school in a futuristic Buenos Aires that looks suspiciously like a Los Angeles suburb. All enlist in Federal Service: our dumb-jock hero, Johnny Rico does it for his brainy-beautiful girlfriend Carmen IbaÒez, who goes to Flight Academy. Nerdy best friend Carl goes into military intelligence, while smart-jock Dizzy Flores gives up her career as a pro football quarterback to follow her beloved Johnny into the Mobile Infantry. Johnny is about to quit boot camp when Giant Bugs drop a meteor on Buenos Aires, killing millions. Johnnyπs platoon of gung-ho roughnecks are led into battle by their high school civics teacher, Mr. Rasczak. The battle for planet Klendathu is a fiasco, with troopers with their World War II style machine guns prove no match for the deadly arachnids. A second battle ends in victory thanks to Rico and Dizπs sharpshooting and our heroπs cowboy tactics with mini-nukes. The comrades-in-arms celebrate by having sex, Johnny finally giving in when the eugenically-minded Moral Philosopher Lt. Rasczak instructs him to procreate. Finally comes an apparent suicide mission to Planet P, home of the giant Brain Bug. In a scene reminiscent of the Alamo, we watch from inside the barricaded fort as millions of bugs swarm over the fortress walls. Diz and Rasczak die gruesome but heroic deaths, impaled by insect claws, before Carmenπs fleet arrives to save Johnny. During a second attack, Carmen is captured and about to have her skull sucked dry by the Brain Bug when Lt. Rico saves the day. We end irresolutely, as Colonel Carl appears -- dressed in full Goebbels regalia. He mindmelds with the captured Brain Bug and, with a cruel smile, reports ≥Itπs afraid!≤ Thousands of uniformed troopers, looking ever so much like an army of ants, mindlessly cheer the fear in their enemy. (≥Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness,≤ Sontag observes.)[17]

As the absurdity of the plot reveals, Verhoevenπs film is highly ironic and often satirical. Heinleinπs high-minded patriotism vanishes. And yet. . . what is this irony is aid of? Why do we fight? In whose army do these soldiers march? (an army whose sergeants insist ≥Your weapon is more important than you are!≤) While Verhoevenπs adaptation undermines Heinleinπs right-wing homily, it fails on three fronts. Starship Troopers wallows too deeply in Nazi iconography, enjoying its "fascinating fascism"; it presents a narrative in which a fascist future works, with no suggestion of resistance or alternatives; and, most egregiously, it targets an audience of teens and children, offering them the possibility of making a positive identification with the filmπs young fascist heroes.

The Speerian mise-en-scene is persistent. The imposing black eagle icon of the Federation mimics the first image seen in Triumph of the Will. Uniforms reference the brown-shirt style as well. The set design of the military camps and Federation architecture imitate what Sontag described as the Deco fascist style with its ≥sharp lines and blunt massing of material, its petrified eroticism.≤[18] Asked about the Nazi aesthetics, Ed Neumeier said simply, ≥the Germans made the best-looking stuff. Art directors love it.≤ Verhoeven added, ≥I just wanted to play with these [Nazi images] in an artistic way.≤ His play includes more direct references. The filmπs opening sequence -- a recruitment ad -- ≥is taken from Triumph of the Will,≤ the director told Entertainment Weekly. ≥When the soldiers look at the camera and say, åIπm doing my part!π thatπs from Riefenstahl. We copied it. Itπs wink-wink Riefenstahl.≤[19]

Neumeierπs script begins and ends with the mocking description ≥Proud YOUNG PEOPLE in uniform, the bloom of human evolution.≤ In casting, Verhoeven tries to have things both ways, playing with fascist aesthetics to subvert them, but managing to privilege a racial type. This is most apparent in the lead role. Heinleinπs Juan ≥Johnnie≤ Rico was a Tagalog-speaking Filipino cum Federation (read: American) citizen-soldier. The movie Johnny and his Spanish-surnamed girlfriends are supposed to be Argentinean (because this is where PerÛn harbored old Nazis?)[20] But the actors in these roles are quite white, including lead Casper van Dien, the next screen Tarzan, whose Dutch name resonates with van Damme macho. The soldiers in Ricoπs platoon reference the WWII combat film's generic melting pot, updated for a multicultural future. But even the characters bearing Jewish, Polish, Japanese and African-American names have the same fair, too-pretty, idealized faces. This was not lost on reviewers, who noted the ≥Aryan Spelling,≤ square-jawed, big-teeth, big-lips uniformity.[21]

Whereπs Johnny?

