![]() And, in interviews, she professes to take seriously her responsibility to represent women and make movies for them. After all, in an industry where women direct fewer than ten percent of films produced, Scafaria’s position at the helm does amount to an advance. Sold on empowerment and social criticism, we find ourselves once again subject to big-budget Hollywood’s disempowering male and consumerist gaze and its propensity for cashing in on contemporary sociopolitical anxieties while buffing them into shiny products that reiterate the status quo. I hate to say it, but I think we’re being hustled. With all the subtlety of a strip club billboard, Hustlers taps into the zeitgeist, especially the #MeToo movement and popular political candidates’ language about a “rigged economy.” The film’s stripper-protagonists are modern-day Robin Hoods, stealing from filthy-rich misogynistic cads in order to keep their struggling families afloat. It’s about women owning their power and turning the tables on the patriarchy. Boasting an all-female marquee that includes superstar Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu, along with music industry heavy hitters Cardi B and Lizzo, Hustlers is a movie made by women and for women, we are told. According to the film’s publicity and plenty of critical acclaim, the film is serving up a feast of female empowerment and a scathing critique of (gendered) economic inequality. Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, Hustlers is inspired by a true story about a group of strippers who successfully conspired to fleece their Wall Street banker clients after the 2008 financial collapse.
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