She Works Hard for the Money: ‘The Last Showgirl’ Embodies Our Changing Attitude Toward Sex Workers

variety.com:

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Not so long ago, sex workers had a less than rosy image in the movies, and in the culture at large.

For starters, they weren’t called “sex workers.” When Demi Moore played one in 1996, the title of that movie was “Striptease.” And in reviews I’ve written of more movies than I can count, I’ve referred to people who get paid to have sex with their clients as “prostitutes.” The newfound stigmatization of that word — and of the word “stripper” — represents a sea change in how sex work is perceived: not as a special, sordid, semi-underground occupation but simply as…work.

You can sense how big the change is if you think back to “Showgirls,” released 30 years ago. Sure, it was an infamous bad movie (one that has since been reclaimed for the glitzy camp flash with which it embraced the sleaze of the Vegas fleshpot milieu).

But part of the original rap on “Showgirls” was that critics, nearly all of them men, sneered at the movie because it dared to celebrate, with a kind of shameless effrontery, something as “low” as aspiring to be a Vegas showgirl.