Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Series

AVATARS OF THE WHORE

October 2 – October 13

In her book “Puta Life”, Juana María Rodríguez writes that the whore embodies the prurient fascination of society’s anxieties around money, sex, and power, which often reveal themselves in filmic representations of people working sex. These representations contribute to the common and tired tropes which inevitably depict people who sell sex – specifically women – as “trafficked” and as possessing loose “morals.” These representations are informed by a global oppression of women that positions sex along a private/public binary, leaving accounts of those selling sex to act as the confessional truth of what sex is like for women. These hollow depictions position whores as vessels for male desire rather than as artisans using the craft of sex to achieve different economic and spiritual goals for themselves.

Taking this ambiguity of the sex trade as its focus, the second iteration of “Avatars of the Whore” (previously titled “Women, Workers, and Whores on Film”) examines a wide range of women working sex across the club, dungeon, street, and bayou to meet multifaceted ends that include breaking a curse, negotiating childcare, seeking erotic enlightenment, and so on. The films gathered here reflect a diversity of experiences of working sex – through the various avatars of the profession – that combat the stigmatization of being a “whore” in society.

Guest-programmed by Ayanna Dozier, who wrote the introduction and individual film descriptions.

Special thanks to Ariel Esteban Cayer (Kani Releasing); Michelle Handelman; Brett Kashmere & Zachary Epcar (Canyon Cinema); Mira Nair; Julia Petrocelli (Film-Makers’ Coop); Timothy Petryni (Trashtown Pictures); Elizabeth Purchell (Muscle Distribution); Michael Repsch (Dark Star Pictures); Annapurna Sriram; and Ione Wang.

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