Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story

It seems as if this documentary mini series should have been made years ago. From this point in time, it does not seem to be much of an audience for those who genuinely care about this story. We remember there was a brief mini series episode in 2022 of the Rich & Shameless which briefly covered this.

Some of the newer revelations is that there were underaged girls on camera during the beginning stages of the franchise. It was clear the cameramen and overall team of the crew weren't experienced or else these problems wouldn't have happened. The girls themselves should have known better as well. This mini series is rather quite bias towards the women "victims" documenting some of these women roughly twenty or so years later.

This mini series also reminds us how big the franchise was during its peak days, with many celebrities supporting them with merchandise and with Joe Francis himself being close with a few of them. The main reason as to why this entire franchise ultimately failed was because of the rise of social media, easier access to free adult sites and also them using real girls as opposed to adult star actresses (however that is of course what made their foundation stand out and feel authentic).

In the end, it may be eye opening to those completely unfamiliar with the situation but for a majority of people, it doesn't cover too much new ground. It is a memory lane/ nostalgia type series.

The documentary explains nothing unexpected. It's just Joe Francis explaining how he found an untapped market and he tapped it and made himself very wealthy. In an Industry like this, many untoward things happened. No one will hold themselves accountable on either side. He definitely took advantage of the state of mind of many of these girls, and that is 100% wrong. Drinking responsibly is something many of us learn the hard way. That being said, I definitely don't condone what the cameramen did at all. I live in Las Vegas, and I have definitely been in the vicinity of filming her, in New Orleans and at Lake Havasu. In going to most of these places, we were aware of their presence and what they did. I think a lot of this is just regret. I think many (not all) of the girls did this knowing full well what they were doing, and they later realized their mistake. Been there and done similar. I get it. But I also accept responsibility for my own actions and don't blame someone else. I couldn't finish watching it because the music is loud and plays over the people talking. It might have been more interesting if I could have known what was being said. The editing definitely needs to be corrected to make this watchable.

I thought it was a good documentary, although I do agree with most of what has been said in the previous reviews. I also did not feel sorry for these girls I'm sorry, I just don't. Anybody that has been drunk before knows that we all probably do things will regret the next day and we have nobody to blame but ourselves if we put ourselves in those situations. That's part of growing up and for them, they had to learn this the hard way. I do have sympathy for the reporter that was assaulted, that was wrong. And he definitely should have been carding girls from the very beginning but the girls did lie on camera about their age so that's more their fault.

In the third and final episode the narrator and investigative reporter, Ms Scaachi Koul reveals that when she told people she had interviewed Joseph Francis on the subject of his once mighty Girls Gone Wild empire, she says the reaction was generally, oh yeah I have a vague recollection of all that. That is exactly what I thought when "Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story" was released on Peacock!

Interesting story of how high school AV club nobody Francis rises to softcore(mostly) porn video tape impresario and multimillionaire. But this is just the peamble.

"Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story" is a well done mix of: The producers boiling down nine hours worth of Koul-Francis one-on-one conversations; interviews with several girls coerced into flashing their boobs while inebrieated on spring break for peanuts (a GGW T-shirt and/or a couple hundred dollars) and the negative impact it has has on their lives; and discussions with former GGW camera men(yes, surprise, all behind the cameras are men) and other GGW employees. This paints a vivid (and I must say entertaining) picture of Joseph Francis as one hell of a misogynistic sleaze bag.

Also, included is some opining of GGW's impact on overall society in general. To this reviewer, this is not definitive, but should be left to the audience, to mull over and agree or disagree.

Finally, to my surprise, no mention is made of Snoop Dogg, and his involvement both as pitchman on GGW infomercials, and host on at least one of the tapes.

As someone who didn't know much about GGW, I'm really curious around the conversation of shaping TV and porn today. Really fascinating. I think the filmmakers do a great job of portraying the negative side of this otherwise "consensual" fad, and how the exploitation of women can be skinned as empowerment. The line that stuck with me was pointing out that women might have been given confidence, but they were certainly not empowered / given power.

I agree the filmmakers are not very neutral but I think the whole damn point of this show is that we all KNOW the consensual side, of women who want to be taped. Let's talk about the coercion and criminal side.

Some reviews point out the sound mix - make sure the audio is set to STEREO not 5.1 in the Peacock app. It looks like they fixed the default but just in case you have this issue too...