Money Shot: The Pornhub Story

This documentary is ultimately disappointing. It doesn't do a good job of explaining the rise of Pornhub as a social phenomenon. It is also afflicted with a severe case of both side ism. What I mean by that is that it gives equal time both to the supporters and detractors of the company. And this has been, a surprisingly dangerous phenomenon in modern journalism. It suggests that if you take one extreme position and contrast it with another extreme position, the result is the truth. But in this case, it clearly can't be so. Either Pornhub did nothing wrong and their users abused the system, or Pornhub did in fact violate laws and help in the exploitation of minors. I think you can find better examinations of the Pornhub phenomenon both its advantages, and it's dangerous than this. For example, there's a great podcast series by John Ronson called the Butterfly Effect.

A misleading title and description. I thought we would get a deep dive into the lives of performers, behind the scenes and interesting facts. Instead I got an absolute snooze fest. The majority of this documentary was spent complaining about legal battles, hurdles and legislation that changes the rules. I was not interested in the slightest. I found myself saying so what? What value do I get from watching this? Clearly there is no value for a mass audience. The only audience that might enjoy this are performers in a similar situation. Otherwise it falls flat. The doco should have been called 'Legal battles with PH' and the description clearly saying it documents the legal hurdles performers go through to upload their content. This title was deceitful. Not a good production Netflix, disappointing.

We all know what pornography is...or do we? The porn industry is not just boobs and butts. The actual industry is far more nuanced than that. Pornhub was able to capitalize on the selling of content via the Internet, but like a lot of companies, it forgot who was making the content and why. It allowed non-consensual content from non-performers who were not able to profit from their exposure (and likely had no intention of ever being on its' platform). All the while, actual performers were directly affected and their opinion meant very little to the company or to the religious zealots who sought to bring down the company. Again, someone forgot about who was being shown on the platform and why.

Straight from the title and before reading any reviews you'd think this is a documentary on the site we all know (it is advertised in the title) from beginning to end. Well... it is not. It focuses a LOT (and I mean a bloody lot) on the latest ordeal to the point it is over 75% of the whole documentary. To the tech geeks like myself, there is not a single reference to the tons of features that were innovated here and then taken by everyone else. There are also no devs interviewed. It focuses a lot more on the other thing... and not what you'd be looking for should you enter the site, but rather the other nasty stuff that came as collateral.

I'd be lying if I said that the documentary does not present the 2 sides of the coin, it does, but one gets far more screen time than the other. The other problem is the perspective. It is not a coin with two sides, but more of a dice where society and law enforcement play a HUGE role, yet the documentary has a strong bias against the object of study from a moral high ground that should be unacceptable in a documentary.

If you already have a strong mindset against the adult entertainment industry or THAT company in particular, you'll grant this production 10/10 stars. Same as if you consider such activities as sinful or morally unacceptable. To the rest, be warned: nobody is innocent here, reality is much darker than it is presented in this "documentary".

I think we all believed this was going to be a deeper dive / closer look into the background of adult entertainment and the people involved, but it was more around the institution and the types of legal issues that usually arise from user-generated content.

With the primary focus around how Pornhub positioned itself to the public and the dangerous issues around child safety and sex trafficking, the documentary doesn't cover much else outside what the NYT and other publications did in print media. But, it does give us a bit more insight with interviews of people who were directly affected by the results of the Pornhub case, and how their journey to continue being in the adult entertainment industry has seen them move through different platforms and make certain concessions or adjustments to their lives to continue in their desired employment.

It's nothing to write home about, but still worth a watch since there's a good personal element added to the surroundings of this issue.