Even Verhoevenπs nod to a gender-neutral military fails to undercut the fascist ideal. These full-blooded men and women shower together without sexual attraction, conjuring up the fascist cult of the body as an instrument of combat rather than eros. As in Riefenstahlπs film, showering together demonstrates Spartan camaraderie. In the other notable scene of bodily display, Johnnyπs hairless torso is flogged in the public square, taking the scars that mark him as a true warrior. Again Sontagπs litany of fascist motifs is borne out: the ≥choreographed display of bodies,≤ ≥physical perfection of beauty,≤ ≥virile posing,≤ the ≥endurance of pain,≤ the ≥exhibition of physical skill and courage.≤[22]

Wink-Wink Riefenstahl?

As Starship Troopers overindulges its Nazi imagery, it does so in a narrative universe where a fascistic mentality operates without disruption. The rules are laid out for us in Mr. Rasczakπs valedictory lecture on History and Moral Philosophy. As others have observed, this scene in which a teacher inspires wartime enlistment takes the anti-war All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) and stands it on its head.[23] The one-armed veteran explains to his class why military forces had to impose this new world order after too much democracy led to chaos. Things "work" because only those who have done state service are enfranchised. Veteran soldier-citizens are licensed to reproduce. Mere ≥civilians≤ lack ≥civic virtue≤ and can not vote. Force is the supreme authority. The rabidly anti-intellectual, anti-bourgeois side of fascist philosophy is projected onto the only civilian characters in the film, Johnnyπs rich parents. They discourage their son from becoming cannon fodder and insist he go to Harvard. Their soft liberalism earns them a spot on the Bug Meteorπs fatality list -- weak naÔfs, like the people of Hiroshima, says Rasczak.

Accepting his teaching unproblematically, all sign up for military service. Comradeship replaces family. Youth are socialized into these values via the greatest of inculcation devices: football. As star athletes, Diz and Johnny become the leaders in battle. Here Verhoeven's irony is subdued for a change, not counterposing high school football fever with zealous militarism the heavy-handed way Peter Davis does in the anti-war documentary Hearts and Minds (1974). This is the principal problem with the Starship Troopers. Verhoevenπs irony becomes so manic as to become incoherent. Is he ridiculing everything? and thereby nothing? When Johnny and friends adopt this fascistic ideal, at what point does the viewer decide to go along for the ride?

In his defense, the primary way Verhoeven tries to subvert the Federationπs ideology is by replicating the satirical framing device used in his earlier films. Just as Robocop intercuts scenes of mock newscasts (showing, a Reagan-figure accidentally zapped by his own Star Wars weapons), Troopers features a running propaganda broadcast viewed in an interactive Web-TV format. An ≥Official Voice≤ presents vignettes about how and why to fight the insect menace.

Does this lend sufficient critical distance? Perhaps for adult viewers, the excess, absurdity, irony, and satire make it clear this is no endorsement of a fascist future. But the conventionally character-driven plot remains in place with some expectation that viewers will identify with the heroπs strivings. Unless one is willing to root for the horrific, scabrous bugs, the film offers no points of entry other than the wonderful, horrible protagonist. Verhoeven is consistently anti-humanist, but his film is confused about what it wants to articulate about fascism.

In the promotional book, The Making of Starship Troopers, Verhoeven speaks directly about the subject. At times he hints at sympathy with Heinleinπs philosophy, calling it ≥benign fascism.≤ When pushed to defend himself, he avers his film is ≥subversive,≤ decidedly not fascist. But in between he is as contradictory as his film. He will only say that a Pat Buchanan-like cryptofascism in the U.S. in the 1990s is ≥interesting,≤ rather than alarming or wrong-headed. When the FedNetπs official voice repeatedly asks ≥Would you like to know more?≤ Verhoeven maintains his film is asking its audience to consider the nature of such a world.

