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Girls on Cam: The Many Problems of ‘Hot Girls Wanted’

But it’s hard to be on the side of the documentary that continually treats its female subjects like they don’t know what to do, like they’re little girls who’ve wandered off the trail of goodness, like they don’t know any better and the terrible things they’ll experience here will teach them a lesson. That kind of sex negative attitude, and what’s more, “rescuer” mentality that does more harm than good to sex workers.

This is a guest post by Kyle Turner.

There seems to be a fallacy surrounding much of the discussion around the Netflix distributed documentary Hot Girls Wanted, directed by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus and produced by Rashida Jones. My friend pointed it out to me the other day that some have noted that it is, by its very existence of showing someone leaving the sex work industry, anti-feminist. I should disclose that I am a cisgendered queer male, but I consider myself a sex positive feminist ally nonetheless. I don’t really have a place to say what is or is not feminist, and I’m disinclined to mansplain. The issue with Hot Girls Wanted, though, is that it takes the cognizance of its subjects and casts it aside in favor of portraying its performers as infantilized victims, which seems like it will do more harm than good.

From the opening moments of the film, a collage of images rushes across the screen in quick succession, a montage ostensibly to illustrate the current culture’s obsession with female sexuality and the objectification of women’s bodies. Included in this clip reel in the din are an interview with Belle Knox, the Duke Porn Star (we’ll talk more about her later) and a clip from Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” music video. Immediately, the film either has a misunderstanding of these clips, or wants to portray them deliberately out of context: Belle Knox has been open about her experiences in the sex work industry, a move that she’s explained is based both in financial need as well as a desire to reclaim a kind of image or agency which is seen to be robbed of women in pornography, or in other facets of sex work. Nicki Minaj’s video is also an interesting thing to pick out and then utilize in this supposed introduction to one’s thesis: sampling Sir Mix a Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” Minaj is overtly trying to subvert and reclaim the gaze upon Black women’s butts, the lyrical and visual content of the full video nodding to denial, sex with a specific goal (personal pleasure), and castration. Yet, out of context, both of these clips just seem like, in the grand scene of this film’s argument, objects for a male audience devoid of autonomy.

It isn’t that that is not true in many cases, that women are often subject to a kind of leering gaze in media that is not used on men, it’s that Hot Girls Wanted has a bunch of rather interesting, very intelligent young women who are cognizant of what they are doing and why, and yet want to invalidate their agency in doing such. The film broadly wants to argue that the pro-am, or professional amateur, porn industry is exploitative and dangerous. While I don’t doubt that that is true, the footage contained in this film not only does not actually show the exploitation it so desperately wants to use as argument, but also, rather than suggest solutions to protect women and other performers in the sex work industry from exploitation (like harsher regulation), suggests rather vehemently that they should not be doing it in the first place.

We encounter and get to know Tressa, Rachel, Karly, Michelle, and Jade, all introduced in some invariably “normal,” inconspicuous way, in addition to their name, stage name, and period of working in the sex work industry via an onscreen rendering of a Twitter profile. This Twitter motif is used throughout the film, but surprisingly little thought goes into it making any kind of cogent meaning with regard to the subjects of the documentary. Though some performers speak explicitly about the characters they play for certain scenes, this idea of performativity, never mind persona, in conjunction to social media is never explored. It’s as if the film is trying to make the subjects seem as bland as possible (which doesn’t totally work) to contrast against the work that they do. They’re all around 18-22, a point that’s made in order to infantilize each person.

Despite the fact that nearly all of the performers are, as aforementioned, cognizant of what they are doing and why, the directors take specific steps to invalidate their words: moribund music cues underline Tressa’s declaration that this is what makes her happy; Michelle says “people are going to see it anyways” not once, but carefully edited so she says it three times; Jade examines the performative nature of facial abuse, but the scene leans on the actual performance to undercut her agency in the matter; Rachel talks about a mild injury on the set of a bondage scene and recalls how sensitive and receptive the crew was in terms of her safety, but the scene it against framed with grim music; the girls watch another Belle Knox interview, which is then juxtaposed against one of Knox’s scenes of facial abuse, again seemingly utilized to invalidate her autonomy in the matter.

