Andrea Werhun is a producer and the star of the feature film based on (and sharing a name with) her memoir, Modern Whore.Robin Cymbaly/Supplied
Last year, Sean Baker’s sex-worker story, Anora, was conquering the Oscars, while also facing its fair share of scrutiny.
Some of the criticisms were directed at striptease scenes, calling out Baker’s male gaze for ogling and indulging in the visual pleasure and titillation of Mikey Madison’s performance.
This raises the question: How do you make a movie that values sex work as work and not appreciate the fruits of that labour?
“It would be inaccurate to depict sex work on screen without that titillation,” says Canadian writer and performer Andrea Werhun. “It is an important part of what we do. Whether it’s male gaze or female gaze? That binary is not super useful in the context of depicting sex work on screen. What’s more important: Does it feel like this is the sex worker’s gaze of themselves?”
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That’s where Modern Whore, Werhun’s memoir-turned-film about her time working as a Toronto escort and then a stripper, enters the picture. The book is a collection of satirical, moving and insightful stories that cover the labour, workplace-safety issues, activism and (ever so cautiously) trauma of the job.
But the book also has moments that are about titillation and erotica. The vivid description of a steamy lap dance comes to mind. So does Nicole Bazuin’s sensual, vintage-Playboy inspired photography. Modern Whore is a book that comes complete with a nude centrefold. But in this case, the muse in the centrefold is the one telling the story.
The film is a hybrid documentary, at turns dramatic and cheeky, that touches on themes of labour, workplace safety, activism and trauma from the job of sex work.Robin Cymbaly/Supplied
That whole vibe carries over into Modern Whore, the film, which stars Werhun. She also acts as producer, along with Lauren Grant and Bazuin, who is the film’s director. Baker executive produced. After reading the book, and then calling on Werhun to be a consultant on Anora, Baker signed on to support adapting Modern Whore for the screen.
“When you have civilians who are making films about sex workers,” says Werhun, “who do the work of humanizing us, that opens the door to sex worker creators to make films at the same level, humanize our stories as well.”
Werhun and Bazuin spoke to The Globe and Mail in interviews over two years: first, on the Modern Whore set in Toronto in 2024, then on a Zoom call earlier in April. Now, they’re on the road hosting Q&As at Modern Whore screenings across Canada ahead of the May 1 digital release, with copies of the book and merch in tow. It’s an interactive option for audiences and the culmination in a decade-long project.
The pair have been friends and collaborators since meeting for the first time when they were playing go-go dancers in the 2011 music video Pop Song by Broken Bricks, which Bazuin was directing.
“It’s probably similar to how Martin Scorsese met Robert De Niro,” she jokes, recounting how Werhun showed up for the role ready to dance. “I said, ‘Oh, nice to meet you. I’m Nicole. I’m the director. And I’ll also be go-go dancing alongside you, because the other go-go dancer didn’t show up.’”
Years later they would collaborate on the book, first published in 2017, with a second “engorged” edition released in 2022 to include more backstory, as well as Werhun’s later experiences as a dancer. Meanwhile, their 2020 short films Modern Whore and Last Night at the Strip Club would serve as stepping stones toward the feature.
“I think the main difference between the book and this feature film is that in this form, in this medium, we can include the voices of others, other sex workers, but also my mom, my partner and a client,” says Werhun, while sitting in the makeup chair on set.
Werhun plays characters such as her escort alter-ego Mary Ann and her stripper alt Sophia.Robin Cymbaly/Supplied
The client, Werhun explains, is the only person who gets the witness-protection treatment, his identity disguised by shadows and voice modification. “I think that says a lot,” she continues. “Because, as sex workers, we’re certainly far more at risk of any repercussions when it comes to coming out. But clients value discretion, it turns out.”
The film itself is a hybrid documentary, where talking-head interviews are paired with re-creations. Yes, it’s dramatic, but also comical and cheeky, with a heightened and surreal visual style and a penchant for breaking the fourth wall. This is a movie that’s laying bare the illusion, artificiality and performance not just in sex work but also in its own making.
Werhun plays characters such as her escort alter-ego Mary Ann and her stripper alt Sophia. When I’m on set, she’s Mary Ann, wearing a short red dress and platforms, strutting in front of a volume wall, which is a large, enveloping screen that serves as a backdrop.
The volume is projecting Toronto’s busy Sankofa Square. Bazuin, hiding in the back behind a ball cap and frames, calls out cues as a crew member with a leaf blower mimics the wind, tossing Werhun’s hair around. It takes a few attempts, Werhun fighting off hair flapping into her face, before she nails a flirtation with the camera.
Bazuin calls the volume wall a “game changer,” replacing the need for their low-budget feature to shoot at multiple locations, from busy streets to hotel rooms, by pulling those sceneries up digitally instead. This allowed them to “run the gamut stylistically,” adds Bazuin, citing the film noir aesthetics they channel when Werhun plays the femme fatale or a field full of marigolds when she’s giving divine sex goddess.
Modern Whore is set for a May 1 digital release, and Werhun is being joined by director Nicole Bazuin for a series of Q&As at screenings across Canada.Robin Cymbaly/Supplied
On top of the noir aesthetics, Modern Whore also draws on fifties melodramas and seventies grindhouse. The film invokes, engages and satirizes the ways those genres have depicted sex work in the past. “The question about whether sex workers are ever granted the ability to be portrayed as anything more than victims or villains is an important trope for us to challenge, when it’s clear that we’re just people who are using this industry to make money and survive a capitalist hellscape,” says Werhun.
I ask how much has changed since Modern Whore was published, as far as sex work and representation goes. Werhun points to the progress grassroots organizations in Toronto have made, creating events like Sapphic Nights, which are regular pop-up queer strip clubs, or recent efforts to push back against Toronto bylaws restricting new strip clubs, including plans to open a safe and empowering new venue run by dancers.
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I mention the emergence of OnlyFans, which has widened the pool of content creators, many engaging in a form of sex work tourism, and even more movies and TV shows recently featuring sex worker characters – though not necessarily with actors or writers with lived experience involved. In the next month alone, we’ll see online sex work featured in new seasons of Beef and Euphoria; Margot’s Got Money Problems, starring Elle Fanning as an OnlyFans model; and Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, in which Tatiana Maslany plays a struggling mom lured into a murder plot by a cam boy.
“That visibility doesn’t necessarily translate into rights,” says Werhun, “whether that’s human rights and our ability to access justice or our need to have access to labour rights and having our work recognized as work.
“There’s a lot of different marginalized people you can ask about the pros and cons of visibility. Visibility doesn’t necessarily make us safe.”
Editor’s note: Lauren Grant's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story. This story has been updated.