[Iπm] not saying that ST πs society is wrong because of that resemblance [to the Third Reich]. . . . These references say, ≥Here it is. This futuristic society works on this level well -- and it fights the giant insects very well. Look and decide. The judgment is yours.≤[24]

Guns åR Us

What audience, then, does Starship Troopers recruit and address? If it were only Heinlein readers (including all U.S. Marines, who are required to read ST)[25] there might be less reason for concern. Most of the author's fans rejected the movie as a disservice to the book. Verhoevenπs coldness and bad taste also turned off many film reviewers. Those who were ready to give him the benefit of the doubt sometimes addressed the f-word head on, particularly the Washington Post, in a series of sharp critiques. But more typical were puff pieces on the film's brilliant cinematography and cheerleading reviews, such as one the Detroit Free Press headlined with ≥åStarship Troopersπ Sucks Out Our Brains -- and It Feels Great.≤[26]

However, we must deal with the fact that idealized Brechtian spectators and historically knowledgeable postmodernists were not the film's main patrons. The Troopers audience (both actual and constructed) was largely "juvenile," to use the somewhat dated industry term. If critical perspective and sophistication are required to read subversive irony, then what interpretive position is left for those too inexperienced to discern this? Verhoevenπs film was heavily promoted to teen and pre-teen audiences with television ads on kidsπ cable, interactive cyberspace games, an official comic book adaptation, trading cards, a CD-ROM, a soundtrack album, Toys åR Us action figures and weapons ("for ages 4 and up"), not to mention the Disney imprimatur. The filmπs restrictive rating was problematic enough (as a New York Post stunt proved when 12-year-olds were able to buy tickets).[27] But even if the gore and sex were absent, what sense might children make out of watching, desiring or identifying with Johnny Rico? Again using a random sampling of on-line teen chats as an indicator, it seems that many reacted to eye-candy as they might with other films: ≥This film rocks.≤ ≥Johnny is awesome.≤ ≥Diz is one hot babe.≤ (Fantastic cinematography!) With Trooper characters as representatives of a fascist utopia, what will these same viewers think when confronted with other fascistic principles? Hitler addressed his youth. Heinlein wrote his book as juvenile literature. Is Verhoeven juvenile enough for todayπs ten-somethings?

Finally, we might ask if Starship Troopers lends aid and comfort to the enemy. If Robin Wood is correct that Rocky and Indiana Jones would be at home in a fascist pop culture, how much more pleasure would this starship fantasy yield with its shiny patriots exterminating an alien enemy? As with Hitler loving Fritz Langπs Metropolis for all the wrong reasons, intentions would cease to matter.

≥Nobody making films today alludes to Riefenstahl.≤ -- Susan Sontag

When Verhoeven, frustrated by criticism, yells to the press ≥I am not a fascist! Iπm a Democrat!≤[28] I believe him. He is right. Starship Troopers is not a fascist film. Nonetheless, a film sprung from a democratic spirit shouldnπt be so difficult to separate from a fascist one. Verhoeven need not become a propagandist in the manner of Goebbels or even Heinlein to speak clearly. His filmsπ portrait of human societies as ugly, harsh and depraved might be redeemed by just a scrap of hope, by reference to an alternative. For all their depravity, Robocop and Total Recall at least center on protagonists searching for their human identity, fighting against corrupt corporate states. But with no Ronny Cox villain to deride, the Big Bug Picture lacks a target. Incoherence, not irony, is the postmodern trait that best demarcates this film. With Starship Troopers the incoherence becomes nihilistic, leaving the unfortunate residue of fascist-inspired images to resonate in ways that still matter.

