SEXY BABY

(84 mins.) – A documentary by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus

An ex-adult film star, a 12 year old girl and a 22 year old who yearns for "normal" private parts are chronicled in this thought provoking documentary about how pornography, social media and pop culture affect women and girls. Sexy Baby is the first documentary film to put faces to a seismic cultural shift: the cyber age is creating a new sexual landscape. While doing research for the film, the filmmakers, Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus, had intimate and candid conversations with kids in middle school classrooms, suburban shopping malls, nightclubs, college dorms, and even conducted an informal roundtable during a high school house party. While chronicling trends among small town and big city kids, they discovered this: Having pubic hair is considered unattractive and “gross.” Most youngsters know someone who has emailed or texted a naked photo of themselves. Many kids have accidentally or intentionally had their first introduction to sex be via hardcore online porn. Facebook has created an arena where kids compete to be "liked" and constantly worry about what image to portray – much of what was once private is now made public. And the list goes on.

With this vast collection of information, the filmmakers decided to tackle the topic through personal storytelling. At first glance, it may seem difficult to understand why they put a former porn star, a plastic surgery patient (Laura) and a 12-year-old girl (Winnifred), in the same film. But this was no accident. They found that the adult entertainment world, represented in our film by Nakita, is trickling into the mainstream world and affecting both Laura’s and Winnifred’s lives – but in profoundly different ways. Nakita becomes an ironic role model of sorts. Laura is an embracer of mainstream culture. And Winnifred is our eyes and ears, constantly questioning the status quo.