This documentary aims to explore how the Internet age has changed the present culture of sexuality and, especially, how pretty much anyone has unlimited access to pornography. The documentary profiles three disparately different females--a tweenager in NYC, a wannabe model-slash-teacher's aide in North Carolina, and an aging porn star in Florida--to explore how our information age (and with it, the freely sexualized world of Internet porn, social networking, and limited parental supervision) has affected the behavior and decisions of these women.
The most affecting subject is Winnifred, the young woman raised by highly educated, very liberal, clearly wealthy parents in Manhattan... Winnie is shown at the outset as a precocious 12-year-old gymnastics star on the verge of her bat mitzvah, later shown getting ready for a Lady Gaga concert at Madison Square Garden, and at the conclusion, with a hickey given by a boy-bandish Lothario during an eighth grade class trip. Winnie is highly articulate and intelligent for her age; her parents obviously educated, open-minded and aware of the cultural climate; and her descent into full-on adolescence is fascinating and well paced, filmmakingwise, with her equally precocious and corruptive peers playing a good supporting role. Sadly, the film could have used Winnie as the sole subject and made a better argument for the point.
Another subject is Nakita Kash/Nichole, an adult film star nearing the end of a successful career, earning extra cash making strip-club appearances (and with her husband, acting as an agent for other porn stars) as well as teaching pole-dancing to bored housewives. Nichole seems stable and secure in her chosen lifestyle, and the filmmakers chose to spend too much time eliciting Nichole's justifications for it, as though trying to dispel the common stereotype that all porn stars are sexually damaged drug addicts. Nichole does reveal a desire to have children, and those efforts become her storyline for the remainder of the documentary.
The most pointless addition to the trifecta is the silly and vacuous "musings" of a wannabe model-cum-Kindergarten teacher's aide who decides to get labioplasty (surgical removal of the labia) after hearing some dudes talk about "meat curtains." This chick is clearly more damaged than the porn star Nichole, in terms of her pathetic self esteem, which I guess is vaguely interesting in and of itself, but that contrast is sadly unexplored. The most interesting scene in her story is seeing her surgeon toss her actual labia onto the surgical cart. The decision to include her story was probably made prior to filming her story, and I can only imagine the filmmakers cringing at her vapidity while she was actually interviewed.
I do feel this film would be very productive for parents to watch with their teenage children; despite some weaknesses, the intention is good and timely, and parents who can stomach the fleeting bits of nudity and porn images (which are sort of vital to the message) with the kids in the room, will probably get a good conversation out of the deal. I do wonder how Winnifred is doing these days...
The most affecting subject is Winnifred, the young woman raised by highly educated, very liberal, clearly wealthy parents in Manhattan... Winnie is shown at the outset as a precocious 12-year-old gymnastics star on the verge of her bat mitzvah, later shown getting ready for a Lady Gaga concert at Madison Square Garden, and at the conclusion, with a hickey given by a boy-bandish Lothario during an eighth grade class trip. Winnie is highly articulate and intelligent for her age; her parents obviously educated, open-minded and aware of the cultural climate; and her descent into full-on adolescence is fascinating and well paced, filmmakingwise, with her equally precocious and corruptive peers playing a good supporting role. Sadly, the film could have used Winnie as the sole subject and made a better argument for the point.
Another subject is Nakita Kash/Nichole, an adult film star nearing the end of a successful career, earning extra cash making strip-club appearances (and with her husband, acting as an agent for other porn stars) as well as teaching pole-dancing to bored housewives. Nichole seems stable and secure in her chosen lifestyle, and the filmmakers chose to spend too much time eliciting Nichole's justifications for it, as though trying to dispel the common stereotype that all porn stars are sexually damaged drug addicts. Nichole does reveal a desire to have children, and those efforts become her storyline for the remainder of the documentary.
The most pointless addition to the trifecta is the silly and vacuous "musings" of a wannabe model-cum-Kindergarten teacher's aide who decides to get labioplasty (surgical removal of the labia) after hearing some dudes talk about "meat curtains." This chick is clearly more damaged than the porn star Nichole, in terms of her pathetic self esteem, which I guess is vaguely interesting in and of itself, but that contrast is sadly unexplored. The most interesting scene in her story is seeing her surgeon toss her actual labia onto the surgical cart. The decision to include her story was probably made prior to filming her story, and I can only imagine the filmmakers cringing at her vapidity while she was actually interviewed.
I do feel this film would be very productive for parents to watch with their teenage children; despite some weaknesses, the intention is good and timely, and parents who can stomach the fleeting bits of nudity and porn images (which are sort of vital to the message) with the kids in the room, will probably get a good conversation out of the deal. I do wonder how Winnifred is doing these days...