The Belle Knox scene is particularly interesting because, for a poor documentary that mostly fails to build any kind of substantive argument (regardless of whether or not I agree with said argument), it’s able to articulate several different discourses that the film at large never seems interested in. On the one hand, it’s several Latina performers, including Jade, watching this interview. They scoff, Jade remarking that, in response to Knox’s vehement feminism and financial need, she and other performers have been doing it for years and already know how that model works. Jade succinctly critiques a racist capitalist model that benefits rich white women going to prestigious universities. (Another thing the film never gets into is why these subjects would be interested in doing this work in the first place, inasmuch as the current job climate necessitating it.) From another approach, there is that sharp contrast between Knox’s confident interview and the facial abuse scene itself, which feels to be used intentionally in a maternal way, skeptical of this young woman’s awareness.

Which is one of Hot Girls Wanted’s major issues: the maternalistic skepticism with which it treats all of its subjects. We follow Tressa perhaps the most closely, from her home life where her mother knows and vehemently disapproves of her work, to her boyfriend, who also disapproves of her work, to the actual work, and back again. As the film profiles her towards the beginning, she mentions how happy this job makes her, how she would hate to live at home (in Florida) and work a minimum wage job. By the end of the film, both her mother and her boyfriend essentially guilt trip her into quitting, almost victim blaming her. “Dignity” and “self-respect” are thrown around in the conversation, inferring she has none because she’s in the sex work industry. The last time we see her on screen, she’s living with her boyfriend, saying that getting out of porn was all she ever wanted. But there’s an odd reticence to her voice, as if she’s trying to convince herself.

Which is where the fallacy I mentioned at the beginning of this piece comes in: it’s entirely her, as it is anyone else’s, prerogative to do sex work or to leave sex work. But it’s hard to be on the side of the documentary that continually treats its female subjects like they don’t know what to do, like they’re little girls who’ve wandered off the trail of goodness, like they don’t know any better and the terrible things they’ll experience here will teach them a lesson. That kind of sex negative attitude, and what’s more, “rescuer” mentality that does more harm than good to sex workers.

The intentions are well-placed to some degree, but the tone deafness and willful ignorance of what its subjects are actually saying and how they feel about the work is worrisome and even dangerous. Hot girls may be wanted, but in an ironically patriarchal move, their voices and opinions are not.

Kyle Turner (@tylekurner) is a freelance film critic and writer. He’s also the assistant editor of Movie Mezzanine and began writing on the Internet in 2007 with his blog The Movie Scene. Since then, Kyle has contributed to TheBlackMaria.org, Film School Rejects, Under the Radar, and IndieWire’s /Bent. He is studying cinema at the University of Hartford in Connecticut and relieved to know that he’s not a golem.

Break the Cycle: Cultural Appropriation, Racism, and Kim Kardashian’s ‘Paper’ Magazine Cover

Jokes like these dehumanize Kardashian and all women with large buttocks. This is wrong, and the fact that Kim Kardashian lives in the public eye does not make it right.

Written by Andé Morgan.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two weeks, you’ve probably seen Kim Kardashian’s butt.

Specifically, you’ve seen her PAPER Magazine cover shot. While this picture did not in fact break the Internet, it has prompted numerous think pieces, blog posts, and comment threads. Some have derided Kardashian for behavior that, in their ancient and wrong opinion, is unbecoming of a mother. Others have accused Kardashian of cultural appropriation. Still others have focused on photographer Jean-Paul Goude’s obvious (and admitted) fetishization of black women’s bodies as evidenced by a strikingly similar — and more overtly racist — series taken several years earlier.

Cultural appropriation — in this case the profitable co-opting by non-Black folks of features and styles typically associated with black women — is a thing, and it’s not new. Even before Kardashian’s cover, this year alone has seen appropriation called on Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance, Katy Perry’s big-butted mummies, Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass,” and J.Lo and Iggy Azeala’s “Booty.” Here are some quotes from pieces you should read:

Taylor P. wrote about cultural appropriation and fashion for XOVain:

“I understand the argument that they are only trying to admire and honor our culture. But here’s the reality: when the dominant culture picks up pieces of our world, we [black women] get fetishized or, even worse, erased in the process.”

Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about Cyrus’s VMA performance for Slate:

“That is how black round female bodies become inferior. That is the inferiority Cyrus is ostensibly rooting against in ‘We Can’t Stop’ when she encourages ‘homegirls with big butts’ to reject the ‘haters’ because ‘somebody loves [them].’ Just who is that somebody is left unanswered, but I suspect it isn’t the white male audience for whom Cyrus performs her faux bisexual performance. That is choreographed for the white male gaze against a backdrop of dark, fat black female bodies and slightly more normative café au lait slim bodies because the juxtaposition of her sexuality with theirs is meant to highlight Cyrus’ supremacy, not challenge it. Consider it the racialized pop culture version of a bride insisting that all of her bridesmaids be hideously clothed on her wedding day.”

Nikki Gloudman wrote about Meghan Trainor’s “All About The Bass” at Ravishly:

“The problem with our pop cultural fixation on female body parts isn’t which body part is being focused on—it’s the fixation itself. These songs, which aim to celebrate the female form, still reduce women to the sum of their physical parts—and in doing so, propagate that damning social more of female competition…[the song] for its part, has already faced backlash from skinny girls who feel the tune disses them. Are they to feel inferior because they do wear a size two and don’t have the ‘boom boom that all the boys chase?'”

Blue Telusma, for The Grio, wrote about the connection between Kardashian and the exploitation of Sarah Baartman in the nineteenth century:

“All of a sudden, my correlation between these images and Saartjie’s treatment as a sideshow animal don’t seem so far-fetched, do they? The parallels are so literal and un-nuanced you’d have to willfully ignore what’s right in front of your face. This idea that ‘black equals erotic’ is fetishism in its purest form; it mocks ‘otherness’ while pretending to celebrate it and defines human beings by their genitals instead of seeing them as whole people.”

Wow! Nobody's ever don't THAT before! — Wow! Nobody’s ever done THAT before!

Joyce Wadler, writing for The New York Times style blog last week, took the opportunity to expel droll jokes that are only tongue-in-cheek in the most unfunny sense of the word. For example, Wadler writes:

“Then there’s the issue of copycats. I have no interest in having a behind like Kim’s — like I said, I live in a little New York apartment. But there may be impressionable women out there who right now are marching into the surgeon’s office and saying, ‘Gimme that’ — women with whom I am going to have to share a subway seat one day.”

Wadler is part of the same body-shaming fashion journalism industrial complex that spawned September’s “seminal” Vogue article, “The Dawn of the Butt” by Patricia Garcia. That piece effortlessly reduced millennia of cultural evolution to an Internet Age fad: “Perhaps we have Jennifer Lopez to thank (or blame?) for sparking the booty movement.”

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It's funny because Kim Kardashian's body is funny? — It’s funny because Kim Kardashian’s body is funny?

In Essence, Elizabeth Wellington writes:

“What’s difficult to digest is this ‘praise’ of all things black – from cornrows and large booties to acrylic nails, door-knocker earrings, and tribal fabrics – only becomes ‘chic,’ ‘trendy,’ and ‘epic’ when worn by white women. When these same cultural markers are on black women, they are ‘ghetto,’ ‘urban,’ and ‘ratchet’ – meaning, unpretty.”

As you’ve read above, there are important discussions occurring about appropriation and the questionable underpinnings of Kardashian’s PAPER Magazine cover. But what strikes me most is the more subtly racist backlash often delivered in the form of jokes by white comedians and commentators.

Wadler’s piece is relatively mild, and more exemplary of the lazy, mean-spirited humor often aimed at the Kardashian sisters. A better example of the subtle, casual racism inherent in these jocular responses comes from the Nov. 15 episode of the beloved NPR weekend quiz show, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! In it, host Peter Sagal makes several jokes alluding to the supposed grossness and abnormality of Kardashian’s body; in one he goes so far as to refer to her as a “greased pig.” (As an aside, Sagal also told a flat man-in-a-dress so-called joke about guest Ron Perlman. But transmisogyny on Wait Wait is another post…)

Such jokes describe women as less than, e.g., as non-human animals, inanimate objects, or anatomical abnormalities. Consequently, they dehumanize Kardashian and all women of color (and really, all women) with large buttocks. This is wrong, and the fact that Kim Kardashian lives in the public eye does not make it right.

Also on Bitch Flicks: Rosmary’s Baby: Who Possesses the Pregnant Woman’s Body? by Sarah Smyth

Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about film, television, and current events. Follow them @andemorgan.