Said Mikey Madison, quoted in "Mikey Madison wins best lead actress for 'Anora'" (NYT).
Madison also underscored the influence that sex workers had on her performance. To study her character, she read memoirs by sex workers, underlining sections of Andrea Werhun’s “Modern Whore.”... She also... took pole-dancing lessons. The role involved significant nudity and a number of intimate scenes, which Madison said was never daunting to her: “I was always comfortable, and I also think because Ani was too,” she told The Times.
I haven't used my tag "the [blank] community" in a long time, but here we have "the sex worker community."
Mikey Madison becomes the 10th woman to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute — 12th if you count Donna Reed in "From Here to Eternity" and Jo Van Fleet in "East of Eden." And Madison is the first to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute since the #MeToo movement shook Hollywood to its nonexistent core.
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84 comments:
At least a man didn’t win best actress.
I get the sense I miss nothing avoiding the industry.
Hollywood is just following in opera's footsteps. Épater la bourgeoisie always draws applause from the arts community.
Demi wuz robbed.
" . . . since the #MeToo movement shook Hollywood to its nonexistent core."
That is perfection.
#MeToo is more bogus than Hollywood. Hollywood is just playing on all women being actresses as make believe.
Another year when I didn’t see a single movie.
Donna counts.
Haven't been to the movies in 30 years. I feel no sense of loss, except occasional difficulty with trivia shows like Jeopardy or modern crossword puzzles.
I can live with that.
The Sisters of Mercy.
Leonard Cohen wrote Sisters of Mercy, which had one good line:
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned
We all know the paint my house one bit there’s also this: The Economics of Prostitution
I've never heard of Anora. Is it a movie?
Paging Ricky Gervais. Would Mr. Ricky Gervais please return to hosting duties? Please?
Next up: Movies honoring the voluntary slave movement.
The memes just write themselves. My work here is obsolete.
Woman undressing. Perhaps the original Hollywood trope. Hooker with a heart of gold, looking for Mr. Right despite the odds. Another classic.
John Wayne in North to Alaska, partying in a brothel with a woman on each knee, and a champagne bottle: why would a woman make one man unhappy when she can make many men happy?
That's what Erin's mother didn't understand about yuppie strip clubs: it wasn't the women who were being degraded, it was the men. Her mother thought these places were meat markets, and indeed they were, the meat being the customers. Experienced dancers always kept one eye on the front door, scouting for the next mark. If you knew your stuff, you could work a guy all night and get every last dollar out of his wallet. You didn't have to blow him or screw him or even act like you might. A girlish smile, a sisterly hug, a few minutes of private conversation - it was the easiest money in the world, if you could get past being naked.
- Strip Tease, Carl HIaasen
The saying was "Hookers don't dance, and dancers don't hook".
If all you have in your tool box is a hammer then everything starts looking like a nail.
11. Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue, nails and screws.--The functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.
Wittgenstein
Sex Work, another field where recently terminated employees of the federal government may find readily available jobs. And WFH shouldn't be a problem.
hookers and whores are hard workin' !
their pimps would have a hard life without them!
Let's Hear It For The Whores!
As far as strip clubs go, I guess it all comes down to whether the guy can easily afford it, or if the guy is coming there with his last dollar in his wallet, to figure who is being degraded.
I would hope the movie appeals to prurient interest and features gratuitous nudity. What better way to honor and respect the true spirit of a sex worker? The movie sounds intriguing. I'll see it when it makes streaming, but I suspect it's something of a downer. Maybe there's an upbeat ending where the sex worker decides to reform and undergo transitional surgery.......I haven't seen any of the movies, but I would like to see Wicked, and I'm not unalterablly opposed to seeing this movie and the one with Demi Moore. You'd think that just with the law of averages, Hollywood could do better than that.
Fuck Hollywood and their awards programs. Only blockheads and degenerates wallow in that filth.
Equal Rights!!! Where are teh man whores?
I was fresh off the farm when I found a tire shop on Larimer Street in Denver. While I waited outside in the Colorado sunshine I was approached by a young woman who asked if I knew if there was a drugstore in the area. I told her I had just arrived from Wisconsin so I couldn't help her. She asked why was I here and I told her I was getting my tires rotated. She said she could help with that.
Notes on the aftermath:
1. So Adam Sandler and Conan O'Brien have a stooge moment and do about that revolves around Sandler being underdressed because.....Trump! This, right in the middle of America's biggest clothes show. SMH. Read the room, guys!
2. Why don't the actresses leave the lingerie at home and just come to the ceremony naked?
3. Good Lord! Ozempic face abounds!
The pinnacle of today’s screen actress is a competition between a woman with a penis and a portrayal of a prostitute.
Confirms that Hollywood is really "Little Whorehouse on the Prairie". All those plucky little pioneer sex workers keeping the wagons moving toward the promised land...i.e., the bank.
Bring Your Daughter to Work Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnnv6Mu5rMA
I like that "Flow" won for best animation, not that I'd seen any of the other nominees.
Am I the only one quickly scanning the comments here with the hope of finding a pungent contribution from Laslo Spatula?
