100% this. No notes. Gosh, I had no idea we had this opinion about porn in common too.
And I've seen nothing either except the stuff I had to moderate for my job at Tumblr. When you see the proliferation of the undisputed worst kinds of porn (children, gore, etc.) day in and day out, while people claim "oh that's just the fringe, 'sex work' is actually so modern and enlightening," you start to question a lot of the narratives out there.
Thank you x This was one of the unalloyed upsides of working at Mumsnet - there were women on the boards who liked and used porn, but *nobody*, just *nobody*, ever thought that posting it to an unwilling/unsuspecting audience was remotely acceptable. It just never happened (except when we had male trolls)
I would think to humanize sex workers, you make a movie about sex workers and what they do when they’re not at work - raising kids maybe, buying food, reading books, meeting with friends, etc etc, you know, the stuff humans do.
Yeah... I mean I don't really like the 'humanize' angle anyway (I wasn't aware I *didn't* think sex workers were human...), but yes. I was thinking about 'The Favourite' (because of another comment about Yorgos Lanthimos and 'Poor Things') and one of the few things that annoyed me about The Favourite was that it had Sarah Churchill riding away from court in a temper and falling off her horse and being rescued and taken to a... brothel? in the forest? and being looked after by the people there? -- when IN REAL LIFE the reason Sarah Churchill was away from court at this point was because she was looking after her daughter, who was critically ill. Which just seemed to sum everything up - who wants to dramatise women's massively onerous and near-universal caring responsibilities? BORING! Put her in a brothel with some kindly pimps instead!
Thank you for writing this. We should all express this anger. I watched it. Her performance is epic. The actor loved learning to pole dance and she won some awards. So that makes me happy. She got paid, and I hope she gets a brilliant career. But the movie is just another excuse to see this tired straight male viewpoint. It's about a young spoiled boy with all the money he wants, spending it on objectifying and using young women's bodies. Much like the whole freaking hollywood machine. There is so much female arse in this movie. I am a fan of arses, sex and art. But this is unimaginative wank fodder. And the market is already flooded with that.
You have smashed that nail into the wood so hard, all that’s left are splinters.
Thanks, Rowan, for putting in rational, clear, and explicit words what made me squirm about Anora, and what I didn’t like about it.
I had no idea what the film was about when I entered the cinema, and have to confess not much either after leaving. And especially after reading and hearing Sean Baker’s explanations about the film’s theme and messages about the hidden human cost that sex workers pay for the work they do.
Because surely the way to do that is absolutely not by perpetuating ‘what’ they do, rather than ‘why’ they do it, and Anora does not satisfactorily answer that question. But it does, though, display an awful and gratuitous amount of the ‘what’, which is uncomfortable viewing for someone like me who also squirmed as a kid while Benny Hill chased leggy and busty women in lingerie around a park…
Thank you very much Mark. It’s interesting hearing from people who’ve actually seen it. Totally right about ‘what’ and ‘why’ and how Baker has landed in the wrong place. And it’s made me think about what it might be like for some men (the ones I’d classify as ‘decent’) to see something like this, especially if you were just going along to the flicks without reading about it before time.
This is why I stopped watching Poor Things. Tell me all you like that it’s not a film about a child being molested by grown men, but I won’t believe you. It’s grim. No grown woman calls sex, ‘Furious jumping.’ Apparently, she becomes a feminist in the second half, but I don’t buy that either. If it was a film about a woman becoming a feminist, it didn’t need the scenes in the middle that were most definitely about how hot Emma Stone looks when she’s shagging, even if she does have the brain of a child.
Yeah it was the fact she was presented as a child that made it an immediate ‘get to fuck’ from me. I’m sure lanthimos can give a whole speech about how that can be justified, but some boundaries are there for bloody good reasons.
Thanks for this. Perhaps we should also exhume the body of work by Andrea Dworkin from the shallow grave in which it was unceremoniously buried by the Epstein generation. (Oh, and I would love to read about the Plantagenets. Or the Carolingians. Or, really, anything you want to cover with that trademark Gen X scowl.)
Thank you. I fear you will get your way when it comes to the Plantagenets. I have actually never read Dworkin - I’m slightly afraid to, just because it sounds so extraordinarily dark and I suspect I would agree with almost all of it
Dworkin definitely takes an extreme position but I feel miffed that her voice has been silenced by the very people she was directly attacking in her work.
All of this. After reading this I stumbled upon a clip from Lizzie Borden's 80s film "Working Girls" and I think it makes a great counterpoint to "Anora" as far as what it looks like to actually center women and their experiences
Thanks Rosie. I do believe that some do it out of choice (albeit choices presented by a highly unequal society/economy mostly framed by men). I even believe that some (only fans/escorts types who have more agency) genuinely prefer it to data entry or telesales or whatever else they would be doing. (I can’t really imagine *how* they enjoy it, but I accept their account of their own experience.) But yes, daily life for those controlled by pimps, which is presumably the majority, is sickeningly bleak.
