DVD Review: Tricked

Tricked is a documentary on prostitution, with a focus on young women who are forced into it, and the efforts to get them out. It centers on Danielle Douglas, a woman who was forced into prostitution at the age of seventeen when she was at Northeastern in Boston. She is quite open and frank about her experiences. She talks a bit about how it happened, and it’s interesting that it began with the man acting like her boyfriend. Danielle says: “I think that I was looking for love, and to me at that point in my life love meant sex. I didn’t really know what love meant. I just knew that sex got me attention, and attention got me something that I thought was close to love.”

There are interviews with other prostitutes, including Rain, who says she started when she was eleven years old. You can’t help but be affected when you hear her say: “My pimp took my virginity and I fell in love with him. He was my first love, he was my first everything.” And Cindy displays a tattoo of her pimp’s name. What’s interesting is that the film also interviews several johns and pimps, including Slim, a pimp who thinks of himself as a good person because he helps his girls out with various things. He also says it’s safer for him to sell women than to sell drugs. It’s the women who are taking the risks; the pimps, as they admit, often stay at home.

The filmmakers also interview people in law enforcement, focusing on two men: Daniel Steele, of the Denver police department, and Chris Baughman, of the Las Vegas police department. Chris Baughman has some interesting things to say. He points out, “We also have a slogan of ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ which I don’t particularly care for because it gives people the idea that you can come here, do whatever you want, and go home, and then there’s no mess left to clean up.” He also mentions how people coming into his city believe prostitution is legal, and get into trouble because of that. He’s one of the most well-spoken interview subjects. Daniel Steele comes across as at times a bit of a braggart and a self-appointed savior. Mitch Morrissey, a district attorney in Denver, talks about how these are difficult cases to prosecute.

The oddest interview subject is Debbie, “The Pimp Cup Lady,” a religious weirdo who wears a goofy wig and makes drinking cups to sell to pimps. She demonstrates how she anoints and prays over each cup. “After the cup is made, then I leave it on this altar for seven days, saying, ‘My father, God, holy father, I ask you in the name of Jesus to touch this individual…’” Also interesting is the footage of the Players’ Ball, where the women are forced to look down at the floor as they file in. Danielle talks about her experience there, and it’s something I’d never heard of before.

The filmmakers clearly have an agenda, and though it is an admirable one, as a result the film can be a bit heavy-handed in some respects. An example is the way people are labeled on screen. Danielle is called a “former sex slave,” and at one point there is footage of a suspected pimp being arrested. And though he is claiming innocence, the film labels him “pimp,” which feels a bit like judge and jury rather than documentary.

Special Features

The DVD includes four bonus scenes, totaling approximately seventeen minutes. One of these scenes is an interview with a professional dominatrix, who provides a perspective on consensual sex work, something that is missing from the film. Another scene features Daniel Steele traveling to Sweden to learn how the approach to prostitution works in that country. In Sweden, it’s legal to sell sex, but illegal to purchase it. So the women don’t go to jail, and are even allowed to keep the money they make, but the johns are arrested. That seems a bit unfair to me, but it’s based on the idea that the women are victims and should be helped, not punished. However, it also seems like an easy way for women to make some money without having to do anything at all.

Another of the bonus scenes is about prostitution at the Super Bowl, and it includes a title card which reads: “10,000 prostitutes were brought to the Miami Super Bowl in 2010, many of them minors. 133 underage prostitutes were arrested during the Dallas Super Bowl in 2011.” The fourth bonus scene is actually a collection of several short scenes of operations to arrest prostitutes and johns.

The bonus features also include biographies of filmmakers Jane Wells (who is referred to as a “documentary filmmaker and activist”) and John-Keith Wasson, plus – surprisingly – subjects Danielle Douglas, Daniel Steele and Christopher Baughman.

Tricked was directed by Jane Wells and John-Keith Wasson, and is scheduled to be released on DVD on February 3, 2015 through First Run Features.