- Krumhorn
Can we get a list? I can't find a list.
Elizabeth Taylor won for Butterfield 8, which is a horrible movie. And she's a horrible actress in a horrible movie. I know some men are fascinated by her -- she got married enough -- but I get nothing from Elizabeth Taylor. No sex appeal, no lust, no love, no like, nothing, nada. And boy, does she suck as an actress.
Silly stuff. I’ll skip even being outraged.
St. Croix: some women just have to exist to play a role. Some men too.
So when you're auditioning to play a whore, what are the rules about screwing the director? How else do you prove your chops? Asking for #metoo. Which supports "sex workers," further muddying the sauna.
This is why I love this blog.
You don't have enough wild horses to drag me to a theater, but Althouse keeps me remotely in touch with the culture.
Jane Fonda won for Klute
She was outstanding in that movie. It's a great film. It's a very human performance.
That was in 1971. That was a big year for hookers in cinema, because Julie Christie was in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Another amazing performance in a fantastic western.
"Am I the only one quickly scanning the comments here with the hope of finding a pungent contribution from Laslo Spatula?"
Maybe you can promise him a blow job
Actresses Winning Oscars for Roles as Prostitutes
Elisabeth Shue was nominated for her work in Leaving Las Vegas. And Julia Roberts got a nomination for playing a hooker in Pretty Woman. But neither of them won.
Equal Rights!!! Where are teh man whores?
.... waves wildly from the back row.
i hate this leftwing cant. They're whores. They're prostitutes. We dont want to honor prostitutes. Would you want your daughter to be a whore? What about your mother? Most people dont, which is why we don't "honor them".
I feel sorry for women who get trapped in this scummy profession, but for the good of society and other women we don't need to glamorize sex for money.
By the way, Andrea Werhun, an advisor on the film and thanked onstage, is another fraud who has college degrees, a well-off family, and has lied about her need to make money whoring. She in no way represents a real "sex worker": she's just another elite academician whoring off real sex workers while producing films and writing fake books and giving pricey speeches to dumb academicians.
Girl with a Ponytail on a Stripper Pole says:
(Spin, spin)
I really should use this experience for my Women's Studies senior thesis.
(spin, spin)
But it's been done to death, hasn't it?
(spin, spin)
Maybe I can find some kind of Trans niche.
(spin, spin)
After all, with my nose job and plastic tits, I might as well be a trans woman, right?
(spin, spin)
Or maybe I can get the trans women from the Department to all come here, and I can study their erections - umm, I mean reactions.
(spin, spin)
I'll ask my thesis advisor next time I see him.
(spin, spin)
Oh, hey, Professor Koslowski, there you are! I was just thinking about you.
JSM
Lem had a link to an IMDB list, but now his post is gone. Damn you, Blogger! Anyway, that IMDB list is seriously whacked.
I do not remember Donna Reed playing a hooker in It's a Wonderful Life.
I also do not remember a hooker in The Music Man.
It’s not surprising that Hollywood is obsessed with prostitution.
It’s not surprising that Hollywood is obsessed with prostitution.
I think "sex worker" is a Marxist and stupid PC term, suggesting women have no agency ("I"m so poor, I had to prostitute myself") and also suggesting that there's nothing immoral about prostitution. The "sex worker" crowd wants to legalize prostitution, because they don't think sex leads to babies, and if it does, you can always abort your child. They see no darkness in prostitution, or sex.
There is plenty of darkness in prostitution, and sex. And there's a lot of art that deals with this. And that's good, I think.
Hard to reconcile honoring the sex worker community with that industry. The movie doesn’t pull punches in its portrayal of the callousness and cynicism it requires. It requires dehumanization by all parties in a strictly impersonal transaction. I’m convinced the first part of the movie is designed to make you uncomfortable and sad - appalled by yet sympathetic to the main character. The movie revolves around Ani, and Madison deserved the award. It’s not a movie I can recommend - despite thinking it is very well done. It’s difficult. The best way to honor the sex worker community? Get them the heck out of that industry.
The whole reason "fuck" is a bad word, a word that still has power, is because there's a dark side to human sexuality.
Historically, sex outside of love and marriage often leads to rape, and dead babies. That's why that word "fuck" bubbled up from humanity, after all the bad stuff that happens when you fuck without love.
My ability to give a crap about a hillarywoodland award show is less than zero.
I, too, will continue to support and be an ally of the sex worker community. There. I said it.
While people die - Hollywood celebrates sex workers.
It’s not surprising that Hollywood is obsessed with prostitution.
I don't think Hollywood is obsessed with prostitution at all.
Hollywood is obsessed with sex. Big difference.
Prostitution is a dark and ugly subset of sex. It's not a Hollywood type of movie, unless you can give your hooker a heart of gold. Redeem the prostitute somehow.
You need emotion if you want a movie to work.
I haven't seen it yet, but it appears to me that Anora is a love story.
Well I looked up Anora. I learned it's a dramedy. Hard pass. Who wants to see a movie about camels....
