Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story

A brother and his sister arguing-

*Brother* : You've been on this, what makes you think you would do stuff like this?

_shows her the tape_

*Sister* : Oh shut up! I can do what I want; I can be what I want to be and I respect my own individuality, unlike you and what you know about women empowerment? "this" empowers us.

*Brother* : This... is women empowerment now?

*Sister* : Yes! Of course you don't know anything about it cause you're a man after all and dudes at GGW respects us and understands us, till the likes of you! _says as she puts her makeup and does her hair_

*Brother* : GGW dudes, promotes women empowerment...!!!?? _places his palm in his face_

*Sister* : All done. Now, get out of the way! _shoves him_ I've parties to be in, hate you byeee.

*Brother* : _Waites for a while... then breaks the tape in severe frustration. Makes his way to the bathroom to cut himself_

A family watching late night TV-

*Announcer* : Do you like to watch parts that jiggle? Yes you do! _girl flashes_

*Mom, Dad, Daughter* : _All three of them mouth open and shocked_

*Mom* : we all make mistakes *Daughter* : _Nods as she agrees_ *Dad* : Yeah, hopefully no one saw it.

Alright jokes aside, I had no idea what the hell GGW is or was till I found out about this documentary. Definitely not from my generation even if these girls flashed at babies cause flashing was so empowering back then, including that wouldn't let me remember either.

Apparently, Joe Francis was the guy I believe, who shaped early 2000's pornography by selling out random young white, yellow-headed American girls by promoting the ideas of "women empowerment" I have no idea, how I could let myself to put that sentence differently. And yes, this girls were totally random and they would do anything to be 'cool' and be on 'TV' all just for a hat and they weren't paid either. Joe takes advantage of their innocence and their little to no requirements and builds himself a huge empire of GGW, while he sits at his ivory tower, while someone else's daughter or sister randomly gets picked up from parties for their softcore empowering performance without being paid.

And as the social media came along in the future GGW went down and platforms like OnlyScam, InstaThots or BangChat where ideas of innocence teared into a sort of fantasy while putting lots of people (men) into a huge credit debt. As lots of women empower themselves by independently creating content of their own while sitting at their ivory tower, simps started to make a living in the streets.

And there you have it, what goes around comes around huh?

This is a heartfelt thoughtful expose of Girls Gone Wild and namely one man Joe Francis. How could one man cause such destruction to people's lives? He is diabolical. But there was just the right turn of events to enable him to ride a tsunami of celebrity, late night commercials, spring break foolishness and money into oblivion. That's why this documentary is useful and interesting. Maybe the tidal wave can happen again. I'm sure it will, taking innocent people under. The show is well done, well researched and shocking beyond belief. The nail in the coffin is his marriage, and how bad he was to his wife.

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.

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.

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.