Hookers (1975)

• 75%
• 1975
• George Paul Csicsery

COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) was founded in San Francisco in 1973 as a lobby to represent the rights of prostitutes. Hookers is a documentary that takes off from the first San Francisco Hookers Ball on Halloween 1974, and becomes a portrait of several COYOTE members and their founder Margo St. James as they argue for legalizing and decriminalizing prostitution. The film presents interviews with four COYOTE members who describe their work. Highlights include hidden-camera documentation on the street with one of the women, and dramatizations with the others. Parts of the film cover the goings-on at the Hookers Ball. There are cameo appearances by members of the Cockettes, satirist Paul Krassner, and various masked and unmasked San Francisco personalities of the times. Hookers was a controversial film when it was first released in 1975 because it portrays prostitutes as human beings. The film depicts a number of prostitutes as they see themselves and thus challenges the moralistic and ideological stereotypes of the "whore." Though the facts of oppression and prejudice persist and are acknowledged, the women in this film demonstrate a self-awareness that allows them to come to terms with their work. COYOTE was instrumental in helping them formulate positive attitudes about themselves, and to combat the ostracism and alienation imposed on prostitutes.