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Lifestyle
Daisy McManaman, PhD Candidate, Centre for Women's Studies, University of York

The Last Showgirl: Pamela Anderson is perfectly cast in this intimate portrait of womanhood

Director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl captures the bittersweet reality of a dreamer who has given everything to a career that will never love her back.

Pamela Anderson’s Shelley has devoted the past 30 years of her life to the Las Vegas revue Le Razzle Dazzle, a show she proudly describes as embodying “breasts and rhinestones and joy”. But as the show’s run comes to an end, Shelley is forced to confront an uncertain future, aged out of the career she so desperately loves.

Shelley is a woman out of time. From her pink Motorola Razr phone to her disbelief at the rising price of lemons, she clings to a romanticised vision of the showgirl as an ambassador of Las Vegas glamour.

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