With wonderful synchronicity, the week that saw Anora win Best Picture at the Oscars was also the week the world marked International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.
Amongst the buzz of this year’s awards season, what has truly affected me over my last few weeks of watching as many ceremonies as possible is seeing, for the first time, people who are not sex workers explicitly honour the sex work community on such a huge international stage, and use their platform to call for sex workers’ rights.
International Sex Workers’ Rights Day began in 2001, and grew from the resistance of sex workers from the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee in India. Over 25,000 sex workers gathered for a festival in the face of efforts from prohibitionist groups to revoke their permit. The day is now marked by sex workers across the world as an opportunity to call for their access to human and labour rights.
When I watched Mikey Madison, the actress who plays Anora, accept her award at the BAFTAs a few weeks ago, I sat open-mouthed when I heard her explicitly name and dedicate her award to the sex worker community, saying, “I just wanna say that I see you. You deserve respect and human decency. I will always be a friend and ally, and I urge others to do the same.”
In a world and a political climate which so often denies sex workers the very things Madison highlights – not just respect and human decency, but visibility – to hear her use her platform to express this to an audience of people who may likely have never even considered sex workers’ rights was a revelation and a joy. I felt seen. I felt heard. She used such a significant public platform to honour my community rather than perpetuate the dominant narratives of shame, denigration and silence, bringing the issue to an audience full of power and influence.
Many of Baker’s previous films have explored the lives of people selling sex, from trans street sex workers Sin-Dee and Alexandra in his breakout feature Tangerine, to fading male porn actor Mikey in Red Rocket. His work on Anora has brought to the forefront the ways in which sex workers have been threaded throughout the film’s production as experts. Andrea Werhun, author of the book Modern Whore, was a creative consultant. Choreographer and former stripper, Kennady Schneider taught Madison how to pole dance. Strip club dancers were hired as extras throughout the production (a stark contrast to some other recent films, where working dancers were excluded from their clubs for a week or longer, without any compensation for loss of pay), while others, including Lindsey Normington and Luna Sofía Miranda, held notable featured roles. In September, a special screening of the film was held for sex workers. When the film ended, they didn’t applaud, but clipped their Pleaser heels together in appreciation. In a refreshing change, sex workers were embedded as experts throughout the film process, rather than as people whose stories were simply to be extracted.
When Baker, too, stood on the Oscars stage last night and accepted his award for Best Editing (one of four that he went on to win over the course of the evening), | was once again cheering as he acknowledged sex workers in his speech: “I want to thank the sex worker community. They have shared their stories, they have shared their life experiences with me over the years. My deepest respect. Thank you. I share this with you.”
Madison, too, once again used her Best Actress win to acknowledge the community, saying, “I also just want to again recognise and honour the sex worker community. I will continue to support and be an ally. All of the incredible people, the women I’ve had the privilege of meeting from that community, has been one of the highlights of this entire incredible experience.” As an interesting coincidence, this is the second year in a row that the Best Actress winner has portrayed a sex worker in their film after Emma Stone’s win for Poor Things (another film which explicitly addresses the role of capitalism in sex work, as she spurns her suitor telling him, “we are our own means of production. Now go away.”)
Seeing sex workers described as “deserving respect and human decency”, worthy of “deepest respect” and “incredible people” was a revelation. While I know these things and see them every day amongst my friends and colleagues, so rarely are they ever acknowledged by anyone who is not a sex worker themselves, and never on a platform quite so huge. When sex workers are so often talked over, and not to; when they are denied the ability to tell their own stories; when they are reduced to tropes and stereotypes; when they are excluded from tables of political power: to invite them in and honour them is a radical act. It should not have to be.
Movements, particularly those which are formed around the rights of people from marginalised groups, can only flourish with allies. People who experience systemic disempowerment gain power under our current systems when those who have it, share it, and for that to happen, they must be deemed worthy of sharing power with. For those not involved in the community, sex workers’ rights may be a fringe issue. For sex workers, it’s life and death.
If Anora, and if Madison and Baker’s acknowledgements, encourage more people to become sex worker allies, to uplift their movements, and to champion their rights, I hope that that can play a small role in addressing the changes needed to improve our lives.
About the Author
Rosie Hodsdon is part of the Sounddelivery Media Spokesperson Network and works for Basis Yorkshire, advocating for the rights of sex workers. She is currently working on a project specifically around support for sex workers who have experienced harm and violence. She is also a researcher and former academic.