#PLM. Sex workers preserved Chinese viability amid their abortion binge and misogynistic progress. #AmericaToo, followed by couplet "=" couple, simulated genders, the first feminine male, etc. Hollywood captures the liberal core of the progressive sects. We never lost DEI.
Didn't watch. Couldn't care less.
JAORE said...
" Well I looked up Anora. I learned it's a dramedy. Hard pass. Who wants to see a movie about camels...."
i knew it was about humps, but a movie about camels?
Alpaca lunch and go for a walk before seeing that!
shook Hollywood to its nonexistent core
@Althouse, I agree with Prof. Drout — what a marvelous line!
Mikey Madison becomes the 10th woman to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute
Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8. It wasn't a good film. Liz didn't even want to do it.
In my day, the French director's film about a Mexican narcolord, and the U.S. director's film about Russian prostitutes and gangsters both would have been boycotted for "cultural appropriation." Ditto for the ex-child star's movie about the Holocaust survivor architect.
“Modern Whore.”
When I subscribed it was still called Cosmopolitan.
Elisabeth Shue was nominated for her work in Leaving Las Vegas. And Julia Roberts got a nomination for playing a hooker in Pretty Woman. But neither of them won.
Back then, Hollywood just could not accept the gritty realism of those films.
Mikey Madison becomes the 10th woman to win an Oscar for playing a prostitute
Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8. It wasn't a good film. Liz didn't even want to do it.
I remember Mikey playing one of the daughters in Pamela Adlon's series. Last time I saw it they were building up to one of the daughters being trans. I don't know if the show was around long enough to go deeper into that.
In my day, the French director's film about a Mexican narcolord, and the U.S. director's film about Russian prostitutes and gangsters both would have been boycotted for "cultural appropriation." Ditto for the ex-child star's movie about the Holocaust survivor architect.
Jodie Foster won the bafta for her role as the tweener sex worker in taxi driver. She was nominated for an academy award but did not win
Gonna go out on a limb and say majority of sex workers are poor, or drug addicts, or pimped out.
Assuming "sex work" involves penetration or bj, not dancing in a club,or phone sex, or only fans stuff.
“Modern Wh*re"?
When I subscribed it was still called Cosmopolitan.
(P.S. Typing out that whole word will apparently send your comment to moderation purgatory).
"...I also do not remember a hooker in The Music Man. .."
(Robert Preston voice singing) 'Marion....... Naughty Librarian '
I vaguely recall a business near the entrance to an airbase in Vietnam, in the late '60s. Their large sign read something like, "Jet Stream Car Wash - Air Starts Our Specialty".
No idea what they were selling.
Put a chick in it and make her a prostitute. For the Academy's consideration...
Jamie Lee Curtis was a howah in Trading Places.
"sex worker"- surely the wokesters can do better than that.
The WaPo gives us another messed up list
In 1961, the best actress Oscar went to Elizabeth Taylor in “Butterfield 8” for playing a “party girl” who admits to her mother that she’s “the slut of all time.”
I don't think telling your mother that you're the "slut of all time" actually qualifies as proof of prostitution. Is she a call girl or a party girl? Damn you, you G-rated 1960 dramas.
The WaPo lists six more women who won Oscars playing prostitutes.
Jane Fonda in Klute (1971)
Helen Hayes in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity (1953)
Susan Hayward in I Want to Live (1958)
Shirley Jones in Elmer Gantry (1960)
Emma Stone in Poor Things (2023)
That last one is described as a "Frankenhooker."
Anora was very quintessential Hollywood and American "cinderella" story retold countless times -- rags to riches in a single night, followed by all the inevitable disappointments. And beneath it all, the deep trauma of inequality, where the poor and rich live side by side yet in parallel worlds. In the rich world, "the others" are stripped of subjectivity (and on deeper level humanity, bc subjectivity is thoroughly human quality) which is shown at the very end through the connection/disconnection in the sex/non-sex scene (it could perhaps have been done through more sophisticated artistic mechanisms).
And, as we know, Hollywood loves Hollywood stories - look no further than La La Land.
JAORE said...
“Well I looked up Anora. I learned it's a dramedy. Hard pass. Who wants to see a movie about camels....”
Some people would walk a mile for a camel.
And after reading the title, I was disappointed to learn that it wasn’t about the SR-91 splyplane (that doesn’t exist).
The Best Picture goes to a movie about a not-so-innocent but impulsive American who falls head over heels for a Russian Oligarch with brutal henchmen? Is Hollywood trying to tell us something?
Sean Baker is a whole lot brighter than many commenters here give him credit for. 😉
If the Pentagon can spend $900 on a hammer - the thinking goes - the average movie goer can spend 20 bucks on a ho(e).
"nonexistent core."
Good one. Hollywood always hit me as the height of hypocrisy. They insist on constantly preacing morality at us but most of the people in power there have no ethics.
I understand the standard oeurve in this genre is Velvet Jones's seminal work, "How to Be a Ho", now in its 43rd edition.
very funny, John Mosby.
This guy says the betting market had it nailed. The more nudity, the better the odds of getting "Best Picture."
https://x.com/InternetH0F/status/1896321892749086909
sorry about the italics, my bad
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