In spite of Kerry Washington’s awe-inspiring beauty, I really wasn’t interested in watching Scandal, a show about a crisis management firm in Washington DC who works to save reputations and careers when damning personal histories are about to come to light. My boyfriend bought it on AppleTV, though, and like the manipulative man he is, played the second episode one night while I was next to him on the couch. And it had hookers in it! So I was all in. The episode begins as several of head honcho Olivia’s (Kerry Washington) employees are clearing a woman’s home of all relevant and incriminating evidence, beating the police by mere seconds. Who is this conservatively-clad woman evading the police? Why, she’s “DC’s finest madam,” and she’s sipping tea at Olivia’s huge, superhero-y work loft, waiting for her client list to be safely delivered back into her hands.
“A 16-year old-white girl from Monterey? Wolf Blitzer is gonna saddle that up.” Abigail (Kathryn Newton) contemplates auctioning off her virginity for charity in Big Little Lies.
[Content warning: this piece includes general discussion of rape and domestic violence.]
Maybe every rich little white girl should auction off her virginity in support of Amnesty International, the way Abigail Carlson (Kathryn Newton), teenage daughter of HBO’s Big Little Lies protagonist Madeline Mackenzie, proposes to do.
Abigail’s plot line gained little more than an eye-roll in popular analysis lauding the mini-series as a vision of female solidaritytelling a vital story about abuse. Initially, I would tend to agree that Abigail’s pursuit of justice for child sex slaves is nothing more than a pulpy side-line trotted out for shock value. After all, Big Little Lies is famed prime time soap opera producer David E. Kelley’s project. And, as the perennially popular Law & Order: SVU franchise demonstrates, narratives exploiting child sex trafficking victims are reliable fodder for ratings.
But Big Little Lies deserves a more subtle read. Everything about it is meticulously intentional, from the melancholy pop soundtrack to the pristine landscape of the surf, suggesting sinister undercurrents to all that is pretty on the surface of the idyllic Monterrey community setting. The show was adapted from a book of the same name by Liane Moriarty published in 2014. Kelley was necessarily selective about which elements from the 460-page novel made it to television. Notably, Bonnie Carlson’s backstory1was not included in the series, nor was there a broader exploration of her character development as there was in the book. Her identity was also changed from a white woman in the novel to a Black woman in the series—the only significant Black character in the series—and the setting was relocated from Australia in the book to the upper-class U.S. coastal community of Monterey on-screen. Rather than treating these as auteurial afterthoughts, these changes are better understood as instrumental choices in adapting the central point of the work for television.
5/1/15 Kamylla’s GoFundMe was taken offline and replaced with a Tilt fundraiser, which has also now been closed down. We will update if we hear news of another fundraising effort.
There’s been no shortageof coverage of A&E’s 8 Minutes, the ostensible reality show in which cop-turned-pastor Kevin Brown makes appointments with sex workers and then has the titular amount of time to make a case for them to stop their work. Lane Champagne wrote here in December that
Of all the professions to produce potential sex work interventionists, law enforcement and clergy are at the very top of the Unsuitable list. Behind those two are literally every single other profession, because sex work interventions are vile exercises in the hatred and shaming of sex working individuals and shouldn’t exist.
Supposedly, women who want to leave sex work will be given help. From A&E’s website: “8 Minutes follows Pastor Kevin Brown and his Lives Worth Saving team as they help sex workers and victims of sex trafficking leave their dangerous situations behind to start over.” And how do they do that?
Last week, one woman, who goes by Kamylla, came forward on Twitter to hold the show’s producers accountable for promising her assistance in exchange for her appearance on the show, then leaving her twisting in the wind when she was arrested soon after, having returned to work from economic necessity when they didn’t provide the promised help in exiting the industry.
Kamylla received a call on her work number from the producers of the show, who immediately identified themselves as such (this is in contrast to the premise of the show, which implies that the women believe they are coming to a normal appointment, only to be met by Brown). She agreed to tape a segment for the show, in which she said she wanted help getting out of the business, and after the taping was told she’d soon hear back with more information and assistance.
She never heard back from them, and instead reached out herself, but no meaningful help was to come. Kamylla found herself broke and needing to work again. She posted an ad, using the same number the 8 Minutes producers had contacted her on, and was arrested in a sting. Now she was broke, frightened, and facing criminal charges, and when she reached out for help from 8 Minutes, Brown offered to pray for her.
A couple of weeks ago, a Twitter follower gave me a heads up about an upcoming episode of Law & Order: SVU that appeared to mirror my story, at least the Vegas part. The preview I watched reinforced what was coming—the episode revolved around a female Olympic pole vaulter who had been sexually assaulted while secretly escorting. Cringe.
My inbox was filled the day after the episode aired with messages asking me about it, and whether I was consulted by the show’s producers, paid royalties, etc. I can tell you, this all came out of the blue to me. No involvement whatsoever. I also can tell you, I could not bring myself to watch the show immediately. Flat out, the whole thing triggered me heavily. I’m not sure the show’s producers, writers, and actors think of that kind of stuff.
I want to believe with all my heart that material can be made about sex workers that doesn’t demonize or belittle us. I want to get the same feeling chefs get while watching Chopped or car enthusiasts feel watching Top Gear UK. Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On is not that feel-good series—there is no perspective through which it is not problematic.
The show eases you into the material in the first episode with living legend producers Suze Randall and her daughter Holly working on photoshoots and erotic film. The episode focuses on their business practices, how they treat the talent, and their issues with male producers. This segment is the only redeeming portion of the show. Savor the mother-daughter bonding and camaraderie; no warm and fuzzy feelings lie ahead.
I could give you a blow-by-blow of the other five episodes, but to be perfectly frank, it’s a waste of time. This docu-series is even more harmful than its predecessor, 2015 documentary film Hot Girls Wanted, which covered amateur porn. Creator Rashida Jones and the other people behind this film are not sex workers. In fact, Jones has a long Twitter history of belittling women and out-right slut shaming other celebrities.
This week’s celeb news takeaway: she who comes closest to showing the actual inside of her vagina is most popular. #stopactinglikewhores
The show creators have no experience in sex work and aren’t even close to anyone who uses the sex industry as their main source of income. They use adult film star Lisa Ann as their poster girl, but she has never dealt with stigma the same way transgender performers or performers who are people of color do. In fact, she is apathetic about the plight of more marginalized sex workers.
In spite of Kerry Washington’s awe-inspiring beauty, I really wasn’t interested in watching Scandal, a show about a crisis management firm in Washington DC who works to save reputations and careers when damning personal histories are about to come to light. My boyfriend bought it on AppleTV, though, and like the manipulative man he is, played the second episode one night while I was next to him on the couch. And it had hookers in it! So I was all in. The episode begins as several of head honcho Olivia’s (Kerry Washington) employees are clearing a woman’s home of all relevant and incriminating evidence, beating the police by mere seconds. Who is this conservatively-clad woman evading the police? Why, she’s “DC’s finest madam,” and she’s sipping tea at Olivia’s huge, superhero-y work loft, waiting for her client list to be safely delivered back into her hands. 