Yeah, I have been really disappointed by a couple of people - not that they thought it was a good film, but that they were so unquestioning about the (literal) framing
I know what you mean (I think - it implies accepting a broader political framing) but I mostly try to use preferred/successor vocab just so I don’t get tied up in arguments about why I’m not using it. I feel like a lot of energy has been dissipated in fighting about language, and while we were doing that a bunch of more focused people managed to pull off much more substantial (and to my mind negative) material changes. But I understand why people don’t want to use the terms.
Yeah don’t see it. This piece articulates much of my problem with the film as well as how actresses are treated. My understanding is that not ONLY was she asked to “improvise” that opening scene, (improvising that type of scene constitutes abuse IMO) but from what I gathered from various interviews I attended during the Santa Barbara film festival, she was told that she would portray a stripper who uses a pole, so she spent MANY months training on a pole that she had installed in her house (by her Dad, weird). After said training, Baker apparently contacted her and said something like “oh hey by the way, we have had some trouble getting a location and the one we’ve found is just a lap-dance club, so you’ll be portraying a character doing that type of work”. She got him to shoot like 20 seconds of pole-work so her skills weren’t totally wasted. Basically he’d got her in the role, which I’m sure she considered the role of a lifetime and so she’s trapped. I’m not sure if he wondered FOR EVEN A SECOND if she might not want to sit on strangers boners?? Or that he comprehends that recognizing sex workers doesn’t mean you have to BE ONE. I cant remember if they had contracted with an intimacy coordinator or waived that but if that was my job, I would have called a meeting as soon as he changed the strip club style. As I said at the top of my comment, I find that young actresses all gotta pay (nudity, sex scenes) to play (the Oscar-worthy part) They all had to do it except maybe Meryl Streep. This sex-worker fascination is a fetishistic excuse and I hate it.
From what I've read, Baker specifically refuses to use intimacy coordinators because he says he and his wife act out all the sex scenes, and they show the actors the framing so they know how the shot will look, and he thinks that covers it? I know NOTHING about how intimacy coordination works but there's something about his attitude that 100% makes me want to back away.
I’ve seen it and enjoyed it but was aware of feeling very uncomfortable about the porny nature of some of it. Reading your piece has made me rethink my whole opinion of the film. Basically you’re right - it’s male gaze fodder that doesn’t humanise anything.
Thanks Bernadette. I think noticing that discomfort and having some respect for it is a useful thing to do, even when you are otherwise totally enjoying something. Humans are complex, we can do both at the same time!
At 57, I have never watched porn, either, unless the films of Bertolucci count. Also, Benny Hill was a perv. That was eminently clear to me even at my tender age.
O.m.g. you have captured perfectly my (totally cellular) feelings about Poor Things. No I haven't watched it. Nor will I. If a story is about women's experiences it should be made by a woman. End of.
Yeah, I have a lot of time for Lanthimos and for Emma Stone too. I just know I wouldn’t be able to summon a rational response to it - I am extremely hair-trigger about this stuff.
Lots of people have said the same. But I just can't get past the male director thing. Like Rowan says, it's a totally irrational NOPE that I simply can't ignore.
I think the key thing you've summarised here is that we're not RIGHT, we're just responding to some kind of biological reaction I put bodies that's likely been informed and inherited by generations of having to withstand so much bullshit.
That’s interesting - it wasn’t my intent but you’re right, for me this is some way beyond rationality. Not that I don’t also think I’m right on the general principle, obviously ;-)
I think when someone tries to disagree with me on this kind of topic (I refuse to engage in so much culture because of these reasons) I get so annoyed. And I've just realised why: because they're not disagreeing with my opinion, they're disagreeing with my FEELINGS. Which, of course, should never be disputed. Fwiw I get very confused between feelings and thoughts due to neurospiciness.
100% this. No notes. Gosh, I had no idea we had this opinion about porn in common too.
And I've seen nothing either except the stuff I had to moderate for my job at Tumblr. When you see the proliferation of the undisputed worst kinds of porn (children, gore, etc.) day in and day out, while people claim "oh that's just the fringe, 'sex work' is actually so modern and enlightening," you start to question a lot of the narratives out there.
Thank you x This was one of the unalloyed upsides of working at Mumsnet - there were women on the boards who liked and used porn, but *nobody*, just *nobody*, ever thought that posting it to an unwilling/unsuspecting audience was remotely acceptable. It just never happened (except when we had male trolls)
Glorious polemic Ro. Sean Baker as the Benny Hill of the Trumpian age is quite an angle
Underexplored, I feel
I would think to humanize sex workers, you make a movie about sex workers and what they do when they’re not at work - raising kids maybe, buying food, reading books, meeting with friends, etc etc, you know, the stuff humans do.
