I don't get it. The negative review (as of May 30, 2015) confused me. Someone from outside the porn industry does not have "the right" to make a documentary about it? And Rashida Jones is extra unworthy because she grew up with money and successful parents? We're still talking about producing, right?

It would be one thing if it was ABOUT what people from outside the industry thought, or if their points of view were interjected, or if opinions--which could have ONLY come from the subjects anyway--were cherry-picked to push an agenda, but it was the complete opposite of that. IT WAS 100% OBSERVATIONAL. IT JUST SHOWED THE SUBJECT MATTER, AND LET IT DO THE TALKING. If you didn't like the documentary, it is because you didn't like what the subject matter said, not because of who produced the freak'n film.

Amateur porn. It's out there, people watch it (you may even have a tab open with some videos to choose from, don't deny it). And here, in Hot Girls Wanted, produced by Rashida Jones and directed by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus, is not about women who are trafficked in the way that they are in the documentary Tricked from a couple years ago (like this movie, that one is also on Netflix). The curious part about the stories of these girls is that they make active, voluntary choices to be in this world. They see that money can be made quickly by having sex with guys on camera, and that they can even get lots of, you know, followers on Twitter and social media. That it may also ruin their lives as far as getting other jobs or make them pariahs in their families, well, comes with the territory perhaps.

Though this is an ensemble piece, the main focus seems to be on Tressa Silguero, aka Stella May, who has just turned 19 and in from Texas to Maimi - we learn, by the way, Miami has become a bigger hub for LA due to the lack of condom restrictions - and starts to do some videos. She enjoys it, she likes the money that she can get from sex. Not so good is when she goes back home to her small Texas town and her mother knows about what she's been doing, almost from the day that she started; porn, amateur or otherwise, gets around pretty quickly in today's internet age. One of the memorable scenes in the film shows Tress and her mother just sitting on their couch and this awkward silence between them. The mother just wants her to be safe, and Tressa can't seem to talk about it very easily - and god forbid her dad should find out.

Another key figure in this doc is the guy (I forget his name) who hires nearly all of the women and sets up their shoots; he has a kind of home for them while he types away on Craigslist to get more girls. As he tells the directors, the average shelf life for these girls is six months, perhaps less, and the best they can hope for is a year in the business. The amateur porn actress is different than a porn *star*, as we learn, because of the visibility and how the amateur girl is there as a fresh face people don't know, so the longevity is different. But what's still curious, again, is how the girls get into this world knowing what this entails, that they're not pushed on to a street corner for a pimp but able to control - up to a point - how they present themselves.

The 'Up to a point' part is where things get tricky and kind of terrible, as the Latina girls are sometimes put into ugly abuse videos which, apparently, get more traffic online than one would expect, and at one point Stella May does a dominatrix/S&M scene that, as we see her afterwards, she is kind of bewildered. And she has a boyfriend as well; that was something that could've been it's own movie (and maybe is somewhere),about the guys who somehow become the 'other' for these ladies in amateur porn. At first, Tressa's guy is fine with it... until he isn't, and this becomes a conflict that expands through most of the documentary. The question then continues as: how much of this is exploitation? What happens when people are watching porn with so much more accessibility, and these women become objects for people all across the world in seconds?

It might've been good/better if the film had been longer and had taken more of a view of the business aspect; when it does, it's actually some of the more interesting parts of the movie, how this guy operates and recruits these women, how he has certain specific things he's looking for, how fast the turn-around is (by the end of the movie, there's a whole new group of girls at his house). It also nears being at times reality-show like, but I think a key thing separating this from some junk on TV is that a) the directors aren't trying to create any active drama or conflict with these girls in their house, it's closer to cinema verite if not as artful, and b) what the girls have to say to one another, aside from cutesy talk to their little dogs, is genuinely interesting as they talk about working on various jobs and what is good and definitely not so good for them.

Hot Girls Wanted presents its subjects and lets you decide how it turns out. Of course for people like Stella-cum-Tressa, there is no longevity here, but there is the gray areas of this world that I think the filmmakers don't shy away from. It doesn't say out-right, "No, young women, do NOT do this, ever, it's bad", but of course it doesn't show it as super-glamorous either. If you show up to a house with low-rent camera equipment and lighting, and the director puts character behind the 'action', you know what you're getting into.

A documentary about young women who have been drawn into the online sex trade - and how easy it is for a web-savvy generation to end up making porn.

First of all, this was produced by Rashida Jones, best known for her role on "Parks and Recreation". Who knew she had it in her to get involved with this sort of project? But it is an interesting topic. With the internet so prevalent, it becomes extra easy to access this type of material, as well as appear in it. Exactly how the money is made is unclear, and it would have been nice if they went into that more. On one occasion, it almost sounded like a way around prostitution laws -- if you film an act and make it public, it is not a crime to pay the woman $300 for her act.

Now, the unfortunate consequence of this film is that is will make the girls featured more popular. As some of them are trying to get out of the business, this film will actually increase the numbers of web searches. Videos that had a few thousand views may now get a million... with no additional income for them, but rather the companies who hired them.