‘Girls Gone Wild’ Documentary Explores Dark History Behind Video Franchise

I never did watch a Girls Gone Wild video. They were everywhere back when I was in my early 20s. You’d see the promo commercials late at night which looked like nothing more than young women on Spring Break or night clubs showing their breasts and maybe their butts all the time.

But how much can you do that with a bunch of videos and make a fortune? Well, the question is you can’t. I didn’t realize it until I was at a friend’s apartment and their roommate was watching a video of a young woman having sex with multiple partners. And it looked like there were maybe one or two other men crossing a boundary. She was telling them no and to stop but her demeanor sounded more like a playful no. Now, I realize she was properly under the influence.

The Peacock three-part docuseries Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story shows the ugliness that happened as Joe Francis, the man behind it all, was basically making a fortune off women being sexually assaulted. And from the minute you see Francis, he looks like the type of guy who would be a date rapist, which isn’t surprising because he’s been accused of it.

Francis made money in the late 1990s with a video Banned From Television, which I also saw. It was another one of those things advertised late at night which had real footage of violent and gruesome images such as people getting shot, attacked by sharks and a woman being hit by a commuter train. There was also footage of people having sex on stage of a 2 Live Crew concert.

The Internet was still infantile in use by the public. I remember how slow it was at the library at Georgia Southern University. And no joke, there was just a lab where all you could do was check your e-mail, which was issued part of your student fees. And it was my first e-mail address. So, Francis was tapping into a desire that people admitted they want to see. Years earlier, people got VHS tapes of Faces of Death, but aside from footage of animals being slaughtered, a lot of it was fake. And then the horrible Traces of Death came out which included the suicide of R. Budd Dwyer.

Now, almost 30 years later, it’s a click away. You can find so much footage of women having sex, flashing themselves on numerous websites. But the one thing that is mostly the same about all of it is that it’s consensual. Videos that contain sexual assault only exist in the sick side of the web.

But it’s no surprise Francis wouldn’t see anything he did as wrong or illegal. He grew up in an era where “Boys will be boys” and “No actually means yes” were excused. Rapists were thought of as shady, scruffy people lurking in the shadows. People weren’t believing they were people who were your friends, your neighbors, your relatives, your church people, your school teachers and so forth. Just about every sitcom from the 1980s dealt with date rape and/or child molestation.

Yet, we still blamed the women. And that double standard is at the core of the documentary. It’s no surprise it’s been review-bombed on imdb.com with comments about how the women should’ve known better. Rape culture is more alive now than it ever was. I remember a decade ago when some high school athletes of my high school alma matter were accused of drugging and sexually a young woman at my high school alma matter, they tried to make the issue about underage drinking. It occurred at an after-prom party in a different county but the local newspaper acted like it was wrong for the school to even have a prom.

And there are still people I know who have the accused as their “friends” on social media. Joe Francis became famous and rich. He went to parties and night clubs with celebrities. And yet, he was selling porno tapes under the guise that it was just people having good time at a beach party.

Francis is only shown in archived footage. He currently lives in exile in Mexico. He doesn’t appear on screen, but we do hear him on audio. And he sounds just as cocky and arrogant as ever. Watching this documentary will make you angry as the police and judicial system tried to stop it early on in Florida near the Panama City Beach area. But the case was dismissed on a technicality. And the authorities were really too eager to get Francis and his entire production company on a RICO case but they didn’t meet all requirements.

A civil case against Francis by some of the women his company exploited doesn’t get any luck from an all-woman jury either. What took Francis down was that he said the wrong thing about the wrong man who was a lot richer than he. Timing is everything and if this documentary should make you at least angry that it seems to always come down to whether the rich and wealthy are the victims.

You can see what is happening in our current news where people are asked to be sympathetic toward Brian Thompson, the murdered CEO of UnitedHealthcare, while his company didn’t care about us. Bernie Madoff and Martin Shkreli went to prison for ripping off the rich people. When common people were screwed over by the banking and housing markets in the latter 2000s, we were told the banks were “too big to fail” and no one was really punished.

Twenty-five years ago, a bunch of women in their late teens or early 20s probably didn’t think at a hotel pool party what was going to come of taking off their top for a few seconds. Yet, we want to shame them. However, someone like Brock Turner, who is a convicted rapist who sexually assaulted a woman who was unconscious given a light sentence because his defenders said he made a mistake. I’ve even heard the same thing from covering court cases. They don’t want to ruin some man’s life.

I swear to God, I even had a guy who had been arrested, charged, tried and acquitted of sexually assaulting an underage girl try to get me to report it was because she was angry at him over something. I don’t think I ever wanted to end a phone call so much before in my life. This guy had a history and he basically got a Get Out of Jail Free card at the taxpayer’s expense.

But in many ways, the videos say more about us as a society than it does about Francis. Why did so many people buy the videos? One of the women who was underage when she was filmed said she had a teacher at her school ask her to sign the tape. That was then. Nowadays, if a teacher did such a thing now, they’d probably be fired and even be charged with possession of child porn. We can’t wag our finger at the women who were heavily under the influence of alcohol then turn around and still buy the videos when we knew Francis and his company, Mantra Films, was doing illegal things.

If you’re hoping to see some X-rated material, you won’t be satisfied. Most of the material is blurred out completely, as it should be. Showing it would just be exploiting the people all over again. While some of the workers for Mantra being interviewed express regrets with one cameraman even saying he thinks he’s going to Hell, they probably enjoyed the benefits that came with working there.

Nowadays, we have OnlyFans, Chaturbate, MyFreeCams and so many other websites where people can control their own material and still make money. They call prostitution the world’s oldest profession, but in many ways we sell our bodies for a lot of services. Look at all the coal miners who have had awful health problems while companies got rich.

There are people like Joe Francis everywhere in every profession, business and industry. The only difference is our morals make us view Francis differently from Jeffrey Bezos, Elon Musk or the Walton children.

What do you think? Please comment.