Line #38 Film/ThePlayersClub


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cv8upj6v_6115.jpg]]
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3	''The Players Club'' is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Music/IceCube, and stars [=LisaRaye McCoy=], Creator/BernieMac, Creator/JamieFoxx, Monica Calhoun, and Cube himself.
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5	The plot is about a woman named Diana Armstrong who starts working as a dancer in a rough strip club and tries to overcome the difficulties of this new life while finishing her education.
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7	Not to be confused with the short-lived 2011 Creator/{{NBC}} series ''Series/ThePlayboyClub''.
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10	!!This film provides examples of:
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12	* ActorAllusion: John Amos plays Officer Freeman. L'il man, one guy he arrests, asks him, "You — have anybody ever told you you look just like the father from ''Series/GoodTimes''?"
13	* AndThisIsFor: Diana to Ronnie at the end of their fight:
14	--> '''Diana''': ''That's for [[CorruptTheCutie Ebony]]!'' (punch) ''That's for '''[[KickTheDog me]]'''!'' (kick)
15	* AssholeVictim: Dollar Bill. [[spoiler: After Ronnie, Trix and Junior get carried away by the police, St. Louis and his goons invade the club, blow it up and kidnap Bill, presumably to kill him. They may be mobsters, but we're clearly not supposed to feel sorry for Dollar Bill]].
16	* AttemptedRape: Ronnie, who attempted to rape Diana when they were alone in the changing room at one point. [[spoiler: We're shown later that this is a second attempt after Ronnie's successful rape attempt when Diana was passed out drunk at a private show.]]
17	* TheAggressiveDrugDealer: St. Louis, though it isn't drugs he wants payment for from Dollar Bill.
18	* BecauseISaidSo: The justification Diana's mom uses when she demands that Diana stop Ebony from working at the Player's Club
19	* BerserkerTears: Diana [[spoiler: sheds some of these when she chases her cheating boyfriend Lance out of the apartment with a HandCannon]].
20	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Diana, full stop. Do not cheat on her. Do not [[spoiler: abandon her cousin to your rapist little brother]]. It will end badly.
21	* BookEnds: The story opens with Diana working in a shoe store and two customers who are strippers (Ronnie and Tricks) convince her to become a stripper. At the end, Ebony is working in the same store and two stripper girls visit, but she wisely confronts them about the worth of the stripping profession while Diana is watching proudly.
22	* CallingTheOldManOut: This lead into the argument and estrangement with Diana's father that lead her to become a stripper in the first place.
23	* CassandraTruth: Diana's warnings to Ebony to at least ''slow down'' with her immersion into the stripper lifestyle go completely unheeded until it's too late.
24	* ComingOfAgeStory: Diana's.
25	--> '''Diana''': I walked in a young lady... [[AgeCut ''(Diana walks into the club wearing baggy clothes, cut to her leaving at night in a skimpy dress)]]'' and came out a woman.
26	* ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding: Apparently, [[spoiler:all of the employees and patrons of The Player's Club managed to exit the building after St. Louis shot up the place and Brooklyn firebombed it only moments later.]]
27	* CurbStompBattle: [[spoiler: Diana and Ronnie's fight was entirely one-sided. And satisfying.]]
28	* DateRapeAverted: Subverted. [[spoiler: The guests at Junior's bachelor party hear Junior beating and raping Ebony on the other side of the door, and instead of breaking down the door or calling for help, [[MoralEventHorizon leave her alone with Junior.]]]]
29	* DelusionsOfEloquence: Dollar Bill's speech about "bootiful black women". You could see their ''public'' hairs.
30	* DepravedBisexual: Ronnie, although we never see her sexually interact with any men that weren't part of the job, so she could very well be a PsychoLesbian.
31	* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnFemale: Ebony [[spoiler:throws Diamond's past rape at the hands of Ronnie back in her face by implying that she was a slut and a hypocrite for trying to call her out for her behavior. This ends up being disturbing on multiple levels in addition to the act itself because this was Ronnie telling her [[UnreliableNarrator narrative]] to Ebony (who took it as a fact), she herself ended up raped later on in the film by Ronnie's ''brother'', and that Diamond was assaulted while so intoxicated that she was rendered unconscious and for money.]]
32	* EvilDebtCollector: St. Louis sends one with a shotgun to Dollar Bill.
33	* FalseFriend: Ronnie with Diana, and especially [[CorruptTheCutie Ebony]].
34	* FemaleGroinInvincibility: During Diana and Ronnie's epic fight, the former kicks the latter in the groin area, only for her to no sell it and bark back "Ain't no balls there, bitch!" She then shrieks back "Coulda fooled me!" and resumes the fight.
35	* ForeheadOfDoom: Downplayed by Tricks, who at one point upon passing by Diana insults her by calling her a "bigheaded ho".
36	* GetOut: Two examples, both in the climax.
37	** After finding out about [[spoiler: Ebony's rape and Ronnie just leaving her there after finding out that Junior did it]]. Diana, accompanied by Blue, charges right back into the Players Club and into the stripper's room, demanding everyone but Ronnie leave. No one takes her seriously at first...until she pulls out a gun and fires a warning shot. ''That'' proves to be more convincing encouragement.
