Editor,

This Saturday is International Women’s Day, except you would not know it.

“Anora,” the most insidious sexist, anti-female movie I have seen in a long time won multiple Academy Awards. The film ostensibly attempts to show how sex workers are objectified while overtly objectifying the main character. Anora, called Ani, is smart enough to know she should have worker’s compensation in her occupation but is too disenfranchised to realize that the selfish son of a Russian oligarch, Ivan, is using her for his own gratification.

Sean Baker, director, obsessively provided us with countless soft porn scenes in which Ani bares nearly her entire body, presumably due to regulatory constraints, while dancing provocatively for the men that pay her for sex. When she speaks with her customers, her voice is oh-so-sweet but when she converses with her fellow sex workers, Ani dons a thick Brooklyn/Bronx accent to portray her uneducated upbringing.

Ivan asked Ani to marry him because he is receiving the best sex ever and wants to be a U.S. citizen. We see that he is an alcoholic, a drug addict and so obviously self-involved. Ivan and Ani galavant around New York drinking and drugging and we see Ani’s over-the-top suggestive outfits revealing various parts of her body. When they are at home in Ivan’s parents’ New York mansion, a couple of shots depict Ivan playing his video games while Ani yearns for attention. The only way she secures his attention is by initiating sex. The sex scenes between them are completely devoid of Ani’s pleasure.

Throughout the movie, Ani just cannot discern who her allies are, including a Russian hit man, Igor, who is kind to her while Ivan’s family forces her, with a $10,00 reward, to annul her Las Vegas marriage to Ivan. When his parents catch up to the wayward Ivan, he tells Ani that she is stupid and that of course, they must get an annulment.

If there is any group of women in the world, it is sex workers who acutely understand the difference between sex and love. They engage in loveless sex every day for their income. Sean Baker uses actor Mikey Madison, who plays Ani, the same way Ivan uses Ani to objectify her and further the message that sex workers are unintelligent, unwise, foolish and weak. Shame on you, Sean Baker, for obfuscating your sexist script as a Cinderella story. During your speech at the Academy Awards, you urged people to support independent movies. I paid $10 to sit in Anora for over two hours to be enormously offended and enraged and I want my money back.

Cynthia G. Starkey

Langley