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.
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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.
