Working girls / produced by Lizzie Borden, Andi Gladstone ; story by Lizzie Borden ; screenplay by Lizzie Borden, Sandra Kay ; directed by Lizzie Borden.
Edition:
Director-approved DVD special edition ; DVD edition.
Publisher:
The Criterion Collection,
Copyright Date:
2021
Description:
1 videodisc (approximately 93 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Title from sell sheet. Originally released as a motion picture in 1986. Wide screen. Special features: audio commentaries ; essay by author So Mayer and excerpts from a 1987 interview with Borden by film critic Scott MacDonald. Deborah Banks, Liz Caldwell, Amanda Goodwin, Louise Smith, Marusia Zach.
Summary:
Sex work is portrayed with radical nonjudgment in this immersive, richly detailed look at the rhythms and rituals of society's most stigmatized profession. Inspired by the experiences of the sex workers Borden met while making her underground feminist landmark Born in Flames, Working Girls reveals the textures of a day in the life of Molly, a photographer working part-time in a Manhattan brothel, as she juggles a steady stream of clients, balances nurturing relationships with her coworkers with the demands of an ambitious madam, and above all fights to maintain her sense of self in a business in which the line between the personal and the professional is all too easily blurred. In viewing prostitution through the lens of labor, Borden boldly desensationalizes the subject, offering an empathetic, humanizing, often humorous depiction of women for whom this work is just another day at the office.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.