"Money Shot": The Porn hub Story
Money Shot is a Netflix documentary that exposes the actual effect of the pornography streaming site Pornhub on the real world.
A publication by New York Times in 2020 revealed stories of women who were exploited as minors, with records of their sexual assaults uploaded on Pornhub. The article got the world's attention, and many activists and victims have taken the matter up since then. Pornhub even faced several lawsuits with allegations of child sex trafficking.
However, Pornhub argues that it has provided a platform for sex workers to earn a living over the years and has managed to protect them from blanket censorship.
Money Shot is a story that explores the history of the adult-entertainment platform Pornhub. It features interviews with actors; Natassia Dreams, Cherie DeVille, Wolf Hudson, Asa Akira, and Siri Dahl, activists, and some past employees who share their experiences and provides shocking insight into the success and scandal story of the site. It was directed by Suzanne Hillinger, produced by Nicki Carrico/Jigsaw Productions, and edited by Alexis Johnson.
What To Expect In The Pornhub Story?
The story discusses some of the moral decadence enabled by the user-upload feature and the unexpected rise of the site in the adult-content industry by providing easier means of pornography production and distribution to a larger audience, making the pornography business a lucrative one. The company began to receive more scrutiny from several activism agencies due to the illicit content it continued to spread.
“Knowingly profiting from sex trafficking is what we believe they are liable for,” one of the interviewed subjects says in the trailer.
"The more I explored, the more aghast I became. I found too many cases of kids whose worst moments were preserved in amber,” another person revealed.
"It’s not just an attack on porn,” someone else clarified. “It’s an attack on people being able to express themselves.”
Victims of sexual assaults and revenge sex started to demand justice for exploiting their assault videos on the site but got little to no recompense for their demands. In a bid to address the backlash and censors it received on its operations, Pornhub focused on impacting the livelihood of some of its famous actors and sex workers who voluntarily decide to join from all over the globe where shoots are being made from their Montreal offices.
“If it wasn’t for porn, I probably wouldn’t be alive,” one of the actors confessed.
The documentary also explores other elements of the sex industry, like the stigmatization of porn artists on and off social media, which has forced most of them to lose their social media accounts. The trailer indicates that this documentary will cover a broader aspect of pornography filmmaking beyond Pornhub.
The film will premiere through Netflix on March 15th and hopes to help viewers understand their success and scandal story since its inception.