It's Sundance Film Festival Time—As In 'Time to Bash Porn'

PARK CITY, UT—The Sundance Film Festival is well under way, and it's considered the place to debut your film, whatever its genre—drama, documentary, short subject, "midnight movies," whatever—if you can even get in. One film that did get in is Hot Girls Wanted, a documentary by former Miami Herald journalist Jill Bauer and her photographer partner at the newspaper, Ronna Gradus, and even though the pair appear to be 30-somethings, it apparently surprised them that "girls just out of high school [are] lining up to make money by having sex in videos posted on porn websites," according to an article by Agence France Presse's (AFP) Michael Thurston. Sadly, even after whatever investigation they did, Bauer and Gradus still know little about porn. "It's the Wild West," Bauer told AFP. "Anyone can make a video. Any producer can go online and recruit a girl on craigslist. You just need to prove that you're 18 years old, but anybody can do it and its [sic] art, protected by the First Amendment, freedom of speech." Guess the fact that porn is a multi-billion industry with studios and shooters all over the San Fernando Valley, not to mention in San Francisco, Miami and environs, New York City and even New Hampshire, and which employs thousands of employees and pays millions of dollars in taxes, escaped Bauer's attention. Porn hasn't been "the Wild West" in at least a generation, maybe two. The pair also apparently haven't figured out that 18- and 19-year-old women are, generally speaking, sexually active, so it's not as if they were virgins when they answered a craigslist "Hot Girls Wanted" ad. In fact, according to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2010, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 625,000 teens became unintentionally pregnant that year—of which 11,000 were 14 and younger. Established adult content producers barely need to advertise; 18- and 19-year-olds (and, sadly, sometimes even younger ones, who often can't understand why they're being rejected) come knocking on their doors frequently, looking to make a living doing something they already do for free in their personal lives. But that's not how Bauer and Gradus, who clearly have no love for sexually explicit content, see it. "This really is a perfect storm ... for these girls you take, say, 18-year-old, impulsive, and you mix it with [instant online] access and no decent sex education," Gradus said. The directors also find it strange that porn websites, even "abusive" ones, garner more hits per month than do CNN's or Disney's. Hmmm... could it be because people like sex?!?!? Apparently, much of the documentary (which we haven't seen, but certainly would like to) focuses on what even the adult industry considers to be "extreme content." "Banner ads like 'Latina Abuse' and '18 & Abused' pop up like on a computer screen, to a thumping soundtrack" in the documentary, Thurston reported. "Perhaps the grimmest segment of the film concerns extreme videos: the most disturbing one focuses on so-called 'facial abuse'—forced oral sex—which new girls find themselves drawn into doing, for the promise of extra pay." Another name for "forced oral sex," of course, is "rape"—but while Thurston may be ignorant of the fact that the vast majority of content in which a performer appears to be "forced" is in fact merely staged and acted to appear that way, not to mention discussed in advance between the participants and the director, surely Bauer and Gradus must be aware of it. However, such knowledge appears nowhere in Thurston's article; hopefully, it is in the documentary... but we're not holding our breath. Another clue to the worthiness of Hot Girls Wanted is the directors' reaction to the so-called "abuse" scenes: "We couldn't watch it, so our editor watched it for us and she made the choices," said Bauer of one scene, of which only the soundtrack appears in the film. Still, there are knowledgeable people around that Bauer and Gradus could have asked about this material—most notably, a teen who's been in the mainstream media limelight for the past year. "The filmmakers focused on a fringe group of the industry—an unlicensed agent out of Miami—and they're trying to make their negative experiences representative of the industry as a whole," stated Duke University undergrad cum adult actress Belle Knox. "They picked the lowest of the low to represent us; the real porn industry is run professionally and legally." But even if the directors are unaware of Knox, they've got what might pass for advice for her. "Perhaps one small mercy in all of this is the fact that young girls typically last less than six months in the 'industry'," Thurston wrote, including the disparaging "I don't really believe it's an industry" quote marks. "There are two reasons for that," Thurston reported Bauer as saying. "One, their parents find out, or they get a boyfriend. Secondly it's to do with the industry: the industry will not tolerate girls staying in for very long, because people demand to see new faces." Really? What do you think of that, Nina Hartley? Julia Ann? Kelly Madison? Karen Summer? India Summer? Veronica Avluv? Francesca Lé? Kendra Lust? Cherie Deville? (Do we really need to go on?) And, of course, plenty of adult actresses have both parents and boy/girlfriends who already know what they do, and have no problem with it. But Knox does have some advice for newbies—advice similar to that which can be found in the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee's Porn 101 video: "Young women who are trying to join the industry should exercise caution and research every company or agent they're talking to. Most importantly, they should trust their gut and never do anything they feel uncomfortable with." According to Thurston, "Bauer and Gradus hope the film will trigger a debate about possible changes in the law: either in labor laws, where appropriate, or possibly through forcing porn producers to get licenses with strict rules." Awfully thoughtful of them—but Knox gets to the nub of why this documentary was apparently made. "I find the documentary to be incredibly problematic and offensive," she told AVN. "I am constantly amazed at how the media exploits the narratives of porn performers for their own agendas and profit while decrying the industry for exploitation. I doubt the subjects of the film were compensated for their time, and they're now the poster children of the anti-pornography movement; they've gained nothing while the producers are making money and advancing their careers. Who's really exploiting who here?"