Response to “The Hustlers: The Real Story Behind The Movie” by Olivia Davila

The article “The Hustlers: The Real Story Behind the Movie” gives us a glimpse into the lives of strippers who are way smarter than society makes them out to be. We are introduced to Rosie and Samantha. Samantha took Rosie under her wing so that they could both work together in making more money by also drugging and scamming men that visited the strip club. Pressler gives a little background on Rosie and Samantha’s lives to help us understand where they came from and why they started striping. Rosie was caught up in the wrong crowd in high school and was a troublemaker. However, she was good at math and made some money selling candy bars at school. It is also mentioned that Rosie had a curvy body which prompted her into getting in trouble. Samantha, on the other hand, was one of the club’s top moneymakers. She was a single mother from the Bronx. Samantha was seen as “ancient” in the stripper world because she is 30 years old, but that doesn’t stop her from making money. She takes the younger strippers and makes them more money by teaching them her skills. Throughout the article, there are many shared beliefs. It was thought that any man from wall street had money and that most of the men were assholes even if they were married. it also got to a point where the girls “… stop believing men are real”. The goal was to make as much money as possible. So the women would go from changing their appearance to drugging and scamming the men. Pressler vividly describes her informants by describing each of their appearances and past.

Comments ( 3 )

  1. Asadullah Bin Amir
    I think you did a fantastic job answering all three points in this blog post, but just to clarify are you saying that the author used her informants past in order to portray who they are now, or what caused them to take such actions?
  2. Sharon Leal
    I agree that these women were a lot smarter than one would think which I believe made it all that much easier to scam the men and keep up this long con. Also, the descriptions you provided were great because thats what made the men more susceptible to being scammed, it didn't matter than Samantha overdid it with plastic surgery or was too old, she had beautiful girls around her which came from her expertise in the stripping world and how she cultivated young beautiful women in the past.
  3. bethanie corona
    Nice job showing how Pressler uses the theme of appearences and what may seem to be in your post. I also like how you pointed out the common belief amongst the strippers that "any man from wall street had money and that most of the men were assholes even if they were married." so the girls began to “… stop believing men are real”. This really helped explain why the scheme felt almost easy and guilt-free as an insider perspective in the women's heads.

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