No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire

Verhoeven was just tryin' to kill some bugs, sir!

I don’t have an opinion on this, just wanted to give this thread a pop.

So, the "brilliant satire" controversy continues? The longer it's been since I saw it, the more I realize that I only liked it because of the brief nudity. I'd probably think it was more brilliant if there were more nudity. I have enough big bugs in my tomato patch so those are forgettable.

Yet no nudity from Denise Richards. If there had been, the movie might have been unanimously lauded as brilliant!

Just double feature with Wild Things, as they were meant to be seen.

I think she's in the shower scene next to Caspar.

Nope - that was Dina Meyer as "Dizzy Flores".

That scene has always been the one thing in the movie that least worked for me....far above the whole big bug thing, which defies the structural capabilities of an insect shell.

The idea that that you have all these young, handsome, healthy folks taking a mixed gender shower together and there's no leering, that no anatomy rises to the occasion and that nobody seems to even notice, was a stretch for me, especially since they all seem to follow other common expectations about gender in our world.

It's always amusing to me how much sci-fi is happy to just sort of write basic human nature out of its equations, be it stuff like this or Star Trek utopianism. Fine as an intellectual exercise and interesting to explore some times, but it also becomes aspirational for a lot of fans.

Well, we can't quite be voyeurs, creepshotting nubile bug-fodder, if our subjects are conspicuously aware of their bodies being observed and don't feel free to move naturally, relaxed. Now, if some "nerds" secretly set up cameras in the shower, then we might look over their shoulders and take their perspective, but the subject of their gaze would still be in ignorance of the observation. However, you can't have men and women taking shots at each other in the shower and preserve that illusion of "peeking."

Honestly, I would never aspire to a life where I'd see all of those attractive naked females 2 touchable feet away from me and NOT react. I'd have to go to a doctor and have the pipes checked, especially since, in other scenes, it's obvious that these folks react in the usual way with their clothes on.

"I'm up here, Johnny!"

Actually, it seems like something of a logical conclusion if we look at certain trends in society right now - the push for unisex bathrooms, pre-surgical transgender people sharing locker rooms with those of the "opposite" sex, the notion that gender is a matter of self-identification as opposed to biology or the idea the sex & gender are "social constructs".

Well, we're also finding transgender women inmates getting biological women inmates pregnant in prison, right?



I think the future is NOT likely going to be that of a public bath or shared shower. There's too much opportunity for objectification, fat shaming, assault, and general shenanigans for the "victim model" of virtue (the most prevalent modern construct of all) to accommodate it.



The future will more likely be that of a unisex bathroom where everyone has a private stall (shower or throne). Perfect equality and perfect safety can only be achieved via perfect segregation. The 2037 remake of the film will likely show our troopers entering into the same unisex shower where they all have private shower stalls and individual changing booths. The Dream of Martin Voyeur King? Dashed.

Gender IS a social construct. This is not new. That has been what the word has been defined as for decades.


Sex is the more concrete term which has to do with the physical self. It's why those who identify as the opposite sex, and choose to transition, don't go into surgery to get a gender change.


And Starship Troopers has nothing to do with either of these things.

I think up until that point everyone was doing an okay job of talking about this without necessitating the discussion become exclusive about these things, but of course now any further replies will be, so let's please draw the line there.

A celibate soldier is a good soldier. Would you like to know more?

Celibate may mean "abstaining from sex," OR "abstaining from marriage," so Johnson's Private Johnson may arguably be be used at the discretion of Private Johnson.

Hey Chris... I'm just here tryin' to kill some bugs, sir!

"Bite down on this, son. It helps. I know."
- Sgt. Zim