Cam (2018). Netflix.
Netflix’s cyber psychodrama Cam deserves to be at the top of your watch list. A neon-lit thriller examining the fragile boundaries between online fantasy and IRL repercussions, it follows cam girl Alice (played by Madeline Brewer, who also starred in The Handmaid Tale) after her work persona and clients are stolen by a digital doppelgänger. Frustrated by the sudden loss of her livelihood, she embarks on a quest to track down the identity thief. A series of dead-ends ensues, sketchy cops and run-ins with abusive clients before a final bloody showdown. Although, on one level, it’s a zeitgeisty take at the double lives we all lead on the internet, the insight it provides into the daily realities of online sex work is its greatest strength.
Although it broadly works within the genre conventions of horror, Cam dedicates a substantial portion of its running time to profiling Alice as an ambitious freelancer. We watch her pour time, creativity and hard work into ascending the ranks on her chosen cam site — only to see her hard-won following snatched away without a moment’s notice. It confounds the misplaced notion that sex work is “easy money” and has some serious things to say about the lack of protection out there to safeguard webcam models. For example, when Alice calls the help centre for the site she works for, we see that the support on offer is impersonal and ineffectual. When she changes her approach and calls the police, she’s subject to the reductive and fetishising gaze of two men, who, rather than listen to her claims, ask: “What’s the weirdest thing someone’s paid you to do?”
What might surprise you, given how few feature films depicting sex workers are actually written by sex workers, is that these incidents are inspired by scriptwriter Isa Mazzei’s own experiences of camming. Whilst this helps inform the film’s razor-sharp analysis of sex workers’ social precarity, it’s also likely why Alice’s character is drawn with such depth, and why her job is treated as, just that, a job. Absent from Cam are the polarised perspectives that tend to taint representations of sex workers — depicting them as either tragic, “fallen women” or hardened women of high-glamour. The film avoids adopting a moralistic or sensationalist tone, and is notable for breaking cinema’s silence on the world of webcam models. Can cam girls, however, see their own realities reflected in some of the movie’s scenarios? Is Cam’s depiction of the webcamming profession an accurate one, or is it still skewed by creative license? In order to get to the bottom of this, we spoke to Sam*, an American visual artist who has previously worked as a webcam model.
Cam (2018). Netflix.
For those of you who’ve heard the word “camming” thrown around but aren’t exactly in the know, I will break it down. Webcam models — often referred to as “cam girls” when female or femme-presenting — interact with site visitors via live stream or private, one-to-one video chats. As porn performers struggle to make a living in the age of free content and tube sites, camming has sprung up as an alternate facet of sex work. Whilst it’s now a more viable source of income than other forms of online sex work, Sam explains that it can still be hard to maintain a regular cash flow or keep track of how much you’re earning. “When you work in the camming industry you don’t exactly have a wage, as most sites use a tipping system so you never know how much you will make that day or week,” explains Sam. Cam reflects this: while Alice is making sizeable amounts of money, she can only do this through sustained hard work, and rarely has time to switch off. Like any freelancer or independent contractor, there’s no real separation between her home life and work life. Even when she’s not broadcasting, she’s constantly brainstorming new ideas for her shows, messaging fans, and doing all she can to grow her platform.
And what about the lack of protection that Alice encounters? Don’t sites do anything to safeguard the individuals working via their channel? As it would turn out, the answer is a resounding no. As Sam clarifies: “There are no real protections provided from adult cam sites for the model. When you sign up to be a model on their site you must sign an agreement that you acknowledge that you are neither an employee or agent of the company. This contract essentially makes you an independent contractor, protecting their service from any liabilities. There’s really not much protection for webcam models at all, if anything, all the services do is protect themselves. When you sign up to be a cam girl, you are essentially signing off the agency of your body and who sees it.”
Cam (2018). Netflix.
Whilst sites do next to nothing for their models’ welfare, there are some legal provisions in place in the US to safeguard cam girl’s content — they just happen to be highly ineffective. “The only tangible protection that I know of is the digital millennium copyright act. The DMCA is a law that prevents individuals and other websites from redistributing your content. But with or without the protection there are always leaks”. As Sam explains, it’s exceedingly common for unauthorised footage of cam girls’ performances to be spread online without their consent. “From my experience there is always at least one person recording you and uploading it onto public and private domains. Adult web and cam services like chaturbate and myfreecams don’t do anything to really prevent this from happening and it’s one of the most frustrating breaches of my privacy,” reveals Sam.
The disorientating experience of your face and body being viewed and shared without your consent, or even knowledge, is no doubt an inspiration behind Cam’s digital double premise. This insidiously malevolent piracy practice is one that robs webcam models of their agency and constitutes a painful violation of privacy. The fact that viewers do this, without a second thought for the model whose content they are pirating, is symptomatic of a wider cultural problem where sex workers are routinely dehumanised and undervalued. Cam’s humane portrayal and clear calls for audience identification is a small step towards counterbalancing these problematic social attitudes.
Ultimately, Cam ends on a hopeful note: Alice beats her doppelgänger in a game of wits and starts camming afresh under a different alias. Whilst this is a testament to the character’s resilience, it also sets the tone for future media representations of the sex industry. If more films were to follow Cam’s example, rather than recycle outdated tropes, we might be able to create constructive dialogue around sex work and ultimately change attitudes for the better.
Cam is available to stream now via Netflix.
* Name has been changed