Sex workers are underrepresented, not protected, and often abused. Sex workers have called for honest representation, so that more people are aware that not all sex workers are “victims” and some are very happy with the choices they’ve made, no matter what kind of sex workers they might be. Representation is not however, what is being included in the movie, “Rough Night” due out, June 16, 2017.
The movie, a group of women enjoying a bachelorette party weekend, full of drinking, dancing, and cocaine, when they “accidentally” kill a male stripper. This is apparently a comedy. It’s really not though. I can’t think of one, funny thing, that revolves around the abuse, and death of sex workers, already being killed for their profession.
This movie full of people like, white feminist, asian role stealing Scarlett Johansson. It also includes Kate McKinnon, who’s be criticized for her TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) views, and pretty transphobic SNL skits. The director of this horrific film, is Lucia Aniello, creator of Broad City.
In the trailer alone, we already get the hint that this movie is going to have, lots of slut shaming, fatphobia, and hatred against sex workers. On a less note it also romanticizes drug abuse and alcohol abuse, but that’s another topic.
The trailer, which you can view here, if you can stomach it. The whole basis of comedy is literally surrounding the death of the male stripper, who’s not viewed as a human at all but as an object. They dress him up, drag him around, and generally abuse his dead body for laughs, including propping his body up through the sun roof and slamming on the breaks, letting his corpse fall out of the car, and roll down the windshield. His body is trivialized, they use him as a prop, and make jokes about the boner that his corpse has. Yep, this movie is a real movie, that some people are already calling one of the top summer comedies to come.
This movie is not feminist. Abusing sex workers is not part of feminism. Feminism is inclusive to all sex workers, and making a film with a female cast doesn’t make it any less harmful to sex workers. Movies like this get sex workers killed. It takes away their humanity. Films like this murder people. Sex workers are not props used for “comedic” sketches about quirky women accidentally killing them and then dragging their bodies around. It’s disgusting.
Nothing about this movie seems entertaining to me. I personally don’t delight in the murder and abuse of sex workers, and anyone that actively supports this movie, especially while sex workers do not have safety and security to be able to do their job, is almost entirely likely to hate sex workers. Giving your money to films that glorify murder and abuse of sex workers, is abusing sex workers. Everything about this film is harmful to sex workers. This film is disgusting, and if you go and see it, you’re disgusting too.
