The Oscars Loved Anora. Did Sex Workers?
Anora has won five Oscars, ample praise, and some criticism.
I am not typically one to pay any attention at all to the Oscars. But my attention was piqued by Anora, a Sean Baker film that centers on a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, being up for awards in six categories this year—awards that it largely won.
Anora took best picture (beating the likes of big deal pictures like Dune: Part Two and Wicked), while actress Mikey Madison took best actress for her portrayal of the film's namesake character. Baker—who wrote and directed—took best director, best original screenplay, and best film editing. Anora's only loser last night was Yura Borisov, who was up for best supporting actor but lost to Kieran Culkin.
I think the film lives up to its hype, excelling on a purely narrative/cinematic level while also giving us a refreshingly nonstereotypical depiction of a sex worker. But among sex workers, the film has sparked some seriously diverging opinions. In today's newsletter, I want to explore different takes on the film and on what those involved have been saying about sex work.
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Subverting Stereotypes?
My first impression is that the film did a good job of challenging some sex worker stereotypes. Anora—or Ani, as she prefers to be called—starts the film as neither some tragic, exploited waif nor as some glamorous and perfectly empowered boss bitch. She works at a Manhattan strip club, where she hustles hard and has typical workplace troubles, like disputes with coworkers and lack of long-term stability. She lives with a roommate in Brooklyn. She seems confident and in control, but also somewhat malleable and adrift.
Not long into the film, she agrees to meet up privately with Ivan, a young man she met at her club who turns out to be the son of a Russian oligarch. I don't want to give too many spoilers, so I'll just say that things go good, and then they go bad.
But they don't go bad in quite the ways you might expect from a Hollywood movie. And throughout the film, Ani often subverts sex worker stereotypes.
Ani is not a scheming gold digger or a ruthless seductress. She is perhaps a bit naive, or maybe you would call it idealistic. But she is not dumb, nor meek and helpless, even when things start spinning out of her control. And in the end, she gets neither a fairy-tale ending, nor punished for her profession.
Also, it's a movie about a sex worker, and some of the indignities she suffers are specific to this. But the story at the heart of it—about a young person who falls for someone who turns out not to be who she thought he was and struggles with the practical and emotional fallout—is something that can resonate widely.
Some have taken issue with the way Ani falls for Ivan, quickly agrees to marry him, and stays true when things start to get bad, suggesting that it's unrealistic and a seasoned sex worker would never do it, or that it plays into stereotypes about sex workers being desperate for some rich man to rescue them.
To me, this didn't seem totally implausible, given Ani's age (she's 23) and the dizzyingly seductive, manic lifestyle Ivan is offering up. And while I can see why some might see it as unrealistic or perhaps playing into some sex worker tropes, it also subverts the trope of sex workers always being shrewd, calculating, and unemotional.
"I too was a naive idiot as a stripper in NYC in my 20s, and I felt like Anora captured this well, along with the magical feeling of endless possibility that can accompany it," posted sex worker Gemma Paradise.
"This is a Baby Stripper story," comedian, filmmaker, and former sex worker Jacqueline Frances, a.k.a. "Jacq the Stripper," told The Hollywood Reporter. "She's so young and is making all these mistakes," Canadian stripper and author Cid V Brunet said.
"why do we not believe that the character we see at the beginning would genuinely think she was in mutual love?" asked Esther of The Lost Broadcasts podcast on X. "is it because we expect sex workers in movies to always be savvy and cynical and knowing? it's a cruel punchline but i respect the swerve."
Anora's Cast and Director Want To Be Allies
Part of the reason it's been exciting to see a film like Anora get so much critical acclaim is because of the positive way people involved with this film have been involving and speaking about sex workers. I hate the term allies—it feels so very precocious and 2015—but it's a word being thrown around a lot here.
"I want to take a moment to recognize the sex worker community," Madison said at the BAFTA awards last month. "You deserve respect and human decency. I will always be a friend and an ally, and I implore others to do the same."
Madison reiterated this sentiment from the Oscars stage last night, saying, "I want to again recognize the sex worker community. I will continue to support and be an ally."
Luna Sofia Miranda, an actress who plays Anora's friend Lulu and also served as a consultant for the film, was working at a Brooklyn strip club when she was recruited to audition. "I feel just extremely proud to represent my community because most of the women that I work with are dancing at the club so that they can pay for film school, they're producing shows, they're writing music, and I just think that Anora has given a lot of people hope that they can make their dreams come true," Miranda told People.
Baker also cast several other women who work as strippers in supporting roles in the film.
"I want to thank the sex worker community," he said last night during his acceptance speech for the best screenplay award. "My deepest respect. I share this with you."
