Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story

It seems as if this documentary mini series should have been made years ago. From this point in time, it does not seem to be much of an audience for those who genuinely care about this story. We remember there was a brief mini series episode in 2022 of the Rich & Shameless which briefly covered this.

Some of the newer revelations is that there were underaged girls on camera during the beginning stages of the franchise. It was clear the cameramen and overall team of the crew weren't experienced or else these problems wouldn't have happened. The girls themselves should have known better as well. This mini series is rather quite bias towards the women "victims" documenting some of these women roughly twenty or so years later.

This mini series also reminds us how big the franchise was during its peak days, with many celebrities supporting them with merchandise and with Joe Francis himself being close with a few of them. The main reason as to why this entire franchise ultimately failed was because of the rise of social media, easier access to free adult sites and also them using real girls as opposed to adult star actresses (however that is of course what made their foundation stand out and feel authentic).

In the end, it may be eye opening to those completely unfamiliar with the situation but for a majority of people, it doesn't cover too much new ground. It is a memory lane/ nostalgia type series.

Still trying to find the part where I'm supposed to feel bad about women making adult decisions and exposing themselves. At no part did I see a camera man hold up a gun to their heads and force them to show their breasts. Per usual it's naive women who want to have a good time and only regret their decision because of embarrassment and or how they will be viewed by friends and loved ones. This is a tired old story everyone knows how it ends man bad women good. Eerie music and dark lighting makes it more sinister than actually is. Zero accountability or personal responsibility was very taken for the so called victims.

As someone who didn't know much about GGW, I'm really curious around the conversation of shaping TV and porn today. Really fascinating. I think the filmmakers do a great job of portraying the negative side of this otherwise "consensual" fad, and how the exploitation of women can be skinned as empowerment. The line that stuck with me was pointing out that women might have been given confidence, but they were certainly not empowered / given power.

I agree the filmmakers are not very neutral but I think the whole damn point of this show is that we all KNOW the consensual side, of women who want to be taped. Let's talk about the coercion and criminal side.

Some reviews point out the sound mix - make sure the audio is set to STEREO not 5.1 in the Peacock app. It looks like they fixed the default but just in case you have this issue too...

In the third and final episode the narrator and investigative reporter, Ms Scaachi Koul reveals that when she told people she had interviewed Joseph Francis on the subject of his once mighty Girls Gone Wild empire, she says the reaction was generally, oh yeah I have a vague recollection of all that. That is exactly what I thought when "Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story" was released on Peacock!

Interesting story of how high school AV club nobody Francis rises to softcore(mostly) porn video tape impresario and multimillionaire. But this is just the peamble.

"Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story" is a well done mix of: The producers boiling down nine hours worth of Koul-Francis one-on-one conversations; interviews with several girls coerced into flashing their boobs while inebrieated on spring break for peanuts (a GGW T-shirt and/or a couple hundred dollars) and the negative impact it has has on their lives; and discussions with former GGW camera men(yes, surprise, all behind the cameras are men) and other GGW employees. This paints a vivid (and I must say entertaining) picture of Joseph Francis as one hell of a misogynistic sleaze bag.

Also, included is some opining of GGW's impact on overall society in general. To this reviewer, this is not definitive, but should be left to the audience, to mull over and agree or disagree.

Finally, to my surprise, no mention is made of Snoop Dogg, and his involvement both as pitchman on GGW infomercials, and host on at least one of the tapes.

Im trying to get through this documentary so I can understand why anybody in their right mind would do these videos. Currently from what I can tell, nobody was in their right mind. I'm only into episode one, but the issue is that whoever created this documentary has no clue how to edit anything. They're doing interviews with people that were involved either in making a video or lawyers or whomever and they have this very dramatic music playing over, not behind but over the commentary and you can barely hear what they're saying because it is so loud. I would give this an F+ in regards to creation, and how peacock even considered this to be a part of their collection is beyond me. Something that my son would've made in sixth grade.