With the advent of modern technology and the internet becoming accessible through any handheld device allowing the ease of pornography distribution, the emergence of a titan of porn distribution was inevitable. It arrived in the form of Pornhub, a multi-faceted database of every type of fantasy, fetish, and kink you can imagine–for better and for worse. The pornography industry has been one that’s become a topic of conversation since the early 1900’s. Does it influence sexual deviancy or deter it? Does it victimize its performers despite their vocal consent?
Pornhub, the internet’s most famous adult entertainment platform, fundamentally changed how pornography is made and distributed. This enabled erotic content creators to reach a massive audience while the company made billions of dollars — but it also became embroiled in allegations including non-consensual material and trafficking on the site. As anti-trafficking organizations seek justice for victims, can the online giant protect those from whom they profit, or is this a new wave of censorship for adult performers making consensual porn? “Money Shot” takes conscious a step back to examine if Pornhub is a different era for pornography, or just more of the same shady practices we’ve seen before.
In “Money Shot,” director Suzanne Hillinger takes time out to explore the origins of Pornhub, the demand for the massive porn database and how the public consumes the content. And while there are moments discovering how the advent of homemade pornography helps budding artists, and performers, director Hillinger also takes a dramatic detour mid-way. In a country where sex trafficking has become an utter epidemic, director Hillinger delves in to the beginnings of Pornhub and how it delivered content that victimized its performers. Whether or not it was inadvertent is debatable.
In particular, there’s the analysis about how women became the primary topics of pornography that were posted and promoted without their consent. Director Hillinger does give Pornhub a fair shake in explaining themselves, but she also takes a look at the other side of the conversation. This includes discussions about how Pornhub’s reaction time to non-consensual porn was so slow (and often non-existent), their lack of proper filtering of illegal porn, their response to anti-porn advocates, and their inability to compensate performers properly. The latter of which goes in to detailed dissection but sadly can never really decide where its lies in its position.
In one breath the movie explains that the website isn’t compensating porn performers, while in the other breath notable amateur performers are celebrating their popularity and fan base. Despite that confused messaging, “Money Shot” is an engaging, fascinating, and stern reflection on modern consumption of pornography and asks us to consider Pornhub is just feeding a demand, or is a part of the problem.
Now Streaming on Netflix.