If Sean Baker’s “Anora” triumphs at the Academy Awards next Sunday, as predicted by most pundits, it will have achieved both.
“Sean gets sex work. He just does,” porn actress and director Casey Calvert tells AFP, as she prepares to film an explicit lesbian scene on a set in the San Fernando Valley.
“Sean is the only working mainstream filmmaker who has the ability to get it right. He’s also the only one who cares about getting it right,” adds adult film veteran Eli Cross, who is the cinematographer for the day.
Baker’s journey to the Oscars began in this valley next to Los Angeles, infamously and accurately dubbed the capital of the US porn industry.
It was here that he shot “Starlet,” a micro-budget film about a young adult actress who forms an unlikely friendship with an elderly widow.
Baker’s candid portrayal of an industry used to being maligned and sensationalized by Hollywood earned him the friendship of porn workers like Calvert, who later worked as a paid consultant on his film “Red Rocket.”
She will be among the many pornographers and sex workers cheering on “Anora” as it competes for best picture, best director, best actress for Mikey Madison, and much more on March 2.
“It’s so exciting to me that I can’t even think about it,” says Calvert.
“It would feel like this industry that I love being recognized on a stage it’s never been recognized before on.”
“Anora” follows Ani, a New York stripper and escort, as she embarks on an ill-fated, whirlwind romance with a bratty young Russian customer who turns out to be the son of an oligarch.
Typical of Baker’s movies, it is stuffed with details that “civilian” viewers might miss.
These range from the pole-dancing bruises on Ani’s legs, to the way she licks her fingers before instigating a sex act.
“It’s just such a sex worker thing to do. It’s so in character,” explains Calvert.
Authenticity is not something sex workers expect from Hollywood.
Most famously, “Pretty Woman” served up a sanitized fairy tale about a prostitute and her wealthy savior.
“The sex work industry as a whole is really skeptical of any film having to do with sex work,” says Calvert.
“Hollywood, historically speaking, has made a lot of movies about prostitution and escorting that are not particularly positive.”
Following the world premiere of “Anora,” Baker told AFP he had deliberately avoided the “hooker with a heart of gold” cliches.
For Calvert, Baker’s films stand out because they are not really about sex work — they are about the struggles, emotions and humanity of people who happen to do sex work for a living.