Yeah... I mean I don't really like the 'humanize' angle anyway (I wasn't aware I *didn't* think sex workers were human...), but yes. I was thinking about 'The Favourite' (because of another comment about Yorgos Lanthimos and 'Poor Things') and one of the few things that annoyed me about The Favourite was that it had Sarah Churchill riding away from court in a temper and falling off her horse and being rescued and taken to a... brothel? in the forest? and being looked after by the people there? -- when IN REAL LIFE the reason Sarah Churchill was away from court at this point was because she was looking after her daughter, who was critically ill. Which just seemed to sum everything up - who wants to dramatise women's massively onerous and near-universal caring responsibilities? BORING! Put her in a brothel with some kindly pimps instead!
Thank you for writing this. We should all express this anger. I watched it. Her performance is epic. The actor loved learning to pole dance and she won some awards. So that makes me happy. She got paid, and I hope she gets a brilliant career. But the movie is just another excuse to see this tired straight male viewpoint. It's about a young spoiled boy with all the money he wants, spending it on objectifying and using young women's bodies. Much like the whole freaking hollywood machine. There is so much female arse in this movie. I am a fan of arses, sex and art. But this is unimaginative wank fodder. And the market is already flooded with that.
Thank you - might get you to watch more films so that I don’t have to!
The language left a lot to be desired too!!! Too many f*cks in more ways than one!
You have smashed that nail into the wood so hard, all that’s left are splinters.
Thanks, Rowan, for putting in rational, clear, and explicit words what made me squirm about Anora, and what I didn’t like about it.
I had no idea what the film was about when I entered the cinema, and have to confess not much either after leaving. And especially after reading and hearing Sean Baker’s explanations about the film’s theme and messages about the hidden human cost that sex workers pay for the work they do.
Because surely the way to do that is absolutely not by perpetuating ‘what’ they do, rather than ‘why’ they do it, and Anora does not satisfactorily answer that question. But it does, though, display an awful and gratuitous amount of the ‘what’, which is uncomfortable viewing for someone like me who also squirmed as a kid while Benny Hill chased leggy and busty women in lingerie around a park…
Brilliant piece, Rowan. Brilliant!
Thank you very much Mark. It’s interesting hearing from people who’ve actually seen it. Totally right about ‘what’ and ‘why’ and how Baker has landed in the wrong place. And it’s made me think about what it might be like for some men (the ones I’d classify as ‘decent’) to see something like this, especially if you were just going along to the flicks without reading about it before time.
Your anger is f*cking magnificent
Thank you
This is why I stopped watching Poor Things. Tell me all you like that it’s not a film about a child being molested by grown men, but I won’t believe you. It’s grim. No grown woman calls sex, ‘Furious jumping.’ Apparently, she becomes a feminist in the second half, but I don’t buy that either. If it was a film about a woman becoming a feminist, it didn’t need the scenes in the middle that were most definitely about how hot Emma Stone looks when she’s shagging, even if she does have the brain of a child.
Yeah it was the fact she was presented as a child that made it an immediate ‘get to fuck’ from me. I’m sure lanthimos can give a whole speech about how that can be justified, but some boundaries are there for bloody good reasons.
Thanks for this. Perhaps we should also exhume the body of work by Andrea Dworkin from the shallow grave in which it was unceremoniously buried by the Epstein generation. (Oh, and I would love to read about the Plantagenets. Or the Carolingians. Or, really, anything you want to cover with that trademark Gen X scowl.)
Thank you. I fear you will get your way when it comes to the Plantagenets. I have actually never read Dworkin - I’m slightly afraid to, just because it sounds so extraordinarily dark and I suspect I would agree with almost all of it
Dworkin definitely takes an extreme position but I feel miffed that her voice has been silenced by the very people she was directly attacking in her work.
Amen.
All of this. After reading this I stumbled upon a clip from Lizzie Borden's 80s film "Working Girls" and I think it makes a great counterpoint to "Anora" as far as what it looks like to actually center women and their experiences
Ohhh that sounds like exactly the kind of thing I was thinking would be interesting - will see if I can find it. Thanks Emily!
I saw 'Working Girls' way back when and it's exactly what I thought about while reading this. Seconded as a much better look into reality.
Great piece Rowan . Sex workers? No. Abused women. Prostitutes run by men.
