Mira Nair and Dennis O'Rourke Make Films about Selling Sex

Global Culture and Sexual Politics Dec. 12, 1995

John Muir Kumph

The occupation of exotic dancer, prostitute, or porno-star is one filled with mostly women. By studying this profession one can gain insight into the status of women in different societies. However, the subject is interlaced with moral expectations and notions of taboo that make it very difficult to study with a clear view. Mira Nair (Indian Cabaret) and Dennis O'Rourke (Good Woman of Bangkok) each made films about the selling of sex. Their movies tell us as much about their views of sexual trade as they do about the trade itself.

Both films show women selling sex for economic reasons, however that is where the two films depart. Mira Nair's film shows women, who despite the social stigma of what they do, manage to get by and live their dream. Her story is one of success. By the end of the film Mira Nair and Rekkha, her main character, are at a beach laughing in the sun. The two women take a cleansing bath in the ocean and leave the pain of the previous eighty minutes of film behind. The credits roll and we are to assume that Rekkha, having made her money and quit her job at the night club is now going to live happily with her new husband. In contrast Dennis O'Rourke's film leaves us with a tragic ending. Aoi, the Thai sex worker, after having been given her dream, a rice farm with no debt, returns to Bangkok to work in a "sleazy bar". It is implied that her cause is hopeless. We feel powerless to help her, and we feel that she is even more powerless to help herself. Both of these movies do not do justice to the world of selling sex. No movie could ever hope to actually explain the lives of millions of sex workers around the world. The movies provide allegories for arguments in the debate of sexual politics. The stories shown in the movies, while they are taken from reality, are just one story, and do not provide an objective perspective to sexual trade. However by reading the movies carefully, we can conclude some of the feelings that the film makers have towards the subject matter and the people involved. In the end we can't help but explore our own feelings about selling sex. By looking at the differences in the movies we can start to piece out how the filmakers treat the subject matter.

One of the first differences between the movies is the customers and the setting. In Indian Cabaret, the customers are primarily older Indian men. They sit still and watch the women dance. In one part of the movie we see an exchange, where a man negotiates with one of the dancers to take a foreigner (Saudi Arabian) home with her. The primary customers are Indian men, who come night after night. The customers are not like the one time men who come to Bangkok for "the time of their lives." The dance club is primarily a dance club, as opposed to the bars of Bangkok, which are primarily meat markets, where the women wear numbered tags for easy identification and rental. The foreign men of Bangkok are also drunk and confused. The atmosphere of the bars of Bangkok is chaotic. The object of the bars is to make the foreign men part with their money as fast as possible. By getting the foreigners drunk they quicken the flow of money. Its like an amusement park, where money is the ultimate goal, but it is hidden in a flurry of activity. In contrast the Delhi dance club is not crowded and the music only plays for the ladies in specific dance numbers. Because the Delhi bar relies on repeat customers, they do not try to make them part with their money as fast as possible. The dance club does not try to give its customers the time of their life. Bangkok is a Mecca of sexual trade. It is meant to shock the men who go there. The economics and politics of Bangkok put enormous time pressures on making money. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand. If the money isn't made soon, it might never get made. The sex trade in Thailand shocks and gets the money fast at the expense of the workers. The foreign men leave and probably never return. Before this movie, I had heard tales of Bangkok. The men who went there, told me of the things I see in this movie. The awe, with which they spoke of Bangkok was like many children who speak of Disney Land. They spoke of it like it was an adventure. They had no plans of ever going back. The shock was over and they were ready to move on to other things. This forces the workers of Bangkok to try to get money from the customers as fast as possible.

The sex workers get money in both films, however the money that Aoi gets primarily goes to her mother. The only other sex worker we speak much with in Good Woman of Bangkok, Aoi's friend who has no money is obviously addicted to some drug, since she's all doped up in front of the camera. O'Rourke chose to show us these two women, one who gives all her money to her mother, the other to her drug dealer, because neither is getting any for herself. In Indian Cabaret, the women do not seem so selfless. While one women travels to her sisters wedding to give a gift of money, none of the women in the movie seem to be sending all their earnings away. The heroine of Indian Cabaret, Rekkha, is saving her money so she can quit. Another is sending her son to a prestigious school. Taking the fact that Aoi can never use any of the money she earns for herself, one starts to understand how she feels that it is her destiny to work in the sex trade. O'Rourke has found women in Thailand who can barely take care of themselves. And Mira Nair has found women who can. Beyond the differences that the sex workers in Bangkok and Delhi have in environment, the film makers frame the characters so differently that it is no wonder that the two films have such different endings.

Nair goes to live with the women, and interviews each women. The women have no shame towards Nair. They speak frankly about their neighbors and how they feel about their lives and men; like Aoi they are suspicious of men. Unlike Aoi, they do not have the same self hatred and self criticism. Aoi decries that she is unlovable. Aoi seems at odds with Dennis O'Rourke at many points during the film. Mentioning on film how she feels used during the making of the film. She is ashamed at what she does and Dennis O'Rourke doesn't help any with his insistence that she quit.

