Modern Whore has maintained its buzz in Canadian film circles since its TIFF release. A documentary adaptation of longtime artistic collaborators Andrea Werhun’s and Nicole Bazuin’s photo-memoir of the same name, Modern Whore is a hyper-stylized, sometimes campy, sometimes sober world where Werhun is able to share her stories as an artist and sex worker exactly as she wants to.
I had the pleasure of talking to Werhun about the value of storytelling and sex work, especially when its personal and especially when the stories are (finally!) being told by sex workers themselves.
VERONICA: The first thing I want to talk about is how much the process of storytelling itself comes up in all of your work. I’m thinking of the movie Modern Whore, but also your memoir of the same name and your reporting work on Stripper News. Could you talk about the way telling stories helps you make sense of yourself and the work you do?
ANDREA: Damn. You know we really do exist in communion with others. And I think there’s the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, the stories we tell other people about who we are, and the stories that other people tell about us. All of these stories matter in world-building and self-building. I think in a sex work context our stories keep us safe. When you consider the fact that 99% of sex worker representation is created by people who are not sex workers, those stories and those narratives are the backbone of the legal systems that exist and continue to oppress us and make it possible and easy to harm us. It is also our stories that fundamentally protect each other when we don’t have the ability — as other workers do — to rely on legal codes or law enforcement. What we have as sex workers are the stories that are passed through whisper networks and bad date lists and communities where we can tell each other stories about the bad things that have happened to us so that they don’t happen to others. So in that sense storytelling is essential for life.
VERONICA: Do you have a dream audience for Modern Whore? Is it sex workers themselves? People who need a primer?
ANDREA: I mean I think with Modern Whore the primary audience is always going to be sex workers first and foremost. And then beyond sex workers being able to see themselves — or maybe not see themselves in the work, which is also completely valid, because what I hope Modern Whore can do is inspire sex workers to create their own artistic work, tell their own stories, challenge predominant narratives. It is sort of inevitable that something like Modern Whore, even if it’s just my narrative, can become concretized in the civilian imagination as the only narrative. Because the civilian imagination is so limited and can’t hold the possibility that we are all different individuals with different experiences. So we need more sex workers telling stories, challenging predominant narratives… Even if it’s my own narrative, challenge it. Beyond sex workers I guess it’s like, being called a whore is a relevant experience as a femme, as a woman. I think anyone who believes in sexual autonomy and freedom is an excellent audience for this work, because at the end of the day I’m fighting for my right to be myself and that includes who I am as a creative, sexual, and lowkey spiritual person. I’m a full human being, and that’s what I’m fighting for my right to be. That’s something we all ought to have a right to be, is our fullest selves.
VERONICA: Did you have a most unexpected challenge and a most unexpected joy when you were beginning to show this film to people?
ANDREA: Unexpected joy has been that it’s been relatively easy sailing, and maybe I’m jinxing myself here. Because we’ve predominantly shown this film in Canada, maybe it’s a more open-minded, chill audience who aren’t as angrily defensive about whores speaking up. I can see this not playing so well in some parts of the United States, I’m sure, but in Canada the unexpected joy has been feeling accepted. I just had such a transformative experience showing this film in Victoria, BC, where like half the room was sex workers. The way that felt was so different than any other screening, because it felt like the room was breathing at the same time. That was so unbelievably joyous and unexpected, because you never know how these things are gonna go but because of the level of recognition in the room, of all the references and all the things onscreen that only sex workers who have been in the trenches are going to understand, that was amazing. Unexpected challenge… I don’t know! That’s my privilege talking. [laughing] “I guess there’s just been no challenges at all! Oops! Like it’s hard?”
VERONICA: I love the stylization of this film, I love how it looks. Did you have a vision board cinematically for how this film looked?
ANDREA: You know, I didn’t, but Nicole [Bazuin, Modern Whore director] sure did. Nicole is a vision board whiz. She loves her mood boards. There were lots of 60s and 70s references, film noir, juicy color, campy references, all that stuff.
VERONICA: When you were adapting your memoir into a movie, what was the editorial process? How did you decide what to cut and what to keep?
ANDREA: That’s a great question. I think the primary concern with adapting a book has a lot to do with feasibility when you’re filming. Some stories don’t push the narrative along the way others do: like I wish we could have dramatized the story “Piss Guy”, for instance, but the film’s not in Smell-O-Vision so I don’t think it would have hit as hard. […] There’s interesting connection-hacks that aren’t direct adaptation per se, but for instance the story “There’s No Monogamy In The Strip Club” is about a client named Ron, and Ron is in the movie. I think we squeezed in everything we wanted to.
HIGH FEMME RAPID-FIRE QUESTION:
HF:What’s your biggest time suck online?
AW: Instagram.
HF: Favorite curse word?
AW: Fuck.
HF: Favorite perverted thing (it can be art, an object, a person, a sex act, whatever)?
AW: John Waters
HF: A sex discourse you wish you could ban?
AW: Monogamy woes. I hate cheating discourse, it’s so boring. Everyone getting more polyamorous now!
HF: Favorite book from childhood?
AW: Pass!
HF: Song of the spring?
AW: “Free Soul” Jackie Mittoo
HF: Do you call it a journal or a diary?
AW: Journal.
HF: Person dead or alive that you would ask to dinner with the sole purpose of getting to throw a drink in their face?
AW: Hunter S. Thompson
HF: Ideal nap length?
AW: Two and a half hours.
HF: Best time to write?
AW: 3 in the morning.
HF: Worst place to edit writing?
AW: My own apartment.
HF: Any opinion on any movie ever?
AW: Working Girls is the best sex worker film ever made.