Sex work is "a livelihood, it's a career, it's a job, and it's one that should be respected," he told reporters at Cannes. "In my opinion, it should be decriminalized and not in any way regulated because it is a sex worker's body and it is up to them to decide how they will use it in their livelihood."
Baker's previous films include Tangerine, a comedy about transgender sex workers that also received both critical acclaim and props for its representation of sex workers and of trans women. Of course, communities portrayed in Tangerine were conflicted about the film, and sex workers have also been conflicted about Anora.
Praise and Criticism From Sex Workers
Some current and former sex workers have praised Anora's representation and cheered on the callouts from those involved, while others aren't as impressed. Many have expressed both positive and negative reactions to the film.
Ani's "character is so fully dimensional," former sex worker Tiff Smith told The Hollywood Reporter. "We're seeing a fully developed character doing sex work without their profession defining them—that's what representation really is."
"In the case of Anora, it's not just about the job. It's her that we find interesting, not what she does for money," podcaster and retired stripper Risdon Roberts writes at Slate. Roberts liked the movie but acknowledges that "this movie is going to hit differently" for different sex workers.
Sex worker and writer Marla Cruz called the film "disappointing and difficult to watch." In an essay for Angel Food magazine, Cruz lays out many thoughtful criticisms of the film, including a scene where Ani is "fighting tooth and nail for control over her life" being played for laughs. Anora is "predicated on regressive stereotypes about sex workers" being "crass, impulsive, and pathologically sexual," writes Cruz, also objecting to "the ending's baffling implication that it must be emotionally groundbreaking when a man shows a modicum of care towards a sex worker because sex workers have little experience being loved and cared for."
(For what it's worth, I did not read the ending in the way that Cruz did, with Anora's tears as a response to the care or tenderness from Borisov's character, Igor. I saw it more as her finally just taking a moment to let her guard down and react to everything that has just happened. But it's certainly ambiguous and I think viewers could reasonably take different meanings from that scene.)
A U.K.-based stripper going by Jane told Cosmopolitan UK that the film's ending "rehashes the 'traumatized, vulnerable sex worker' trope, which we've seen a thousand times before." But there were also elements of the film she liked, too. "There were moments of comedy and even farce which felt familiar," and "it was nice seeing those displayed neutrally or even affectionately," she said. "It's also the first time I've ever seen a major film mention the working rights of strippers, with regards to the references to freelance status and not having insurance or 401ks."
Savannah Sly, founder and co-director of the New Moon Network, said she liked the film—"Ani was depicted as determined and fierce. It reminded me of many early experiences I had in [sex work]"—but can "see why many [sex workers] don't like it though, especially the ending."
As for Madison's comments about sex work: "I'm grateful for anyone using their platform to advocate for our fundamental human rights, especially in this increasingly anti-sex/anti-gender environment," Sly said.
Sex worker and author Laura LeMoon has a different take. "It's not enough to thank sex workers in your Hollywood award speech and claim to be our ally," LeMoon posted to X last month. "Being an ally is where the rubber meets the road. It means losing things; privilege, money, fame, ego. Not gaining."
"Anora is a reminder that Hollywood actresses win awards playing fake sex workers while real sex workers die and no one cares," LeMoon posted today.
The film comes at a time when sex work of all sorts—from currently criminalized realms like prostitution to currently legal industries like porn—seems to be under increasing attack in American politics. It's perhaps another testament to America's schizophrenic sentiments on issues surrounding sex. We live in a time where sex work is more visible than ever before, and yet despite—or perhaps because of—this, we also continue to see so much animosity toward sex workers and so many policies aimed at suppressing sex work.
"I'm having Feelings about how farcical it is that #Anora won best picture and two days later @DecrimNY is going to lobby the state legislature to beg for them to treat us like human beings with bare minimum human rights in the same state this movie was filmed," commented Mistress Amalia Valentine. (More on that lobbying and that bill here.)
Obviously, we can't expect Anora or its cast to somehow ameliorate the mess that is American views and policies surrounding sex work. And I still think entertainment that's genuinely compelling and represents sex work or sex workers in nuanced ways is probably, on the whole, good for decreasing stigma, and decreasing stigma is one step toward furthering sex worker rights.
But I'm also sympathetic to sex workers who have little patience for all this hubbub.
In the end, Anora is an interesting and well-made movie. It's well worth watching regardless of its social value and it just might spark some important conversations about sex work. I'm glad it did so well at the Oscars last night. I also wish more people would pay attention to sex workers in the real world who are out there fighting for important rights and struggling against criminalization and excessive regulations by the state and will be continuing to do so long after Oscar season has passed.
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