Dennis O'Rourke spends a considerable amount of time documenting the helplessness of the Thai sex workers. He focus's on their numbered tags, a sequence of a twelve year old girl being sold to work in the sex trade, and the abduction of a woman off the street by a white man. The camera never shows Aoi happy. Dennis O'Rourke picked Aoi and isolated her from her environment in an attempt to study her. Considering O'Rourke's focus on the desolate nature of the Thai sex workers, we should wonder whether all prostitutes in Bangkok are like those of depressed Aoi, or whether Aoi is even always like this. We don't know if she has friends or whether she takes time away from the Red light district. We know very little about her. Likewise we should be suspicious of Nair's choice of Rekkha as a model sex worker. Rekkha is very strong and is not used by the system she works in. She quits when she wants to, she has more than one boyfriend, and makes sure that one will treat her right before dropping the others. She treats men badly and gets away with it. She is successful and lovable. Aoi is pathetic. Given the gross disparity in the way these women are approached by the film makers one can't be sure if these are the true characteristics of the women, let alone characteristics of sex workers in general.

However, the depiction of Aoi is especially suspicious because of the quickness, and flippant nature of Dennis O'Rourke. If he won't stop filming when she protests, I wonder whether he ever takes anything she says seriously. Dennis O'Rourke's opening credits suggest that he may have had a certain agenda in mind when filming. He mentions that his marriage had just ended, and he was wondering how love could be so banal and so profound. When the movie is approached with this in mind, it makes sense that he chose Thailand. Thailand is probably the place where sex is most banal in the world. And if one equates love and sex at all, then one gets the impression that love must be banal there too. O'Rourke's insistence upon searching for love in a hotel room with a Thai prostitute, whom he can't even communicate with, seems the desperate act of a man who has lost his wife. The movie is more about O'Rourke's hopelessness than the life of Thai sex workers. The camera never stops gazing at women, and we wonder what O'Rourke is searching for. He's come along way, and in the end, he leaves like all the other foreign men, having been shocked, titillated and deflated. He leaves having bought Aoi the farm. And returns only to find nothing has changed. But his charge that nothing has changed is one of perspective. Just because Aoi still works in the sex trade doesn't mean nothing has changed. He just assumes that.

Nair is also guilty of framing her opinion through the characters on the screen. Rekkha, Nair's favorite, is made into a woman who is never wrong and we never question her success. Its easy to elevate Rekkha, and while near the end of the film, she walks away from the night club with a wad of cash, I wonder whether she will be able to live with the man who will marry her. She having made her groom tell his family about her profession shows a strong, cocky, and naive side of her. Her new family would not hesitate to make her life hell at every point if she brings shame to them. Nair doesn't seem to acknowledge the fact that Rekkha's profession could haunt her. If Rekkha's new family pressures her husband to divorce her, what will she do. Rekkha is not as gullible as Aoi is made out to be, but she may drive her new family and husband away if she pushes them around. The differences between Aoi and Rekkha in this film are many, but the biggest is the self preservation of Rekkha. Aoi is made out to be helpless and lost. Are the other women who work at the night club as careful as Rekkha? Or are some as helpless as Aoi? And is Rekkha as successful as she is made out to be?

Of the differences between the two films, the biggest is how shame was shown. In "Good Woman of Bangkok" most of the girls are ashamed at what they are doing. And Dennis O'Rourke never goes beyond a voyeuristic gaze at the women. He never accepts what the women are doing and allows himself to be drawn in to the forbiddenness of the Thai sex trade. Nair from the start treats the nude dancing as something the women do to make money, not something wrong. From the dancing, she then goes to the women's house. She never tells them that they shouldn't be prostitutes. The camera becomes a mouth piece for the women of Indian Cabaret. Nair takes their side. The women talk about their neighbors with frankness. They get drunk and become comfortable with Nair. Nair spends a lot of time to get to know the women. Nair is with the women on the Indian festival of lights, a holiday only comparably to Christmas. O'Rourke never even becomes friends with Aoi and it is not a surprise considering his stay in Thailand seems to last the period of just a couple weeks at best.

The reasons behind this disparity in relationships between the film maker and subjects are many. O'Rourke is foreign, he is a man, and Aoi has stated she hates all men. O'Rourke is fighting an uphill battle. But he also tells her what to do, won't stop filming her while she's eating, and films her while she's sleeping. She is not a very willing subject. He treats her like a bad child, and films her even though she's reluctant. She is alone with him and she is depressed. He finds the depressed prostitute he's been looking for. Mira Nair is searching for a heroine of pornography and she finds her, but her character is more sincere and more comfortable with the film. Both film makers create a world of sexual work as they see it, but Mira Nair's portrait is more interesting because it is more sincere. O'Rourke may be right about the situation of the Thai sex worker, but its hard to tell because his portrait is too fuzzy because of his distance to Aoi. Mira Nair's portrait also gives sincere hope, and that is what we are searching for in the first place.