The Girlfriend Experience Sets A Dangerous Precedent
I really like Steven Soderbergh. He has managed to carve himself a pretty enviable niche in Hollywood, moving between big budget mainstream movies and smaller passion projects, and both sides of his career are great in their own way. On the one hand, Ocean's 11 is great, so fun, and on the other hand Schizopolis is also great, but in an obviously different way. Admittedly, I don't like Traffic very much, and The Good German was a rare miss, and I haven't seen Che Part One or Che Part Two. But he is constantly shifting gears and trying new things, and the point is that despite his ups and downs, Steven Soderbergh has earned more goodwill from me than most directors.
So, I think that his new movie The Girlfriend Experience, looks good. At the very least, I think it looks like a director taking some risks and trying to do something new.
But there's one thing about it that kind of bothers me:
Casting Sasha Gray is setting a really bad, and dangerous example.
Let me explain.
Kahdooz to Sasha Gray. I have no problem with her. It is great that she has been cast in the lead role in a movie from a famous director and that she doesn't even have to get triple-penetrated. I hope that the press and attention gets her more roles in other mainstream films. Or at the very least, a much higher rate in her adult work. I want her to make all the money, and use it to tease the other pornstars. "I'm rich, bitch!" It's 2009, that's still a relevant and funny reference to make, right?
But the transition from pornstar to legitimate actress is one of the oldest myths in the world. Admittedly, I am not speaking from any kind of first hand or even second hand experience. And if my mom is reading this, I don't even know what porn is. But, right? Aren't young women, fresh off the bus to Hollywood, getting sucked into the world of adult entertainment with the promise that it's a step towards landing actual movie roles every day? That is what I have been led to believe, and it seems like a pretty realistic scenario. The world is filled with monsters and gullibles already, but the density of those characters is even higher in California and the adult entertainment industry. It has always been a sad and painfully transparent lie used by manipulative producers on naive but ambitious girls (often with a history of sexual abuse).
Until now. Sasha Gray just blew (blew!) the doors wide open on that one. It's no longer a myth now. I mean, it's still obviously a myth. Sasha Gray is the only example of this dream come true, and she's still basically playing a prostitute. The next closest success is Jenna Jameson, and she hasn't become a legitimate actress so much as a duck-faced wife to a UFC fighter with a ghostwritten book for sale on Amazon. It's as untrue now as it was when Sasha Gray was busy filming House of Ass 3, but it somehow seems a little less untrue. And that is the danger.
I'm not suggesting that everyone who performs in pornography has been duped, or is stupid, or is naive about their career options. I'm sure that there are lots of performers who are completely happy and satisfied. Some of them are even rich! (Which we know is the only true benchmark for happiness.) But I am suggesting that the Sasha Gray model of Hollywood stardom is a pretty dark one that should probably not be emulated. She's like our generation's Charles Barkley.
She doesn't get paid to be a role model, she gets paid to wreak havoc on the fucksketball court.
Parents, raise your kids! Free Mumia! Now if you'll excuse me, this ill-informed soapbox filled with apocryphal ideas of what Hollywood and the porn industry are like isn't going to get down off of itself.
Posted by Gabe at 11:00 AM in Bad Idea Jeans
Tags: Sasha Grey | Steven Soderbergh | The Girlfriend Experience
respect gabe
Score = 6
Yes, we should not let porn actresses move up in the world. Keep them in their place! That way, the abuse of women in the porn industry will disappear.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to return some videos. Let's say, oh, Bergman films.
Fanny and Alexander
The Magic Skin Flute
The Virgin Spring
The Seventh Slit
Sorry. I'll go back to bed.
Score = -7
i really don't think that's gabe's point..
i do believe he is saying we should not lead more women INTO porn through a false promise that they like sasha grey can use it as a stepping stone into non-adult pictures..
he does say on about a hundred occasions all luck to sash grey
Score = 3
I am nodding gravely.
Score = 19
Thinks that Gabe should be given all the money for creation of the term, "fucksketball court."
Score = 23
i am mailing him my wallet right now as a matter of fact.
Score = 9
Sasha Grey makes me pancakes in my dreams. With butter, and maple syrup, and herpes.
Score = -4
i heard a rumor (aka read a bunch of stats studies while working for a sexual heath organization) that 1 in 5 sexually active adults has herpes. most don't even realize is because they never have symptoms and blood tests aren't all that good at detecting herpes. so i'd venture a guess that if more than 5 people have "served you pancakes" in your lifetime, you've probably already gotten that side order of the herp.
Score = 8
Okay, techno herpes.
Score = 22
Density joke again FTW
Score = 1
Relax, "technojeremy."
(Except not really.)
Score = -4
"Sasha Gray is the only example of this dream come true"? What the hell happened to Traci Lords? I guess she's still doing underage gangbangs with Ron Jeremy and Peter North...
Score = 7
She was on an episode of Gilmore Girls.
Score = 2
I don't know Gabe, it's not like success in the porn industry itself is even anything close to likely in the first place. I've seen statistics to the effect that the number of women who are actually able to make a career/living in porn is a mere fraction of those who enter the business and film a few scenes. So yeah, it's really heartbreaking if girls get into porn in hopes of making it as an actress in mainstream Hollywood, because duh, that will never happen. But is it really that much worse than the number of women who hope to just make it in the porn industry, but have an extremely poor chance of even doing that? Getting into porn in hopes of success (in porn or mainstream acting) may be an unfortunate decision, but I don't think it ranks much higher than "dropping out of school to try and make it with the band" or some other such foolishness.
