How HBO’s ‘The Deuce’ Avoids Crossing the Line Into Sexual Exploitation
“As a couple of straight, middle-aged white guys… we were destined to fail unless we got help,” showrunner George Pelecanos tells TheWrap
Carli Velocci | September 12, 2017 @ 3:57 PM
Last Updated: September 12, 2017 @ 4:53 PM
HBO
“The Deuce,” the latest HBO drama from the showrunners of “The Wire,” is a series about pornography and sex work. So, by nature, it’s pretty explicit.
In the first episode alone there are multiple sex scenes featuring both male and female nudity — genitalia included — along with scenes of sex workers attempting to titillate potential customers.
However, there were worries that “The Deuce” would go the way of other HBO shows and cross the line between dramatization and exploitation. For showrunners David Simon and George Pelecanos, it was out of the question to sanitize raw looks at the industry they’re depicting.
“You had to show what you were talking about but you had to show the shooting of pornography. We couldn’t just talk about it in dialogue,” Pelecanos said in a recent phone interview with TheWrap.
Given the sensitive subject, the show’s creators have been mindful to not cross the line into sexual exploitation, especially of marginalized groups, to serve the narrative.
“We were aware of that from the beginning, what a minefield it was,” Pelecanos said. “That was one of the reasons why David and I developed for almost three years before we shot the pilot.”
The concern is valid. “Game of Thrones” and “Westworld” have received criticism concerning their depictions of sexual violence and nudity. The former has specifically been taken to task for what many deemed to be excessive violence, mainly against women.
And “The Deuce” contains a lot of this, just by nature of its subject material. Beside the nudity, there are multiple scenes featuring abuse, whether it’s from a customer to his sex worker or from a pimp to his prostitute.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) issued a statement on Aug. 28 saying that “The Deuce” is yet another example of HBO normalizing nudity and sexual violence.
“The producers of ‘The Deuce’ need to use mental origami to convince themselves and others that this show is anything but egregiously exploitive misogyny,” said executive director and president Dawn Hawkins. “The topic of New York City’s 1970’s pornography and prostitution industries need not be depicted as a form of television entertainment. The point of the show is not to educate or enlighten, but to entertain, and ultimately, the substance of that entertainment is the sexual exploitation of women.”
There’s also the societal conversation surrounding misogyny, which ramped up during the 2016 election. Pelecanos specifically noted future President Donald Trump’s comments about being able to grab women “by the p—y” when discussing how he and Simon approached doing the show and how it raised concerns among the staff and among the two showrunners about how women were viewed.
HBO
However, while anger-inducing, current events had a positive effect on the crew, along with other moves that made the behind-the-scenes world of “The Deuce” more balanced.
“It jacked up some of the players,” Pelecanos explained. “It sort of affected what we were doing. People got passionate about making this show.”
The show’s leaders also packed the writers’ room with a diverse group of women, people of color, and gay and transgender people. They knew, specifically, getting women on board was important, which is why half the episodes were directed by women. Michelle McLaren, best known for directing episodes of “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones,” directed the pilot.
“We had all kinds of people in the room because we wanted to represent a panorama of characters,” Pelecanos continued. “David and I knew as a couple of straight, middle-aged white guys that no matter what our intentions were… we were destined to fail unless we got help.”
The writers’ room also included consultants directly from the porn industry, sex work, law enforcement, journalism, and other fields that would be depicted in the show. In fact, the story behind “The Deuce” was taken from a man who ran a bar in Times Square during the 1970s. Pelecanos wouldn’t provide his name since the man died before the pilot was shot, but said his life’s story made it into the show in the form of James Franco’s twin characters Vincent and Frankie.
Pelecanos and Simon also gave Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays Eileen “Candy” Merrell, a sex worker who gets into the world of film pornography, input on her character. Granted, she was a credited producer, but that wasn’t just a title. He said that the actress would give notes on what Candy would be like, such as how she views pornographic movies. (“She’s an artist at heart,” Pelecanos said Gyllenhaal suggested).
At the Television Critics Association press tour back in July, Gyllenhaal commented on concerns of misogyny, but agreed with the showrunners that the way it was handled was appropriate.
“I think it’s become clear in a way that maybe it wasn’t totally clear a year ago that there is a huge amount of misogyny in the world. I think we thought we were in a better place than we were,” she said. “Here we have this opportunity to pick it up and lay it on the table and to do it in a way that’s thoughtful and smart, and also real.”
