Sex Worker Cinema Superlatives

"Best" is subjective, but here are my favorites

I love any excuse to talk about movies. I was going to write something completely different this week, but with the Anora Oscar wins, it seemed like as good as of an excuse as any!

What did I think of the film? I think it did deserve Best Actress. Best Screenplay? I’m pretty sure a big portion of it was improvised, so I don’t understand this choice. Best Director? Sure, why not? Best Picture? In the same year that Dune: Part II came out?! WHAT???

The online sex worker community takes films about us very personally and for good reason. We are used to seeing our stories portrayed in a way that adds to real life stigma and violence. Not a movie, but I always think about when the original Grand Theft Auto came out. The running joke was that you could fuck a hooker in a car and watch your money stats go down. Then you could run her over when she got out and the money would go back up. Those little 12year old gamerboys who were giggling at that back then are not only the age of our clients now, but also old enough to be cops.

Overall Anora didn’t bother me that much, I just couldn’t get it up enough to be fully outraged. My main problem with it is the title. It implies its going to be a character study, which it is not. The film doesn’t go deeply into who Ani is, (which I think is fine), it is more of a document of a single 6week period of her life. A career in sex work is full of characters you would never believe are real and the wild anecdotes to match. Sometimes men show up, declare their love for you, drop 5figures in a few weeks, and then fall off the face of the earth never to be heard from again. It has happened to me before, it will happen again. That is the life. If you were to zero in a single period in my life without context, it may look something like parts of this film. I’m sure you could make 5 episodic Anora films just chronicling her bizarre adventures over the course of her time in the industry and never know a thing about her personally. (Do not steal that idea, Sean Baker!)

I do think a lot of the criticism of it has value. This is an excellent review by our beloved Marla Cruz. (Please read!) As a sex worker, seeing the violence in Act 2 played for laughs was upsetting. As a movie lover, it just went on SO LONG that it numbed me out. Like, we get it, they’re bumbling and Russian. Let’s move on. I have a nice healthy attention span and generally enjoy an excessively long movie, but Anora isn’t exactly There Will Be Blood. A lot could be cut out.

What makes a “good” sex worker movie is subjective. I don’t think every one necessarily needs to be a realistic shining example of what amazing, heart-of-gold people we are. Sometimes good stories are just good stories that deserve to be told. I haven’t found a perfect one yet, but I have several favorites for very different reasons.

Most Accurate Film: The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

This movie really emphasizes the “work“ part of sex work. Lots of scenes of her typing away at a keyboard, just like I am right now. It takes place before my time in the industry, during the peak of “Review Board Culture”. They never actually say the word TER (TheEroticReview), but a lot of the plot is centered around that website and the effects of the 2008 financial crash. If the movie were made today, it would be exactly the same only she’d be stressing out about her Twitter notifications rather than maintaining her TER ranking.

I love Sasha Grey and am so happy to see she has carved out a cool life as a popular Twitch streamer these days. “These Kids Today” do not give her enough credit as someone who spoke up early about asserting her sexual agency when nobody else was in the mainstream. That being said, I don’t think it was necessary to have a real life worker star in the film. I’m going to be mean, but a lot of the Anora “criticism“ I have seen revolves around demanding that the character be played by someone who has actually danced in a club and I do not think this is an intelligent, media literate take at all. Actors act. They interpret stories. It is not cultural appropriation to be an actress. I can’t believe I have to say this. (Open the schools!) Sasha in this movie is a cool fun fact and we love to see it, but does not have a lot of impact or make it more or less ethical.

Best Fantasy Film: Showgirls (1995)

I refer to this movie as a fantasy because I like to believe Nomi Malone is the stripper equivalent of Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed. She is an American tall tale, larger than life roaming the country and haunting strip clubs forever young. I like to believe she is still out there to this day pulling out her switchblade or toplessly beating up men to protect another worker in peril. Or perhaps she’s somewhere getting absolutely railed in a pool. Nomi is a road warrior and a hero and I won’t hear it any other way.

Best Very Specific to Max Film: Sanctuary (2022)

Movies that were almost great but miss the mark break my heart more than a plain bad one. Sanctuary comes so close to being a great film. The acting, the concept, the lighting, cinematography, the pantsuit - all the boxes are checked. But the script is so messy and there is one scene so deeply cringe I can’t watch it. The tension of the film is dependent on you wondering if their game is real or not and I feel like it gives it away in Act 1.

It may not be perfect, but I am used to seeing the character I relate to die in the first 30mins of the movie. A film where the stylish brunette curly-haired pro domme (ahem) gets her own Disney princess ending, complete with a classic Hollywood kiss and sweeping orchestrals, is going to have a soft spot in my heart.

Best For the Girls Film: Zola (2020)

This is the one based off of the infamous twitter thread. It is an over the top fever dream cartoon interpretation of supposedly true events. It features a truly underrated and unhinged performance by Riley Keough, who coincidentally starred in the tv show adaptation of The Girlfriend Experience.

What I like about this movie is that it is not afraid to make fun of sex work without placing moral judgement or attacking workers’ choices. It doesn’t feel like punching down to me. It feels like sitting around with my industry friends and gossiping about what that mutual crazy bitch friend we have did over the weekend. It feels like the call is coming from inside the house and it doesn’t matter if civilians are watching. The characters are wacky but grounded and most are not all good or all bad. It does not try to pull out the “hooker with a heart of gold“ trope. Its just an insane Looney Toons “Ho Trip”. I would be honored to have my tweets made into a film like this.

Best but Worst but Best Film: Boogie Nights (1997)

Like I said, I do not think every film about us has the responsibility to be a vehicle to advance our cause. Sometimes great movies are just great movies. This one is not realistic or flattering in anyway, but it is one of the best films of the 90’s and my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson ensemble piece. It features an amazing scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman that will forever make my skin crawl and, of course, Roller Girl.

Is it humanizing? There’s an argument that it is in a 1997 kind of way, but whatever good intentions it may have had don’t really stand the test of time. Boogie Nights probably adds to stigma ultimately, but this movie so fucking good that I can just keep rockin’ and rollin’ and let it go.

Best Overall “Film“: Secret Diary of a Callgirl (2007)

My personal top pick is not a film, but a tv series. It is the perfect amount of accurate and whimsical that I want to see in how sex workers are portrayed. Many workers who started around or after its release will cite the series as to what made them consider going this route. Belle is charming, fallable, and smart and wears every single classic Agent Provocateur piece that real life workers were collecting at the time. Its a perfect time capsule for an era of this industry.

One of my favorite elements is that it not only humanizes sex workers but their clients. It highlights them as normal men trying to have complex needs met. There are scenes of kink shown in playful, loving manner rather than dark and scary, it demystifies the sexuality of clients with disabilities who rely on us, and shows the friendly intimacy of the after-fuck pillow talk.

If we are talking about the intersection of entertainment, realism, and good portrayals of sex workers, the first two seasons of this show are a clever masterpiece. I would encourage clients and workers alike to seek it out. I obviously can’t speak for all of us, but this is how I want us to be seen.