If there is a way to read this war story in a less distressing way, it stems from the filmπs own construction of impotence. Despite all the gun-toting and the firing of 300,000 plus rounds of ammunition, the disciplined, devoted, clean, lean warriors of the Mobile Infantry remain no match for the intimidating space insects. An assault rifle might have been a macho problemsolver for John Rambo, but Johnny Rico proves inferior to the arachnids below him and the mind-managers above him. As we learn in the final scene, the only hope the Federation has for beating the bugs is a new breakthrough in telepathic mindreading. Carl, Johnnyπs Goebbels-inspired friend, has become the officer in charge of psychic research. He has (possibly) remotely controlled the foot soldier's thoughts with ≥psi orders≤ during the final rescue mission. Able to siphon intelligence from the captured Brain Bug, the Federationπs military can now out-think its enemy. Of course mind control -- mass trance through propaganda and ritual -- is also a fascist weapon par excellence. In this sense the filmπs visual display shares the calculated effect of Riefenstahl and Speerπs spectacles of order. In Triumph of the Will (as in Riefenstahlπs Olympia, 1938) the Nazisπ show of arms matters little in comparison to their pageant of bodies massed in uniform. Thousands of young German troops are seen armed with shovels, rather than the guns forbidden by the 1918 disarmament treaty. Political power grows not from raw military force, but out of the spectacular and its ability to generate consent to the imagemakerπs vision.

Ultimately, this is why Starship Troopers is not an explicit symptom of some resurgent militant fascism. It canπt happen here because the film does not adequately connect its viewing public to any real political movement which might be seen as a referent for Verhoevenπs mock ≥utopia.≤ As Stephen Prince aptly puts it in his analysis of Robocop, even if one concedes that the film provokes a progressive political outrage, the lack of a tangible organization for kindred social action severely limits the filmπs efficacy.[29] However, this hardly makes Starship Troopers a work to be lauded. Diehard supporters might argue that by being so unremittingly coarse, sadistic and destructive, Verhoevenπs oeuvre rips the mask off of Hollywoodπs commercial formula, revealing its truly corrupt heart. Yet even critics like Fred Glass, who find progressive politics in Verhoevenπs dystopian movies, should ask in the last instance the question Glass does about Total Recall. ≥What will the audience remember most when it leaves the theatre: the politics. . . or the blood?≤[30]

With Verhoevenπs work there seems little question that it his gore and blood that stick. His films certainly problematize the politics of issues like gun violence, militarism, and corporate corruption, but we might wish that this imagemakerπs vision were clearer and more articulate -- especially when playing with fascism. Rather than resorting to a nihilistic response to the political present, one might recall the clarity of singer Woody Guthrie. ≥This machine kills fascists,≤ he scrawled across his guitar. Paul Verhoeven and Hollywood in general donπt have to make the cinematic equivalent of ≥This Land Is Your Land≤ to signal what position they take on the possibilities of a fascist utopia. But neither do they need to produce films as ideologically muddled as Starship Troopers. Perhaps, as Mamet, Berman and a host of cultural critics have contended, there is something almost inherently fascistic and controlling in the this machine of cinema that ≥transforms the world into a visual object.≤ Not all pictures and narratives are endowed with the same political meanings and historical referents, however. Contemporary filmmakers like Verhoeven, aware of a contested cinematic past, would do well to consider more carefully which side they arm for the future. Ä

Notes

1 Michael Wilmington, ≥Bug Wars,≤ Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1997, p. A7. Attention to Starship Troopers was also diminished by the inordinate amount of publicity given to Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), released at the same time. Reviews of the movie were mixed. Despite extensive promotion by Sony/TriStar and Disney the film's box office declined quickly after a strong opening. ST grossed approximately half its production cost in its domestic release and earned roughly the same amount money through its international distribution by Disney's Touchstone.

2 According to screenwriter Ed Neumeier, the fictional Morita (a ≥futuristic-looking assault shotgun≤) was jokingly named after ≥a then-current Sony executive.≤ Paul M. Sammon, The Making of Starship Troopers (New York: Boulevard Books, 1997): 73.

3 Susan Sontag, "Fascinating Fascism," in Under the Sign of Saturn (New York: Vintage, 1980), pp. 73-105. Recent studies have made it clear that films produced under fascism seldom resembled Triumph of the Will, but usually eschewed explicitly political content. "Escapist" entertainment -- musicals, comedy, adventure tales, melodrama and the like -- were the popular forms in Fascist Italy and Hitlerπs Reich. See James Hay, Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), Marcia Landy, Fascism in Film: The Italian Commercial Cinema, 1931-1943 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), Thomas Elsaesser, ≥Hollywood Berlin,≤ Sight and Sound, January 1998, pp. 14-17.

