User reviews

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.

I thought it was a good documentary, although I do agree with most of what has been said in the previous reviews. I also did not feel sorry for these girls I'm sorry, I just don't. Anybody that has been drunk before knows that we all probably do things will regret the next day and we have nobody to blame but ourselves if we put ourselves in those situations. That's part of growing up and for them, they had to learn this the hard way. I do have sympathy for the reporter that was assaulted, that was wrong. And he definitely should have been carding girls from the very beginning but the girls did lie on camera about their age so that's more their fault.

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.

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.

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...

I'm literally asking because I couldn't hear a large portion of it. The sound engineer and QC needs to be fired. Often times the music is so loud that you can't hear the person being interviewed. Thus creating a huge problem of trying to follow what should be the simplest of stories.

Unfortunately, I'm in no position to commend on the meat of the documentary as I couldn't hear a lot of it and I did not finish it due to this. It's very annoying.

I cannot recommend watching this title unless yo my want to turn on the subtitles and read it (which is not what I had in my for today).

It bums me out cause I was one of those kids that saw these late night infomercials and it was a huge filters phenomenon at the time but I guess I'll never know what happened 🤷‍♂️

Whoever did the audio mix on this needs to be fired from wherever they're working. This entire thing is unwatchable due to horrific music being played over people speaking and you not being able to hear them. I don't know how this even got to be published with this quality of audio on it. Literally anyone that reviewed this before it got posted should be fired from their job because it is atrocious and completely unwatchable. As far as the content of the thing, it's hard to say you keep getting distracted by the music and not hearing people speak what they're saying. So if it's biased don't know it's just completely and utterly unwatchable.

Synopsis - Women are baring their breasts for the camera. Joe sees an opportunity to profit from this and subsequently makes a lot of money. I'm not going to defend any of the criminal acts that may have been committed, but it seems the majority of the women have a moment of clarity after the fact.

This could have easily been a 30 minute episode on Dateline or something similar. Why this material was expounded to 3 hour docuseries is quite perplexing. Who approved the audio mix for the final edit? To say it is subpar doesn't really do it justice. The background audio should never overpower the dialogue from your subject!!!

I gave up after the first episode and hope you will do the same. Read the Wikipedia article with a fireplace stream in the background. You'll save time and have a much more pleasant experience.

Do better next time Peacock.

This is a heartfelt thoughtful expose of Girls Gone Wild and namely one man Joe Francis. How could one man cause such destruction to people's lives? He is diabolical. But there was just the right turn of events to enable him to ride a tsunami of celebrity, late night commercials, spring break foolishness and money into oblivion. That's why this documentary is useful and interesting. Maybe the tidal wave can happen again. I'm sure it will, taking innocent people under. The show is well done, well researched and shocking beyond belief. The nail in the coffin is his marriage, and how bad he was to his wife.

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.

The documentary explains nothing unexpected. It's just Joe Francis explaining how he found an untapped market and he tapped it and made himself very wealthy. In an Industry like this, many untoward things happened. No one will hold themselves accountable on either side. He definitely took advantage of the state of mind of many of these girls, and that is 100% wrong. Drinking responsibly is something many of us learn the hard way. That being said, I definitely don't condone what the cameramen did at all. I live in Las Vegas, and I have definitely been in the vicinity of filming her, in New Orleans and at Lake Havasu. In going to most of these places, we were aware of their presence and what they did. I think a lot of this is just regret. I think many (not all) of the girls did this knowing full well what they were doing, and they later realized their mistake. Been there and done similar. I get it. But I also accept responsibility for my own actions and don't blame someone else. I couldn't finish watching it because the music is loud and plays over the people talking. It might have been more interesting if I could have known what was being said. The editing definitely needs to be corrected to make this watchable.

Unfortunately I watched all three episodes of this biased drivel. It is full of speculation, accusations and assumptions with little to no evidence backing up the claims. I am in no way supporting or condoning the actions of girls gone wild, however when the individuals who are claiming "victimhood" without taking responsibility for their own actions and choices are being put on a pedestal as though the viewer feel sorry for them is ludicrous. The questions and responses of the documentary interviewer are dripping with her own bias in an effort to villainize the subject of this show. I feel the Girls Gone Wild organization should have been better about vetting the girls before filming from the beginning (checking IDs, etc.) but shockingly that isn't even the focus of this "documentary" (if it can legitimately be classified that way). No, the interviewer focuses on putting women who made bad choices and now regret them on display, while none of them are willing to accept their own responsibility in this situation.

If you are looking for a balanced and honest review of Girls Gone Wild, this is not it. This is a sheep's in wolves clothing documentary. It's appears to be unbiased but by the end the filmmakers clearly have an agenda. Avoid if you are looking for the truth. It is apparent they want to look like from the beginning they want to seem like they are unbiased, but by the end they are clearly selling a specific narrative. This is the worst type of documentary because it appears to be balanced and open yet as you watch it is clearly one sided. Is the subject of the documentary a criminal? Perhaps. Yet this documentary doesn't help because it is so poorly done and one sided, and the filmmaking so bad, you would run away from any argument these filmmakers made.