Study in Sex Workers

I do believe that it is possible to depict sex workers in a transformational way, if by transformational you mean to depict a character with some degree of integrity and agency. Truffaut once said that it was impossible to make a truly anti-war movie because the nature of filming a war scene in an engaging way invariably forced the filmmaker to make it seem adventurous and engaging. Hence, The Longest Day, for all its famous depictions of individual soldier's horrors is still remembered fondly as a great adventure movie. Yet, in at least the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg manages to undercut his own professed beliefs in the Greatest Generation myths of heroism through a searing series of sounds and images.

Depicting a female sex worker as a figure with integrity and agency is difficult for another basic factor in the film medium. The camera is always serving as a voyeur. And, whereas in a novel, we can read the internal monologue of a female sex worker's deepest most anxieties, the camera constantly asks us to study and dissect her body, to constantly be aware of her function as a sex object.

That challenge can be overcome if a writer/director immediately recognizes and on some level distrusts the powers of his camera to give his heroine subjectivity. It would require seeing the heroine's sexual experiences, at least at some point, from her point of view. It would require a narrative that presented the choices she made to become a sex worker as a rational decision (not necessarily a good one or a non-destructive one) given her circumstances. A few years ago, the NY Times ran an article about a woman who was attempting to unionize sex workers in Southeast Asia. In the economic realities of that country, these women had chosen a profession that required a half-day's work and a level of humiliation in exchange for 16-hour workdays in grueling factory conditions. These women had interesting stories to tell, and an interesting take on their country's situation. A good filmmaker could capture the weight of their humanity.