Porn: you watch it. Don’t lie. Porn is a huge part of what it means to exist on the Internet and is a multi-billion dollar industry that capitalizes on the human need for pleasure. It’s often a contentious topic as some see it as entirely exploitative while others wish to see sex work with more nuance and agency. Ninja Thyberg’s film PLEASURE tries to enter that conversation with her own complex investigation of becoming a porn star, but ultimately shares the redundant argument that porn, is in fact, bad.
Bella (Sophia Kappel) has just arrived in LA from Sweden with the goal to be the next big porn star. She moves into a group house with three other porn actors, who start showing her the ropes, from how to pose in photos to just offering emotional support after rough gigs and exhausting days. Meanwhile, Bella still has her eyes on her ultimate goal of stardom. Men wielding video cameras ogle her body and she knows exactly what the camera wants. As she learns what’s expected of the best, she begins to push herself out of her comfort zone doing kink, anal, and rough scenes; you can’t be the best when you have boundaries. Her drive is admirable and there’s no other motivation besides success. She doesn’t have daddy issues or other trauma. Bella just wants to fuck.
But as she climbs the ladder, she begins to push her original friends away and see into the darker world of porn. She is raped on set as she’s coerced to finish a rough sex scene, which is then twisted to be her fault. Her eyes are opened at how she is being thrown around not just by filmmakers but by her agent as well. So she decides to do her best to represent herself and achieve her goals on her own terms, no easy task in the world of adult entertainment.
This is Kappel’s first ever film, and what a hell of a debut. She carries herself with a hesitant confidence that makes her so genuine. She embodies that ability to switch yourself on when you arrive at a job, the front-facing personality you use to make yourself look sweet and agreeable. Once she leaves the set and takes off her make-up, she becomes herself, just another girl with a dream and a love of sweatpants. With so many sex scenes it could seem exhausting or even just that she’s being exploited. But in both her performance and careful camerawork, Kappel is viewed as a professional who is just really good at her job rather than a piece of meat.
PLEASURE wishes to portray the reality of sex work, and does that to a degree. Being a porn star isn’t just having sex on camera. It’s a business. Vella is shown taking photos of her face covered in semen to tease her followers. She’s shown trying multiple angles as she tries to get the perfect shot, pun intended, to post on Instagram. Thyberg explores the intricacies of networking and how marketing yourself is the only way to get success.
However, in its attempt to create an honest portrayal of sex work, PLEASURE becomes another narrative about the cruelty of the men in power. It’s also extremely white. There is a brief discussion about the industry’s racism and how black male porn actors are used just for fetish content. Then, later in the film, Bella is shown having double anal with two black men to show off that she’s willing to do anything to be successful. There are no Black female porn stars, and there is no mention of trans sex workers, either. No film needs to cover every single demographic, but in trying to portray the world of porn and create a unique narrative, Thyberg should have pushed the story to more thoroughly investigate the issues in the porn industry.
There is one scene that feels incredibly fresh in a more nuanced portrayal of the different facets of the industry, specifically female-directed porn. Bella decides to do a kink scene directed by a female director, whose entire team is extremely supportive and caring. They make sure to walk through safe words, offer water, ask if she’s feeling OK, and are able to film a successful video. It is an overwhelmingly positive experience where Bella is respected and treated as a person rather than a vagina on legs. But this is just a brief look into that aspect of porn. It shows a glimpse into those working to create a more inclusive industry, but Thyberg never returns to it.
The narrative is formulaic, with the new girl arriving in LA, making friends, becoming successful, leaving her friends behind, then realizing the error of her ways. Yes, there are way more dicks and sex in PLEASURE, but that doesn’t remove it from a typical narrative about what it means to gain success. This is another film that ultimately wants to put the exploitation in porn on blast. But, that’s not a revelation. The ethics and business of porn is not a new conversation, and Thyberg doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. She is telling the same story with different characters about sex work. While there are moments where Bella embraces what she needs to do to make it in the industry, PLEASURE is ultimately the same old song and dance about the danger of the white male gaze.
Tags: Chris Cock, Dana DeArmond, Drama, Evelyn Claire, Kendra Spade, Ninja Thyberg, Peter Modestij, Revika Anne Reustle, Sofia Kappel, Sophie Winqvist Loggins, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival
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