Directors: Jill Bauer, Ronna Gradus
Hot Girls Wanted is a documentary about young women who enter the amateur porn industry in the hopes of finding fame and fortune.
Some documentaries try and provide an objective look at their subject while some try to fit the contents of their film around a central point its trying to make. Hot Girls Wanted falls into the latter category. The film takes the position that these girls are being exploited, yet the actual content of the film makes it clear that these girls express their own agency and none of them were forced into this lifestyle. It’s actually a pitying look at these people who think judge their success in the world by how much attention they get on social media.
Many of them admit to doing this to live the high life, and they claim to be living large but the reality is depressing, for they are living in a house that’s hardly the playboy mansion and the turnaround of girls is so great that a career in amateur porn lasts for a matter of months. The girls end up doing some degrading things, as it’s stated that if they want to stay successful in the business they’re going to have to perform in more niche topics.
It touches on a number of difficulties these girls face. One of them, while at a party with her boyfriend, finds that a number of the guests want to put her clips up on the widescreen television. It’s clear that there were many consequences of being an amateur porn star that these girls did not think about. And I do feel pity for them because they’re young and they see a way to escape their boring lives and get a chance at some fame, and to travel all over the country etc, but at the same time a lot of them seemed to be deluding themselves.
And this is where the documentary I think falls in its aim. It seems to want to paint these girls as innocents who were manipulated into doing this, but what I saw was a group of self-absorbed people, and it may sound harsh and I might get some hate for it, but that’s the impression I was left with.
It did shed light on the industry though, and there were some surprising statistics. Some things shocked me as well, like some of the things the girls ended up doing to keep their career going. Overall I think it’s let down by not letting the footage speak for itself, and it’s not going to be a subject that everyone is going to enjoy watching but for all its faults I thought it was a good film to watch.