4 J. Hoberman, ≥The Fascist Guns in the West,≤ American Film March 1986, pp. 42-44. Hoberman cites David Denby's 1985 critique in New York magazine as specifically using the fascist label for Rambo: First Blood, Part II (George Cosmatos, 1985), Red Dawn (John Milius, 1984) and other films of that season. See Robin Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. New York : Columbia University Press, 1986; Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988; Susan Jeffords, The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 19890; Stephen Prince, Visions of Empire: .

Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film (New York : Praeger, 1992).

5 The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl [Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Reifenstahl] (Ray M¸ller, 1993). In 1998, Riefenstahl was deemed wonderful enough to be invited to Time magazineπs 75th anniversary party (presumably because of her legacy as an artist) and horrible enough to remain vilified for her role in the Nazi propaganda apparatus.

6 Verhoeven alludes to his own fascination with bodily mutilation as being part of the Dutch tradition of etching and painting. Sammons, 140.

7 Prince, 171-84.

8 Paul Verhoeven's visit to the Radio-TV-Film Program at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh occurred November 3, 1995.

9 Helmut Krausser, ≥Faschismus light im Weltall: Paul Verhoevens Sternenkriegsfilm Starship Troopers is ein frivoles Meisterwerk,≤ Der Spiegel 5 (1998): 179. Graciously brought to my attention and provided by Nicholas Vaszonyi.

10 The icepick through the victimπs face, footage of oral sex enacted by Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, and date-rape violence had to be cut to achieve an R rating. The whole of Showgirls was a sort of calculated set piece. Chiefly promoted as the first major Hollywood NC-17 release, the film was universally panned for dialogue and acting so inane they managed to upstage the filmπs ubiquitous nudity. It was instant camp, but unintentionally so since Verhoevenπs usual cold, hyper-ironic distance is absent. Fortunately, even the shockmeister demurred from any playfulness at the unfortunate (and virtually unmotivated) gang-rape scene that appears in the final act.

The savage gun violence in his best known films notwithstanding, Verhoeven is definitely a knife man. The image of the castrating blade runs consistently throughout his films. In Turkish Delight the lothario protagonist uses scissors to clip pubic hair swatches from his sexual conquests and saves them in a souvenir book. In The 4th Man the title character has a nightmare in which the femme noir castrates him with a pair of scissors. Verhoeven's first English-language production, Flesh + Blood [a.k.a. The Rose and the Sword] (1985) is a bloody 16th-century swordplay film. Even Showgirls features the teen heroine wielding a switchblade against the man who rapes her roommate. In Starship Troopers, the assault on the Brain Bug is not a gun attack but Carmen slicing off the bug's long brain-sucking appendage with her knife. In basic training, Sgt. Zim demonstrates that a knife is still an effective weapon by skewering an infantryman's hand.

Verhoeven himself comments on the fetish/motif in a promotional interview appended to the video release of Basic Instinct (the director's 'cut'). Some people say Sharon Stone's character's icepick is a Freudian phallic symbol, he says. "I don't think so," but it may be, he admits. If so, "I have repressed it."

11 David Mamet, Writing in Restaurants (New York: Vintage, 1986): 16.

12 Russell A. Berman, ≥Written Across Their Faces: Leni Riefenstahl, Ernst J¸nger, and Fascist Modernism,≤ in Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics, and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988): 99.

13 Elsaesser, 14.

14 Robin Wood, ≥Papering the Cracks: Fantasy and Ideology in the Reagan Era,≤ in John Belton, ed., Movies and Mass Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996): 211-13.

15 The only film which Wood identifies as clearly fascist in its politics is Schwarzeneggerπs Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982) with its Wagnerian allusions, celebration of Arnoldπs ≥Aryan physique≤ and Nietzschean text. While Verhoeven cast Schwarzenegger in a more complicated role in Total Recall, a project now in development would have Verhoeven directing the action hero in the historical pageantry of The Crusades.

16 Everett Carl Dolman's ≥Military, Democracy, and the State in Robert A. Heinleinπs Starship Troopers,≤ in Donald M. Hassler and Clyde Wilcox, eds., Political Science Fiction (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997): 196-214,

contains the best discussion of Heinlein's philosophy and debates over its fascistic nature. See also books by Franklin, Panshin, Olander and Greenberg, and Stover (cited on bibliography below). The charge of fascism draws heated defenses from Heinlein enthusiasts, as the on-line discussions about Starship Troopers at the time of the movieπs release and the bookπs re-issue indicate.

