Hustlers: The Real Story Behind the Movie

The article written by Jessica Pressler tells of the experiences of women who went from being strippers to criminal masterminds as they would use their wits & physical attraction to draw in wealthy men-usually ones that worked on Wall Street & were married-that they would later drug and steal thousands of dollars from. Almost immediately stated within the article is how different stripping was viewed due to third-wave feminism, as it went from being seen as degrading to “sexually liberating & financially empowering”. This could be one of the reasons why Rosie became a stripper along with her seeing how much strippers made in the documentary “G String Divas”. Rosie’s background info helped us better understand why the way she is & why she joined Samantha in “marketing”, as it explained her difficult upbringing (her parents abandoning her & her brother when they were young, getting in with the wrong crowd, dating bad men, getting into fights, eventually dropping out of school & this claim that her physique got her into trouble as well) & her need to financially provide for herself & later also her child. When describing people she worked alongside, she described their striking features, such as Samantha’s “Cleopatra black” hair. She also described some of her client’s while & after working as a stripper & compared them to being damsels in distress, as they would see these women as opportunities to vent about their lives. Their system of scamming men was working out fine until, in Rosie’s opinion, the girls got greedy as they wanted an easy “$50,000 tree” & not the forest Rosie saw. It’s not until one man with evidence that the girls scammed him were they arrested & charged. Karina, Marsi (two women involved in the scamming system Samantha & Rosie built up) & Samantha plead guilty while Rosie is awaiting trial. But, as stated early on in the article, Rosie is known to lie & after many interviews discussing this series of events with Pressler along with evidence to corroborate with it, she eventually claims that she made all of it up.

Comment ( 1 )

  1. Emma Fournier
    I really love that you included the piece on third-wave feminism being a strong influence on the beginning of this era for these women. This article was packed with so much information that it was hard to choose what to exclude, but I agree with your point that factors such as these created a heavy impact on the start of this entire operation.

Skip to toolbar