Hustlers

Part of the special series Feminist Frames

New York in the late 2000s: Stripper Destiny (Constance Wu, Crazy Rich Asians) is trying to get established at the club “Moves.” She has to support her grandmother (Wai Ching Ho), who raised her. The business is incredibly tough—an enormous percentage of the money earned from exhausting Wall Street cokeheads quickly ends up back in the outstretched hands of sleazy men offering “services” (protection, a spot in the club, drugs, “a listening ear”).

Destiny meets strip-club queen Ramona Vega (Jennifer Lopez), who takes her under her wing—training with her at the pole (to Chopin), and, together with a colleague (Cardi B), showing her how things really work: slow things down, make eye contact over your shoulder with the client.

“You want them drunk enough to get their credit card but sober enough to sign their checks,” Ramona explains. She introduces Destiny to the different types of Wall Street clients—the ones who don’t have money but spend it anyway; the middle group who prefer to keep their hands clean; and “then there’s the motherfuckers on top,” as Ramona puts it: “CEOs, CFOs, investment bankers, hedge fund guys, axe murderers.” They come in through the back entrance, take the private elevator, and sit in the only room without surveillance cameras. They spend $10,000 to $15,000 a night.

“They can be degrading, possessive, aggressive, violent, and they never get in any trouble, because everyone’s willing to cover their tracks—because deep down they all want what they’ve got. They all wanna be on top … where there are no consequences.” In other words, the kind of men now being discussed in the Epstein files.

In 2014, journalist Elizabeth (Julia Stiles) investigates what happened after the beginning of this extraordinary friendship. The 2008 financial crisis also marks the end of an era for many strippers—they lose their best clients. New dancers offer much more for much less money. So Ramona, Destiny, and their colleagues Mercedes (Keke Palmer) and Annabelle (Lili Reinhart, Riverdale) adapt: using a tested mix of MDMA and ketamine, they first cloud their clients’ minds—and then empty their credit cards.