17 Sontag, 91.

18 Sontag, 94.

19 Benjamin Svetkey, ≥The Reich Stuff: Nazi References and Fascist Images Creep Among the Bugs in åStarship Troopers,π≤ Entertainment Weekly, November 21, 1997, pp. 8-9.

20 The Buenos Aires setting is largely ignored, although there is a comic close-up of a framed picture of Evita lying in the rubble after the meteor attack. The film was set to be released about the same time as Madonna's Evita (1997), but held up six months for various marketing reasons.

21 Conforming to the hoary Hollywood formula, the most "ethnic" characters are dispensed with first, Shujimi eaten by a bug, Djanaπd washed out of basic training after her rifle accidentally kills a fellow trainee. The majority of principal trooper roles were played by actors who had appeared on Aaron Spelling TV series ≥Beverly Hills 90210≤ or ≥Melrose Place.≤

22 Sontag, 86.

23 Stephen Hunter's stinging critique of the movie points this out. His review was by far the most trenchant immediate analysis of the film's fascist core. ≥Goosestepping at the Movies,≤ Washington Post, November 11, 1997, p. D1.

24 Sammon, 138-39.

25 Kent Mitchell, ≥Movies Corps Values: åTrooperπ on Reading List,≤ Atlanta Constitution, November 7, 1997, p. 22.

26 Hunter, D1; Stephen Hunter, ≥Ooze and Aahs: Why Disgusting, Slimy Movies are Hard not to Watch,≤ Wasington Post, December 9, 1997, p. D1; Rita Kempley, ≥Starship Troopers,≤ Wasington Post, November 7, 1997, p. D1; Terry Lawson, ≥åStarship Troopersπ Sucks Out Our Brains -- and It Feels Great,≤ Detroit Free Press November 7, 1997.

27 "Despite 'R' Rating, Kids Sneak into Troopers," Reuters/Variety wire report from America Online, November 1997. Sony executives, apparently trying to justify disappointing sales, sent a letter to exhibitors (citing the New York Post story) advising them to check for moviegoers under seventeen who were supposedly sneaking into Starship Troopers after buying tickets to other films.

28 Sontag, 95; Svetkey, 9. Although Entertainment Weekly used a capital D, one suspects Verhoeven meant small-d democrat, rather than Bill Clinton Democrat. In response to criticism, the Starship Troopers official web site (a facsimile of the Federal Network seen in the movie) added a ≥Would you like to know more?≤ section about the controversy. In mocking tones, the filmπs producers admit to ≥propagandistic themes and overtones.≤ As if to goose up box-office receipts, the display headlines that:

Activists from åSave the Bugsπ, åBrownpeaceπ, and TAG [Terran Actors Guild] are calling for Citizens and Civilians Federation Wide to boycott the film. Director Paul Verhoeven was not available for comment. The Office of the Sky Marshal is reported to have responded to the allegations as åpure poppycock.π

The actual Anti-Defamation League dismissed the film as too ≥ludicrous≤ to take seriously. http://www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyMovies/movies/Starship/ (Accessed 1997-98).

29 Prince, 180.

30 Fred Glass, ≥Totally Recalling Arnold: Sex and Violence in the New Bad Future,≤ Film Quarterly 44 (1990): 7, quoted in Prince, 185.

Selected Bibliography

Books and secondary essays

Affron, Matthew and Mark Antliff, eds. Fascist Visions: Art and Ideology in France and Italy. Princeton University Press, 1997.

Berman, Russell A. Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics, and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School, University of Wisconsin Press, 1988, especially ≥The Aestheticization of Politics: Walter Benjamin on Fascism and the Avant-garde,≤ (pp. 27-41), and≥Written Across Their Faces: Leni Riefenstahl, Ernst J¸nger, and Fascist Modernism,≤ (pp. 99-117).

Cockburn, Andrew. ≥Gun Crazy.≤ American Film December 1985, pp. 48-52.

Dalle Vache, Angela. The Body in the Mirror: Shapes of History in Italian Cinema. Princeton University Press, 1991.

