Sean Baker’s sex worker opus might not be as progressive as it looks.
After one of the strangest and most controversial Oscar races in recent memory, a polarizing movie, warranting tons of strong opinions online, inevitably rose to top. The Sean Baker film Anora won five of its eight nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing and Best Actress for Mikey Madison.
It’s been a weird road to Oscars glory for the critically-lauded movie, which won the prestigious Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The comedy-drama, about a strip club dancer whose fairytale marriage to the son of a Russian oligarch suddenly goes haywire, generated early buzz but took a backseat for much of awards season, losing screenwriting and direction awards to films like Conclave and The Brutalist. The movie shockingly left the Golden Globes empty-handed.
While the film experienced a bit of a lop-sided awards season, it had a steady presence online as one of the most discoursed movies of the past year — second only to two-time Oscar winner Emilia Pérez. While the movie impressed most critics and clearly the Academy, Anora has been a lightning rod on film-interested corners of X, Letterboxd, and among sex workers and even the movie’s own army of stans.
First, there was the revelation from Madison that she didn’t use an intimacy coordinator for the film’s sex scenes after being given the option by Baker. It quickly raised questions about Baker as a professional and his relationship to actor protections that have become standard in the wake of MeToo. In fact, much of the conversation surrounding the movie has been centered on Baker, whose politics and intentions as an auteur have often been hard to map.
Following the celebrated release of his third film Tangerine in 2015, about a pair of Black, trans sex workers, his low-budget filmography has been exclusively dedicated to portraying sex workers, in what he’s repeatedly described as an effort to “remove the stigma” from the industry and offer an unrepresented class visibility. While accepting the Palme d’or for Anora, he dedicated the award to “sex workers past, present and future.” And in his acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay, he dutifully thanked the sex worker community.
Still, questions about Baker’s relationship to depicting sex work loom larger than ever, particularly with his latest work Anora, with some in the profession logging thoughtful essays about their concerns with Baker’s work.
