Hot Girls Wanted

Hot Girls Wanted is a 2015 American documentary on young-adult pornography directed by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus. The film follows the lives of several 18- and 19-year old pornographic actresses. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix on May 29, 2015.

Synopsis

Several 18 to 25-year old young women are interviewed about their experiences as pornography performers. Several women, including Rachel Bernard (from Illinois) and Tressa Silguero (from Texas) are recruited by a 23-year old pro-amateur porn agent Riley Reynolds to live in his North Miami Beach home.^[2] Reynolds's agency is called Hussie Models.^[3] Silguero, 19, leaves the business.^[4]

Production

The film was originally imagined as an exploration of male consumption of pornography on college campuses. The filmmakers abandoned this idea when they discovered that the men were mostly watching pornographic videos starring young women. Curious about why such a large number of young women were entering the industry, the film was reoriented to tell their story.^[5]

Release

Hot Girls Wanted premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.^[6] Netflix picked the film up for distribution^[7] and released it on May 29, 2015.^[8]

Reception

Geoff Berkshire of Variety wrote, "An intimate and ultimately harrowing peek inside the world of amateur porn, Hot Girls Wanted will shock and outrage audiences in equal measure."^[1] Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "rigorous, timely study".^[9] Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian rated it 2/5 stars and wrote, "If you were in the dark about the potential dangers for young women of employment in the porn industry, this documentary may prove instructive. For everyone else, it's an unnecessary – if salutary – reminder."^[10] Mike Hale of The New York Times described it as "a documentary with a provocative subject and title but an uncertain tone that vacillates between weary outrage and motherly concern".^[11]

Feminist responses in Hot Girls Wanted

Hot Girls Wanted demonstrates to viewers the complications that come along with amateur porn. Feminist views of pornography range from anti-pornography feminism to sex-positive feminism. This film could be seen as either sex-positive or anti-pornography.

Anti-pornography feminist views

Those with feminist views of pornography argued that much of what is seen in pornography is abusive to women. In Hot Girls Wanted, issues of objectification and exploitation of the young women filmed caused internal issues amongst them. The degrading sexual acts seen throughout this documentary are: women getting slapped in the face, racial slurs, and women forced to vomit and then eat it. These actions could lead to sexualization. Two of the main characters Tressa Silguero and Rachel Bernard reflect back on their sexual experiences which lead them to being physically, mentally, and emotionally abused. They refer to being treated as objects and that they were "working" and did not actually enjoy intercourse just the money. Some pornography exploits the idea of the mistreatment of women (i.e Facial Abuse^[12]) or want women to stretch out their vaginas with non normal human sized objects, which occurs in this film. The main characters discuss how hard it is to deal with such sexual acts.

According to the Media Education Foundation, the sexualization of girls in media, and the ways women are portrayed in the dominant culture, is detrimental to the development of young girls as they are developing their identities and understanding themselves as sexual beings.^[13] Viewers see this when producers ask the characters if they have sexual lives outside of the industry. The majority of the time, Tressa and Rachel, responded that they don't have intimate lives outside of pornography because of the fear of how men would treat them. However, people who are not knowledgeable of this documentary believe that because pornography is consensual that these women are knowledgeable about all acts and do not acknowledge how women like Tressa and Rachel feel.

Sex-positive feminist views

Sex-positive feminism is the belief that sex is a freedom for women. While critics like Gail Dines analyze the idea of pornography, others like Ellen Willis celebrate the idea of sexual exploration. The characters in this documentary choose to explore pornography and to escape from their everyday small town lives. The women shown in this documentary enjoy the industry, the attention and monetary gain they receive. Viewers are witness to the monetary gain because of how often the women express how much each sexual act costs for example, one sexual act may pay $900 US dollars. Sex-positive feminists take a variety of views towards existing pornography. Many sex-positive feminists see pornography as subverting many traditional ideas about women that they oppose, such as ideas that women do not like sex generally, only enjoy sex in a relational context, or that women only enjoy vanilla sex. They also argue that pornography sometimes shows women in sexually dominant roles and presents women with a greater variety of body types than are typical of mainstream entertainment and fashion. Viewers see these ideas reflected in the women in this documentary. They are independent, comfortable in their own bodies, and making their own decisions.

References

External links

• Official website
• Hot Girls Wanted at the Internet Movie Database
• Hot Girls Wanted at Rotten Tomatoes
• Interview with Rashida Jones on Her Porn Documentary 'Hot Girls Wanted'