Deutschmann, Linda. Triumph of the Will: The Image of the Third Reich. Wakefield, NH: Longwood Academic, 1991.

Dolman, Everett Carl. ≥Military, Democracy, and the State in Robert A. Heinleinπs Starship Troopers.≤ In Donald M. Hassler and Clyde Wilcox, eds., Political Science Fiction (University of South Carolina Press, 1997): 196-214.

Eco, Umberto. ≥Eternal fascism.≤ Utne Reader, Novemer-December 1995, pp. 56-60.

Eco, Umberto. ≥Ur-fascism.≤ New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995, pp. 12-16.

Elsaesser, Thomas. ≥Hollywood Berlin.≤ Sight and Sound, January 1998, pp. 14-17.

Franklin, H. Bruce. Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Galkin, A. A. ≥Fascism,≤ in The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, tr. of 3rd ed., (New York: MacMillan, 1970), pp. 1086-88.

Glass, Fred. ≥Totally Recalling Arnold: Sex and Violence in the New Bad Future.≤ Film Quarterly 44.1 (Fall 1990): 2-13.

Golomstock, Igor. Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the Peopleπs Republic of China, Robert Chandler, tr. New York: IconEditions, 1990.

Hay, James. Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy: The Passing of the Rex. Indiana University Press, 1987.

Heinlein, Robert A. 1959. Starship Troopers. New York: Ace Books, 1987/1997.

Hewitt, Andrew. Fascist Modernism: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Avant-garde. Stanford University Press, 1993.

Hoberman, J. ≥The Fascist Guns in the West.≤ American Film March 1986, pp. 42-48.

Jeffords, Susan. The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Landy, Marcia. Fascism in Film: The Italian Commercial Cinema, 1931-1943. Princeton University Press, 1986.

Mamet, David. Writing in Restaurants. New York: Vintage, 1986.

Neumeier, Edward. Starship Troopers screenplay. Third draft. Unpublished MS, October 6, 1994.

Olander, Joseph and Martin Greenberg, eds. Robert A. Heinlein. New York: Taelinger, 1978.

Panshin, Alexei. Heinlein in Dimension: A Critical Analysis. Chicago: Advent, 1968.

Prince, Stephen. Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film. New York : Praeger, 1992.

Ryan, Michael and Douglas Kellner. Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Sammon, Paul M. The Making of Starship Troopers . New York: Boulevard Books, 1997.

Sarris, Andrew. ≥Fascinating Fascism Meets Leering Leftism.≤ In Politics and Cinema. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978): 107-115.

Sontag, Susan. ≥Fascinating Fascism.≤ In Under the Sign of Saturn (New York: Vintage, 1980): 73-109.

Stover, Leon. Robert A. Heinlein. Boston: Twayne, 1987.

Tyler, Parker. The Shadow of an Airplane Climbs the Empire State Building: A World Theory of Film. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.

Wood, Robin. ≥Papering the Cracks: Fantasy and Ideology in the Reagan Era.≤ In John Belton, ed., Movies and Mass Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996): 203-28.

_______ . Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. New York : Columbia University Press, 1986.

Periodical Press

Carr, Jay. ≥Starship Troopers Save Planet from Infestation of Killer Proportions.≤ Boston Globe November 7, 1997, p. D1.

Clark, Mike. ≥Starship Troopers on Beeline to Blockbuster.≤ USA Today November 7, 1997, p. D2.

Dawidziak, Mark. ≥R-rated Stuff Really Remiss in Raucous Sci-fi Romp: Brief Nudity, Ultra-gore Out of Place in åStarship Troopers.π≤ Akron Beacon Journal, November 7, 1997. ohio.com

Deitch Rohrer, Trish. ≥House of Bugginπ.≤ Premiere, November 1997, pp. 74-77.

Denby, David. ≥Rambo: First blood, Part II.≤ New-York June 3, 1985, pp. 72-73.

_______ . ≥Starship Troopers.≤ New York, November 17, 1997, pp. 72+.

"Despite 'R' Rating, Kids Sneak into Troopers." Reuters/Variety wire report from America Online, November 1997.

Fine, Marshall. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ November 7, 1997. Gannett News Service, in, Courier-Journal.com.

