They say, 'I feel empowered,'" says Gradus. "They work very hard when they shoot these scenes and then they go back and they're very supportive. The sleazeballs doing this are well-versed in the language of female sexual empowerment. The scarier, even more callous side of the business appears in due course as the women sign on for niche videos to keep the checks coming in. The pathos is right on the surface, as the women stroke their tiny dogs and discuss money, independence and the absolute necessity of escaping their parents."Hot Girls Wanted" traces a narrative path from eager expectation to jaded cynicism - it's the old Hollywood starlet story - as we learn that most of the women experience a compressed career of a few months in the "amateur" pornography field before being pushed aside by new arrivals. The New York Times' Mike Hale says the documentary doesn't manage to reconcile two viewpoints within it, "respecting the right of their subjects to make the choices they do while abhorring those decisions." As 19-year-old Michelle says of her transition from nude Twitpics to filming hardcore scenes: "I do it anyway, why not?" At a time when self-esteem is determined by likes, friends and followers, the quickest way to boost a social profile is through sex appeal. "Hot Girls Wanted" also conveys how much modern technology has changed the porn biz - not just in the ease of both access and production (basically any rube can shoot a sex act on a phone and label it art and therefore "free speech"), but also the self-promotional culture created by social media. But in his coverage is an important part often missed: that technology and communications are the medium that helps young people make dreadful mistakes. Variety's Geoff Berkshire says it's "an eye-opener for parents," which I can't help feel misses the point.
Tressa, like the four other young women the movie shows, is not in a strong position to negotiate her working conditions. "I needed some way to escape somehow," Tressa says in the documentary. Bauer and Gradus were intrigued by her because she'd gotten into porn in a seemingly spontaneous way they saw as typical. Hot Girls Wanted focuses on 19-year-old Tressa, a high school cheerleader and good student who leaves her parents in small-town Texas to go to Florida and work in porn. "They're all just looking for an adventure, and porn, because there's a recruiter right there offering them a plane ticket, is a very easy vehicle," Gradus said.Īnd yet, Bauer noted, "every assumption about who a porn girl is" - dysfunctional family, depressing childhood, etc. Buzzfeed's Ariane Lange looks at the film, by Rashida Jones, which hits Netflix today.