Score = 10
I read the article about her in the latest Rolling Stone, and I think she's bordering on being completely insufferable. She seems like a dead-serious pseudo-intellectual who is dating a guy at least ten years her senior whio fronts an "experimental noise-rock band," and seems to think that being able to take a dick harder up her ass than others makes her a pioneer.
The dumbest thing in the article was that she wanted to go on Howard Stern's show draped in a Palestinian flag because she thinks he's a "secret racist." WOW. You wanna go on a show known for having third-string adult performers and retarded midgets as guests and make a vague political statement.
You go Sasha.
Score = 26
I agree that it may not be the best of examples for young women hoping to break through in Hollywood, but I feel like this particular film won't be seen by a wide enough audience to really cause any sort of mass misconception about the Hollywood dream.
Score = 9
I am arching my eyebrow skeptically.
I find this hard to accept as a "dangerous precedent." For one, how do you know that the myth of porn-star-turned-legitimate-actress isn't actually the myth of porn-star-as-naive-girl-who-just-wanted-to-be-an-actress? Are you sure that story is as common as your concerns would have us believe? If that was hard to interpret (I'm not very smart), I would just like to say I agree with Al!
Besides, it's not like Sasha Gray has been cast in a holocaust movie or a movie about a developmentally disabled athlete. This is a movie about sex work, featuring men in diapers. It's still part of a very "adult" world (read: one that isn't assigned very much artistic legitimacy) that includes porn, as well as dialogue about porn and sexuality, and sure, exploitation and abuse.
And I don't love "often with a history of sexual abuse" just tossed out there as a fact that can be taken for granted.
Fucksketball was good though.
Score = 4
Fucksketball!!!?!!! I wonder what the play-offs in that would be like.
Score = 1
Something like your avatar, I would imagine.
Score = 7
i'll have you know, sir alec guinness was GREAT in "Fistful of Twinks III"
Score = 6
Casting an adult film actress in this role was not a huge mistake on principle, and I think it's weird to suggest it would be. Having seen the film (which is "ok") the casting made a lot of sense. Even when her line deliveries seemed flat, they just kind of echoed this really flat, unaffected, sort of empty and confused character. She wasn't The Escort Who Is Really Way Smarter Than Everyone Around Her. She's shallow, vain, impressionable, and sort of selfish. The casting didn't bug me at all.
What did bug me is that he cast Sasha Grey in a movie in which she plays a lady who "does it" for cash, and there are zero sex scenes in the movie and only enough nudity to merit a "BN" rating on HBO. I know that's the complaint of a perv, but the lack of sex bugged me less than the suspicion I had that Soderbergh smugly believed the film's lack of sex/nudity was an avant-garde decision. "I'm going to cast a porn actress as an escort, and we'll never see her nude. Take that, Cannes!"
Score = 2
I agree. except It seems like a gimmick of some sort to cast sasha grey. It's not like this is the first film about escorts or prostitution, but people took notice only because a pornstar, someone who IS paid for sex, is playing the role. You're probably right to feel cheated especially when in the poster sasha's lips seems to be fondeling an invisible dildo in her mouth and the tag line is "see it with someone you ****" (when we all know **** = fuck).
Score = 0
This isn't really a precedent of any kind, Gabe. You're forgetting about Traci Lords, and Marilyn Chambers was in Rabid like thirtysomething years ago, although I guess she didn't exactly sustain that mainstream(ish) career.
Score = 0
@todd: maybe avoiding exploiting her nudity is part of what keeps it from being porn, since it stars a porn actress-- but i guess this could still be exploitation; even so, i think it was a close-to-the-vest choice.
@plunko: ....and ginger alden(?), but i think she returned to porn, so.
Score = -1
Gabe, just because you can't transition from porn actor to legitimate film actor, don't begrudge someone else their shot. Beware that Sasha Grey doesn't come down to where you work and slap the dick out of your mouth.
Score = 3
People are you still using that comeback? Wow, it's like 1997 all over again
Score = -2
Yes they are. Because it makes me laugh and because Sasha Grey's literal job is having a dick in her mouth. Synergy.
Score = 9
Don't you mean get down ON itself?
Score = 0
Kahdooz to Sasha Gray.
:D
Score = 3
Are young actresses looking so much to Make It through porn, or maybe just need the money. How many now-famous actresses have scrambled to cover up old photo shoots because that don't want producers and casting agents to lose respect for their "art as an actress"?
either way, I don't think that sasha gray having the opportunity to play, essentially herself, in a "smaller passion project" directed by stephen soderberg is going to make the porn industry that much more of an appealing direction for young ladies who are really serious about being respected in Hollywood.
But thanks, Dad, your concern is terribly endearing.
Score = 7
If she is good in this, who gives?
Whats the difference between Sasha Grey and Megan Fox? Both are paid for their ability to give boners, just one is more honest about it.
Score = 4
Was that a Frisky Dingo reference? House of Ass?
Score = 0
I thought that her role in the movie wasn't that major though? I mean I didn't even spot her in the tralier. I thought your objection was going to be that they're making the poster seem like it's SASHA GREY FEST 2009 COME SEE THIS FILM and she's only going to be in it for 4 minutes
Score = 0
Isn't ever movie with Paris Hilton essentially the same thing
Score = 0
Wait! I'm not going to be a Hollywood superstar afetr the twenty porn movies for this month?
Score = 0
Thought you were going for the "if you're 6'4" you're not going to become MVP of the NBA as a power forward no matter how hard you try, unless you actually are Charles Barkley" comparison. But the simpler one works too!
Score = 0