In the beginning of Hustlers we follow the lives of Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) and Destiny (Constance Wu) while they work as strippers in the nightlife industry before 2008, when money problems in America weren’t at the top of every headline. The plot begins to grip us when the market crashes in 2008 and all of the Wall Street men who previously blew a great portion of their money at the strip club now rarely visit, leaving the club’s workers scrambling for money to pay their rent, provide for their children, and, for Destiny, take care of her elderly grandmother.
After spending too long without the high wages that they had before because of the market crash, Ramona, Destiny, and some other girlfriends from the club make their way back into the industry by creating a system to cunningly drug men, bring them back to the club, and charge enormous amounts to their credit card. When they execute their plans and are done with the barely conscious men, Ramona and her girls toss them into a cab, collect their cut of the profits, and live a little more luxuriously than before.
Ramona justifies these actions to Destiny by blaming it on the men: they are the ones who caused the market to crash, they’re the ones who are responsible for the club’s lack of revenue, they’re the ones who did this all and didn’t even go to prison. Therefore, the ladies take back what was once theirs by scamming these men.
In Hustlers we want the underdogs (Ramona, Destiny, and their friends) to win. We want the women to be able to support themselves and their children and to get revenge on all the men (or men in general) who have made them feel like just an object for money. But when I took a step back and realized whom the underdogs actually were, I noticed that I was rooting for people who were drugging and scamming others, all just for money and luxury.
If a film showcased male strippers who were drugging women and taking advantage of their credit cards, there would be no audience. The movie probably wouldn’t have even got signed on by any production companies. Then why is it okay to create a movie that celebrates this attitude towards men?
At the end of the film, we see poetic justice for the ladies. The ending revealed to us that while we will cheer for the underdogs during the film, they might not always be in the right.
People who work as strippers may not have dreamed of having this occupation when they were children, but in life you’ve got to pay the bills, and at times working in a club might be the best option. Sometimes in life we just do what we have to do to get by, and this film appeared to be an accurate depiction of that.
