“Pleasure”, directed by Swedish Ninja Thyberg, will be released in theaters this Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Worn by Sofia Kappel, the film reveals the underside of the porn industry and breaks down all prejudices. Focus on this first film on the porn industry directed by a woman, in our Pop it decryption of the week.
Pleasure is one of those films that have been postponed many times because of the Covid … The film by Swedish director Ninja Thyberg has finally been in theaters since Wednesday, October 20, 2021 and it should have the effect of a bomb. And for good reason: he follows a 20-year-old Swedish girl who arrives in Los Angeles with the aim of a career in the porn industry. If she wants to try everything to achieve fame, she will have to face some dangerous situations to say the least.
Ninja Thyberg a worked several years before this fiction. Result: the director, by collaborating with an amateur porn actress, but also sex workers, succeeds in breaking the clichés around this industry. A work of deconstruction that she first had to do on herself to finally come to a conclusion: “I walked into this world thinking it was a patriarchal and oppressive world for women … And it is. But isn’t it everywhere?”.
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The #Metoo of the porn industry
Pleasure Therefore, more than yet another film on the underside of porn, it is the reflection of our society. It shows how much the sex workers are aware of what patriarchy is, since it faces it every day and in a strategic way. Illustration of this situation: the main character of the film, played by Sofia Kappel. Ambitious, down-to-earth and ready for anything, she also faces enormous pressure. If, for example, the film shows that consent is now contractual on the sets of pornographic films, the harassment and guilt are indeed real. The character of Sofia Kappel therefore finds herself stuck between her ambition, her values and the fear that making waves will prevent her from succeeding.
An extremely worked female point of view, for a film that has not forgotten the context in which it was shot: the #Metoo movement also took place in the porn industry. In 2020, Jacquie and Michel, a famous pornographic video site, were thus subject to an investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office for rape and pimping, and several actresses denounced in the wake of having suffered sexual acts in the context of their work when they were not consenting, by holding a militant discourse finally relayed by the mainstream media. From now on, it is impossible to ignore it: we can no longer represent sex work with clichés.
“Pleasure”, towards a better representation of porn in fiction?
Pleasure, thanks to her female character, approaches the porn industry with a lot of realism. If he establishes and denounces the patriarchy which also applies in the industry, at the same time he brings down the clichés, brings certain moments of tenderness and reveals the portrait of a stable woman, a sex worker, who has chosen this profession. Producing fiction about the porn industry without stereotyping remained a tall order, even as things change.
In 2008, Canal + produced for example the series Hard, where a mother found herself producing porn films after the death of her husband. Ditto on the side of Deuce, produced by HBO, historical series this time, which explores the democratization of the porn industry in the 70s, in the United States. No more representations of sex workers necessarily evolving in this environment by constraint. Cinema and series, like the very successful Pleasure, sends out prejudices against a background of broader societal questioning. Pleasure…