Frost, Terry. ≥Starship Troopers, Dumbship Troopers.≤ Festivale 1997. Melbourne, Australia. Februry 4, 1998. www.festivale.com.au.

Geier, Thom. ≥R-rated Alien Bugs Your Kid Will Beg to See.≤ U.S. News and World Report, November 10, 1997.

Giles, Jeff. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ Newsweek, November 10, 1997, p. 78.

Gliatto, Tom. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ People, November 17, 1997, p. 21.

Glieberman, Owen. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ Entertainment Weekly, November 7, 1997.

Grossenberger, Lewis. ≥Look, Donπt Touch.≤ Mediaweek, November 17, 1997, p. 42.

Hunter, Stephen. ≥Goosestepping at the Movies.≤ Washington Post, November 11, 1997, p. D1.

_______ . ≥Ooze and Aahs: Why Disgusting, Slimy Movies are Hard not to Watch.≤ Washington Post, December 9, 1997, p. D1.

Kemp, Philip. ≥Utopia.≤ Sight and Sound, February 1998, pp. 24-25.

Kempley, Rita. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ Wasington Post November 7, 1997, p. D1.

Krausser, Helmut. ≥Faschismus light im Weltall: Paul Verhoevens Sternenkriegsfilm Starship Troopers is ein frivoles Meisterwerk.≤ Der Spiegel 5 (1998): 179.

Lawson, Terry. ≥åStarship Troopersπ Sucks Out Our Brains -- and It Feels Great.≤ Detroit Free Press November 7, 1997.

McCarthy, Todd. ≥Starship Trooopers.≤ Variety, November 3, 1997, pp. 98-99.

Maslin, Janet. ≥No Bugs Too Large for This Swat Team.≤ New York Times, November 7, 1997, p. E14.

Matzer, Marla. ≥Marketing Starship Troopers is Storming the Gates of an Industry Generally More Comfortable with G-rated Movies.≤ Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1997, p. D8.

Mitchell, Kent. ≥Movies Corps Values: åTrooperπ on Reading List.≤ Atlanta Constitution, November 7, 1997, p. 22

Morgenstern, Joe. ≥Among the Predators and the Prey.≤ Wall Street Journal, November 7, 1997, p. A17.

Nashawaty, Chris. ≥Quit Bugginπ Me.≤ Entertainment Weekly 405 November 14, 1997, pp. 42-45.

Nichols, Peter M. ≥Whistlerπs Mother Wouldnπt Have Sat Still for This.≤ New York Times, November 16, 1997, p. II, 34.

OπDonnell, Paul. ≥Weπve Already Seen the Future.≤ Washington Post, December 14, 1997, p. C2.

Puig, Claudia. ≥Paul Verhoeven Regroups.≤ Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1997, p. D1.

"Despite 'R' Rating, Kids Sneak into Troopers." Reuters/Variety wire report from America Online, November 1997

Rainer, Peter. ≥Future Shock Troops: Director Paul Verhoeven Bugs Out in Starship Troopers .≤ Westworld.com New Times, Inc. Nov. 1997.

Rosenberg, Scott. ≥Melrose vs. the Monsters: The Incoherent Film Version of Robert Heinleinπs åStarship Troopersπ lacks the courage of the bookπs fascist conclusions.≤ Salon November 7, 1997.

Schickel, Richard. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ Time, November 10, 1997, p. 102.

Strauss, Neil. ≥50s Sci-fi Camp Goes High-Tech.≤ New York Times, November 10, 1997, p. E1+.

Svetkey, Benjamin. ≥The Reich Stuff: Nazi References and Fascist Images Creep Among the Bugs in åStarship Troopers.π≤ Entertainment Weekly November 21, 1997, pp. 8-9.

Thompson, Gary. ≥Itπs Sci-fi Genocide.≤ Knight-Ridder News Service, November 15, 1997. The [Bergen] Record Online..

Travers, Peter. ≥Starship Troopers.≤ Rolling Stone, November 27, 1997: pp. 113 (4).

≥åTroopersπ Romps Amid Mayhem.≤ MSNBC.com, Entertainment, November 1997.

Turan, Kenneth. ≥Stop Bugginπ Me!≤ Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1997, p. 19.

Wilmington, Michael. ≥Bug Wars.≤ Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1997, p. A7.