I was stunned speechless sitting through the mechanical whir of windshield wipers during the end credits of “Anora.” As someone who considers themselves a media critic, I left that theater with no notes — five out of five stars.
Sean Baker’s 2024 film follows a sex worker named Anora who is brilliantly portrayed by Mikey Madison. The independent film has won five Oscars this past season, including best picture and the esteemed Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.
For an independent film with a budget of $6 million, this is a huge step forward for small filmmakers in the industry. For the past few years, the Oscars has been recognizing these smaller independent films more often, and “Anora” is just the latest in the spotlight.
Following the film’s Oscar’s sweep, whether or not the film is worthy of its wins is being questioned. It was also recently revealed by Variety that Neon, the film’s distributor, spent $18 million on the film’s marketing, distribution and awards campaign.
Neon is notorious for splurging on marketing and award campaigns. In 2020, Neon spent $20 million on the campaign for “Parasite” — winning the film best picture at the Oscars.
With this reveal, many are speculating whether or not “Anora” deserved the win with such a large awards campaign budget. To me, this is simply how the industry works and is not completely indicative of the win. What it does show is that Neon believed in “Anora” enough to gamble $18 million on its win.
“Anora” has also been in a hot topic after its Oscar wins because some critics claim that film didn’t deserve the awards for glorifying sex work and upholding harmful stereotypes.
Despite being named after Anora, critics say the film focuses more on what happens to her rather than Anora as a person, discrediting its sex worker representation. I think that we obviously get a sense for Anora as a character — she is someone who is strong-willed, takes no nonsense, is drawn to a luxurious lifestyle and sees love as transactional.
I understand where critics are coming from, as these aspects of her character influence her choices throughout the film but do not drive the plot. To me, however, it is telling that despite Anora’s boldness, the plot is driven by the entitled male characters Anora is at the mercy of.
Along with this criticism, some argue that the film uses Anora’s life and job as a sex worker as a storytelling tool. Baker has been accused of doing this in other projects of his, but I feel like this accusation wrongfully devalues Anora’s story and experiences.
The film is inherently a twist on the ever-popular Cinderella story. There are many problems with this trope, but in this context, it can be seen as endorsing the harmful stereotype that sex workers need to be “saved” and can’t be empowered.
Personally, I don’t think Anora running off with the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch is indicative of her job, but simply showing her struggles as a character. By the end, Anora is back where she started and her confidence in her job didn’t change.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to former sex workers about if the film depicted the job realistically. The complaints were minimal, mainly citing how Anora was barely rejected by clients and a scene where the girls left paying customers to watch a fight as areas lacking realism.
“Her character is so fully dimensional. That’s why the details about the strip club and sex work don’t matter so much,” said former sex worker Tiff Smith to The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re seeing a fully developed character doing sex work without their profession defining them — that’s what representation really is.”
They also touched on Anora naively running off with a rich boy, but Canada-based stripper Cid V Brunet notes that she’s still young and is allowed to make the mistakes that more experienced sex workers would know to avoid.
In the end, I can’t speak to “Anora’s” depictions of sex work, but I don’t think it upholds harmful sex worker stereotypes. “Anora” is not simply about the life of a sex worker; it is about a person being taken advantage of who happens to be a sex worker. It is obvious that those who think this film glorifies Anora’s story lack some serious media literacy skills.
jhammer@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of New Yorker
