Netflix tries to steal back some eyeballs from one of its biggest online video-streaming competitors with Money Shot: The Pornhub Story, a documentary about the creation and travails of the internet’s ) about one of its many victims: Serena K. Fleites, an eighth-grader whose private nude videos (shot when she was 14) became a persistent mainstay on the site, meaning Pornhub made money off them through ads. Kristof suggested a trio of solutions to this problem: only let verified users upload; prohibit downloads; and expand moderation. Once Mastercard and Visa severed ties with them, Pornhub relented on all three.
For performers like Siri Dahl, the credit card companies’ decision was a devastating blow, and she and others (including Cherie DeVille) make clear that this was all due to an erroneous conflation of legitimate pornography and illegal videos of criminal misconduct and abuse. Money Shot: The Pornhub Story wades into these contentious waters, trying to separate the lawful from the illicit, and whether Mickelwait and her organization Exodus Cry—as well as The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), formerly known as Morality in Media—are crusaders concerned about sex trafficking, or evangelical Christian moralists intent on eradicating the industry altogether. Meanwhile, it also details a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of 30 women by lawyer Michael Bowe that dubs Pornhub a “Sopranos-style” “criminal enterprise,” and which he says is committed to incentivizing the industry to clean up its act.
Director Hillinger raises these topics from what feels like a distance; though she chats with a handful of relevant players on both sides of the Pornhub divide, there’s little depth to her inquiry. Porn performers defend themselves and express a desire for autonomy (which they believe is now threatened), critics slam Pornhub and its culture of underage sexual exploitation, and the film more or less leaves it at that. Not taking an unduly biased stance might be theoretically admirable for a documentary intent on navigating thorny terrain. Yet Money Shot: The Pornhub Story is all surface chit-chat about serious issues, to the point that it’s hard to develop a strong opinion about this matter other than that genuine porn and illegal material are two different things, and that it would be best for all involved if platforms weeded out the latter entirely, regardless of the cost to their bottom line—which is hardly a groundbreaking takeaway.
Further complicating one’s reaction to Money Shot: The Pornhub Story is a pervasive sense of dishonesty. NCOSE senior counsel Dani Pinter comes across as intently committed to underplaying (if not outright concealing) her organization’s religious underpinnings, thereby calling into question their true motives. The proceedings’ primarily non-explicit depiction of professional porn is similarly misleading, epitomized by footage of Dahl making cutesy penis-review videos and chatting chastely with two co-stars on camera about what turns them on (their answers: “sensual making out” and “kissing”). Refusing to provide an accurate and trustworthy snapshot of what both these opposing factions are really about, the film comes across as a superficial exposé afraid of getting dirty.