38	** After the fight [[spoiler: and the arresting of Ronnie, Trix and Junior. St. Louis, the gangster whom Dollar Bill owns money to, finally arrives to make good on his threat for missed payments. He's wheeled into the club carrying an uzi and warns the patrons if they don't want to get murdered then "Get the fuck out!". Thankfully the patrons heeded his words as there's no casualties seen after the shoot-up.]]
39	* GoodParents: Diana, who loves her son dearly and is able to mostly shield him from her line of work.
40	* KarmaHoudini: Reggie and Clyde, but ''especially'' Reggie for [[spoiler: goading Junior into thinking Ebony was an easy lay and abandoning her to get raped by Junior]].
41	** Also applies to [[spoiler: Ronnie]], as the epilogue makes no mention of jail time for [[spoiler: being an accessory to Ebony's rape or obstruction of justice.]]
42	* KnownOnlyByTheirNickname: Strippers in the Player's Club in general, but especially Tricks, who we never hear being called anything else.
43	* HowWeGotHere: The film opens with Diana standing in front of the wreckage of The Players Club.
44	* MoneySlap: When Diana is getting fitted for her graduation cap and gown, some other students begin to gossip about her over her profession which culminates in a random student derisively bringing this up and mockingly tossing dollar bills into her face, which causes her to storm off.
45	* OhCrap: Several:
46	** Diana when she sees her journalism professor enter the strip club while she's doing a lap dance. Turns out he's okay with her job as long as she makes a real effort to study.
47	** Later when she goes home and Myrin confesses to stalking her.
48	** Dollar Bill when he learns about St. Loius visiting.
49	** Ebony has a major one [[spoiler: when she realizes she's the only girl at Junior's bachelor party]].
50	* PapaWolf: We find out that Diana's father is one. After [[spoiler: Lance cheats on Diana, her father threatens Blue by saying that anything he does with his daughter on their date that displeases him, he would do to Blue]].
51	** The above threat is said while the two are at a shooting yard and the father shoots the target first in the head, then [[GroinAttack in the groin]].
52	* PrecisionFStrike: "Assume the ''fuckin''' position!"
53	* PunchClockVillain: XL, possibly. When Blue told him to leave while [[spoiler: Diana was beating the shit out of Ronnie in the changing room]], he didn't hesitate.
54	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Dropped on [[spoiler: Ebony]] by Diana after [[spoiler: she catches Ebony sleeping with Lance in her bed.]]
55	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Diana has had ''exactly'' enough of your shit, Ronnie. [[spoiler: Letting Ebony get raped by Junior and abandoning her in the hotel room was the last of many straws.]]
56	* ScaryBlackMan: St. Louis, his hitman and Brooklyn. Then there's K. C., who tries very hard to be this, but fails.
57	* StalkerWithACrush [[spoiler: Myrin]]. This gets [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse no resolution whatsoever]], after being set up relatively early in the film.
58	* SingleMomStripper: Diana has a son, and Trix was said to [[ReallyGetsAround have six kids]].
59	* SmallNameBigEgo: Dollar Bill, of course. He thinks of himself as a successful businessman and purveyor of the world of exotic dancing, but in reality he's just a dimwitted and greedy deadbeat who owns a sleazy, crime-ridden strip joint and is hardly respected by anyone.
60	-->''I'm Dollar Bill! Chi-Town!''
61	* TeenPregnancy: The film starts out with teenaged Diana pregnant with her son and arguing with her father about where she's going to college.
62	* ThemeTuneRap: "We Be Clubbin" by, of course, Ice Cube.
63	* ThoseTwoGuys: Reggie and Clyde. They could also be considered the EvilDuo, seeing as they [[spoiler: work for Saint Louis]] and [[spoiler: left Ebony to get raped by Junior]].
64	* TooDumbToLive: Dollar. Bill. If he would have just paid Saint Louis [[spoiler: he might still have his club and, possibly, his life.]]
65	** Also applies to Ebony to a certain extent, though while she doesn't die, she does end up [[spoiler: raped and beaten by the brother of the woman who freely admitted to raping her sleeping cousin ''for money''.]]
66	* TrashTheSet: How the club gets destroyed. [[spoiler: St. Louis shoots up the place with a usiz, and, after capturing Dollar Bill, Brooklyn blows it up with a rocket launcher]].
67	* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: The last seen of Dollar Bill is being captured by St. Louis's men, shoved into the trunk of his limo and being driven off after Brooklyn demolishes the club with a rocket launcher. Diana states in the epilogue no one seen him since.]]
68	* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: Junior]] can be heard sobbing while telling [[spoiler: Ronnie]] that they have to call their mother from the back of a squad car after [[spoiler: he's been arrested for Ebony's rape]].
69	* WeUsedToBeFriends: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by Ronnie with Diana during an AttemptedRape of all things. [[ShutUpHannibal It doesn't take.]]

Context Film / ThePlayersClub