Thanks Rosie. I do believe that some do it out of choice (albeit choices presented by a highly unequal society/economy mostly framed by men). I even believe that some (only fans/escorts types who have more agency) genuinely prefer it to data entry or telesales or whatever else they would be doing. (I can’t really imagine *how* they enjoy it, but I accept their account of their own experience.) But yes, daily life for those controlled by pimps, which is presumably the majority, is sickeningly bleak.
Hard agree Rowan - the lack of critical engagement in the coverage astounds me
Yeah, I have been really disappointed by a couple of people - not that they thought it was a good film, but that they were so unquestioning about the (literal) framing
I haven’t seen it either for the very reason that anything where the phrase “sex worker” is used earns an automatic eye roll.
I know what you mean (I think - it implies accepting a broader political framing) but I mostly try to use preferred/successor vocab just so I don’t get tied up in arguments about why I’m not using it. I feel like a lot of energy has been dissipated in fighting about language, and while we were doing that a bunch of more focused people managed to pull off much more substantial (and to my mind negative) material changes. But I understand why people don’t want to use the terms.
Yes— and just to clarify, I was never rolling my eyes at you. : )
I was a bit worried ;-)
Yeah don’t see it. This piece articulates much of my problem with the film as well as how actresses are treated. My understanding is that not ONLY was she asked to “improvise” that opening scene, (improvising that type of scene constitutes abuse IMO) but from what I gathered from various interviews I attended during the Santa Barbara film festival, she was told that she would portray a stripper who uses a pole, so she spent MANY months training on a pole that she had installed in her house (by her Dad, weird). After said training, Baker apparently contacted her and said something like “oh hey by the way, we have had some trouble getting a location and the one we’ve found is just a lap-dance club, so you’ll be portraying a character doing that type of work”. She got him to shoot like 20 seconds of pole-work so her skills weren’t totally wasted. Basically he’d got her in the role, which I’m sure she considered the role of a lifetime and so she’s trapped. I’m not sure if he wondered FOR EVEN A SECOND if she might not want to sit on strangers boners?? Or that he comprehends that recognizing sex workers doesn’t mean you have to BE ONE. I cant remember if they had contracted with an intimacy coordinator or waived that but if that was my job, I would have called a meeting as soon as he changed the strip club style. As I said at the top of my comment, I find that young actresses all gotta pay (nudity, sex scenes) to play (the Oscar-worthy part) They all had to do it except maybe Meryl Streep. This sex-worker fascination is a fetishistic excuse and I hate it.
From what I've read, Baker specifically refuses to use intimacy coordinators because he says he and his wife act out all the sex scenes, and they show the actors the framing so they know how the shot will look, and he thinks that covers it? I know NOTHING about how intimacy coordination works but there's something about his attitude that 100% makes me want to back away.
Definitely that https://variety.com/2024/film/news/anora-intimacy-coordinator-respond-mikey-madison-sean-baker-1236254012/ apparently Mikey decided it would be cheaper not to have one
Eeesh
I’ve seen it and enjoyed it but was aware of feeling very uncomfortable about the porny nature of some of it. Reading your piece has made me rethink my whole opinion of the film. Basically you’re right - it’s male gaze fodder that doesn’t humanise anything.
Thanks Bernadette. I think noticing that discomfort and having some respect for it is a useful thing to do, even when you are otherwise totally enjoying something. Humans are complex, we can do both at the same time!
At 57, I have never watched porn, either, unless the films of Bertolucci count. Also, Benny Hill was a perv. That was eminently clear to me even at my tender age.
lol at Bertolucci. Although that probably does count
O.m.g. you have captured perfectly my (totally cellular) feelings about Poor Things. No I haven't watched it. Nor will I. If a story is about women's experiences it should be made by a woman. End of.
It’s a shame because I really liked ‘The Favourite’, but I absolutely noped out of Poor Things from the moment I started hearing about it.
I think there's a lot to like about Poor Things. It raises lots of questions, and it's funny.
Yeah, I have a lot of time for Lanthimos and for Emma Stone too. I just know I wouldn’t be able to summon a rational response to it - I am extremely hair-trigger about this stuff.
Lots of people have said the same. But I just can't get past the male director thing. Like Rowan says, it's a totally irrational NOPE that I simply can't ignore.
I think the key thing you've summarised here is that we're not RIGHT, we're just responding to some kind of biological reaction I put bodies that's likely been informed and inherited by generations of having to withstand so much bullshit.
That’s interesting - it wasn’t my intent but you’re right, for me this is some way beyond rationality. Not that I don’t also think I’m right on the general principle, obviously ;-)
I think when someone tries to disagree with me on this kind of topic (I refuse to engage in so much culture because of these reasons) I get so annoyed. And I've just realised why: because they're not disagreeing with my opinion, they're disagreeing with my FEELINGS. Which, of course, should never be disputed. Fwiw I get very confused between feelings and thoughts due to neurospiciness.
*in our bodies