Ultimately, as with the duo’s previous work on “The Wire,” it was essential to keep the focus consistent. The point of “The Deuce” isn’t to show off women’s bodies or capitalize on shock value — just like “The Wire” wasn’t just about drug use or the drama surrounding it. Pelecanos made it clear that “The Deuce” is about business and history, a culture’s relationship with pornography — and how a specific era in New York impacted that culture for decades to come.
“I’m really interested in how things work,” he explained. “One of the best things that ‘The Wire’ did was it showed you why things affect people the way they did. The people who do the work at the bottom benefit the least.”
In a potential Season 2, Pelecanos and Simon hope to discuss how politics got involved in the origins of film porn.
“Everyone realized that the money about to be made was going to be real. So what happened to those people who were the pioneers?” Simon said at TCA in July. “I was much less interested in whether porn was good or bad, just like on ‘The Wire’I wasn’t concerned whether drugs were bad or good… I was interested in how a product becomes a product and an industry becomes an industry, and how labor is treated.”
The difference is, in the case of pornography and sex work, people are selling flesh.
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16. “True Detective” Though it struggled in its second season, “True Detective” benefits from star-studded casting and a willingness to let flawed characters breathe on screen. Especially in the first season, strong dialogue and believable performances catapult “True Detective” beyond the usual crime drama to become something special.
15. “Sex and the City” Telling the stories of four women in New York, “Sex and the City” broadened portrayals and storylines for women, and was often hilarious in doing so. The show was nominated for 50 Emmys during its six-season run and took down seven, and managed to spawn two movies after the fact.
14. “Girls” Lena Dunham’s comedic look at New York Millennials trying to figure out their lives is consistently funny and off-beat, while digging into territory that other comedies might stay clear of. Though its critical reception can sometimes be fraught, the show also manages to tap elements that feel like part of the Millennial experience.
13. “Flight of the Conchords” An off-beat comedy about two New Zealanders trying to make it as a novelty band in New York, “Flight of the Conchords” is full of awkward jokes and awesome songs. It’s consistently hilarious and completely weird. Also, Jemaine Clement spends half of one episode playing a great David Bowie.
12. “Six Feet Under” “Six Feet Under” is about death and trying to figure out life. Mixing drama with dark comedy, it’s one of those series where the characters (living or dead) get under your skin. Though its subject matter means there’s plenty of sadness, the efforts of a family to find themselves and carry each other through are always resonant as well.
11. “The Night Of” “The Night Of” tells a depressing story of how easily life and the American legal system can get out of control. One bad night and protagonist Naz finds himself arrested for murder, thrown into the prison system and fighting for survival. “The Night Of” is a powerful look at how the effects of Naz’s arrest ripple out to other people in his life.
10. “Westworld” Sure, it took a while to get rolling, and maybe fans predicted every single twist. But “Westworld” is full of cool characters, robots achieving sentience, and people dying horribly. And don’t forget the many power-grabs, political machinations, and robot uprisings.
9. “Deadwood” You could call this “The Al Swearengen Show” and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. “Deadwood” dives into the Western with a phenomenal cast, some genuinely funny writing, and a lot of frontier not-quite-legal drama. Life is not great in the Old West, but at least it’s interesting to watch.
8. “Band of Brothers” Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced this 10-episode, character-driven account of an American paratrooper company in World War II. It’s desperate, horrifying and hopeful by turns, capturing the conflict with an incredibly human look inside it.
7. “Insecure” Issa Rae pulls comedy and relatability out of a host of topics, like struggling to figure out what she wants out of life, dealing with her career and her love life, and the expectations that come with being a black woman. The show adds perspective to the tough realities of modern life, while constantly being very funny.
6. “Veep” A comedy about a clueless (vice) president just trying to get by was more of a cute idea last year. That said, “Veep” has a killer, hilarious cast and fast, funny writing, which is why it has won 12 Emmys (with 42 nominations) over its five seasons. Julia Louis-Dreyfus in particular is always phenomenal, but it's the speed and viciousness of the writing that makes "Veep" so fun.
5. “The Larry Sanders Show” Another landmark comedy, Garry Shandling’s series helped set the table for shows like “30 Rock,” while also cementing HBO’s place as a leader in quality TV. The series’ satirical look behind the scenes of a fictional talk show is also hilarious in its own right, and garnered three Emmy wins and 56 nominations over six seasons.
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3. “The Sopranos” It’s almost 20 years old, but there’s a reason “The Sopranos” is still regarded as highly as it is. The story of Tony Soprano trying to figure out his life, deal with his family, balance a ruthless mobster business and take care of ducks helped kick off our current age of great television.
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