Looking back at the seminal Hookers on Davie, screening in a new restoration at The Cinematheque
Still relevant, the 1984 documentary was a radical achievement in queer and feminist filmmaking and sex work advocacy
The Cinematheque presents Hookers on Davie on July 28 at 6:30 pm and on July 30 at 8:40 pm
AS CAPTURED IN the groundbreaking local documentary Hookers on Davie, Vancouver’s West End is unrecognizable to anyone who didn’t live or work there in the early ’80s.
Once a veritable red light district, the West End was home to a vibrant, self-governed community of cis, trans, and self proclaimed drag queens working as street sex workers. On any given day, from noon through to 4 am, up to 150 sex workers could be found plying their trade along streets and alleyways in and around David Street. The community was eventually expelled in the early 1980s by anti-prostitution bills and police crackdowns, and pushed into the Downtown Eastside.
In light of the upcoming screening of the new restoration of of Janis Cole and Holly Dale’s 1984 documentary at The Cinematheque–just a short walk away from where its subjects lived and worked–it’s worth revisiting the context in which the film was produced and released, and its modern legacy.
Since its release 38 years ago, Hookers has become a seminal text in local history, and in the national cinema verité documentary canon.
Filmmmakers Cole and Dale spent eight months researching sex work in major North American cities. They ultimately settled on Vancouver, then considered the “prostitution capital” of the country, and connected with a group of sex workers who eventually consented to being recorded and interviewed.
In sharp contrast to the moralistic and anti-prostitution media landscape it was produced in, the film takes care never to patronize its subjects, opting to let them tell their own stories. It highlights their humour, warmth, and efforts to organize and protect one another from predators and preserve a pimp-free work environment. The focus on the agency and mutual support among women is what makes Hookers on Davie groundbreaking, and the film’s choice to focus on and centre the stories of trans and gender-nonconforming sex workers earns it a place in queer Canadian film history.
Hookers isn’t an easy watch by any means, replete with heartbreaking personal anecdotes of alienation and abuse. Many of its subjects describe having been involved in sex work since adolescence, and their interviews are deeply unsettling; multiple interviews throughout the film detail the predation and assault that the women faced as minors, and in one of its most disquieting scenes, a sex worker named Tiffany shows her bruises to the camera while recounting being attacked by a client. Nonetheless, the film never opts to sensationalize or decry its subjects or their profession; anecdotes of abuse and assault from violent Johns are juxtaposed with group gatherings among friends in a local restaurant, or joking on a street corner while waiting for clients. There is joy and profound intimacy to be found even in the bleakness it portrays, and rather than indulging in the worker’s traumas or using them for shock value, Cole and Dale paint vivid portraits of their subjects’ rich inner lives and celebrate their camaraderie and resistance.
It would be remiss to discuss Hookers on Davie without taking note of the purge that occurred in the following years. The legal restrictions and eventual expulsion of the Davie Street sex workers can be described as a death by a thousand cuts, with increasingly severe policies and policing culminating in a violent expulsion. Then Mayor Mike Harcourt’s self described “war on hookers” effectively began in 1981, with the construction of traffic circles and street blockages to deter Johns, and in the years that followed local press, lawmakers, and anti-prostitution lobbies participated in campaigns to smear and demonize sex workers. This culminated in the prohibition of street sex work in the neighborhood, and law enforcement eventually forced it out of the area to “clean up” the downtown in preparation for the World’s Fair, Expo 1986.
The purge was also found to have exacerbated violence against the expelled sex workers: in its aftermath, 65 women–disproportionately Indigenous–forced into the Downtown Eastside by the crackdown went missing and murdered. Survivors were only granted official recognition and redress from the city in 2015 after years of lobbying, and in 2016 the city unveiled a memorial plaque for the West End sex workers on Jervis Street.
Hookers on Davie is nothing short of a radical achievement in queer and feminist documentary filmmaking and sex work advocacy, and continues to remain relevant in sex work scholarship and advocacy. Decades after its release, the issues discussed in the film remain evergreen; prostitution is still illegal in Canada, and sex-worker collectives across the country continue to protest discriminatory and restrictive legislation. While the city of Vancouver has officially recognised the harm caused by the criminalization and attempted to take proactive measures to improve the health and safety of sex workers, sex work advocacy organisations in BC have universally spoken out against current laws that criminalize sex work and contribute to a culture of discrimination, legal barriers, harassment, and police brutality.
Aside from being a deeply compelling piece of documentary filmmaking, Hookers on Davie serves as an invaluable historical record of a lost community, and a prime example of ethical and empathetic representation of marginalized subjects.
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