There are many questions one who can’t know what the stripper/prostitution life is truly like might ask themselves throughout Zola. But the foremost one is: why does this girl think she needs a pimp in order to secure her bag? Sure, one might maintain that other men’s knowledge of a “male presence” (a.k.a. male overlord) makes them act “more accordingly” in their treatment of a woman who is trapping, but the truth is, all a woman needs is, as Zola indicates, another woman with a gun to defend her… and, of course, the power of her own pussy.
After all, “Pussy is worth thousands,” Zola (Taylour Paige) assures Stefani (Riley Keough). This after discovering that Stefani only made $150 from letting a gross man (is there any other kind?) have sex with her. As a result, Zola quickly shuts down the ratchet operation being run by Stefani’s pimp, X (Colman Domingo), and makes her a new Backpage ad charging $500 per “session.” To Stefani’s surprise, they get a response right away, with one man offering the amount for just fifteen minutes of her time. As the montage that follows makes for one of the most brutal yet effective in recent cinema-going memory, Stefani lets an array of various digustos rail her for a price that at least makes it all “worth it.”
Much to Zola’s dismay, the next morning when X shows up at the hotel to demand how much money was made, Stefani is actually honest about it, proudly declaring they milked (no semen allusion meant) about eight thousand dollars from these johns. Zola can’t believe (a disbelief made more palpable in the original tweets the movie is based on) she would not only willingly confess this information, but also gleefully hand over the cash to a man who did absolutely nothing to earn it. Because, once again, women–particularly those who have been abused and taken advantage of their entire life–are conditioned even to this day to believe that a man is more credible, therefore able to “aid” her in all of her needs.
X is at first annoyed by the presumption on Zola’s part of making a new page for “his” girl, snapping, “You think you can do my job better than me?” Her internal reply: “Yep.” But seeing the surfeit of money on the bed makes him too joyful to care about who really helped to get it. Men, after all, have never had a problem with taking credit for work they didn’t actually do. The fact is, the money’s still “his.” Even so, he’s “generous” enough to give a cut of $500 to Zola. She’s not that thrilled.
Yet even Stefani is briefly emboldened by the sense of power one gets from having money long enough to ask, “Can I get some?” X is horrified by her “bravado,” telling her who does she think pays for her rent, her nails, her clothes—in short, her “ho life” (which, yes, does seem intended to sound like “whole life”)? That shuts her up real quick. As though she suddenly remembers “her place” when X tells her to “be smart” and not let Zola fill her head with silly ideas about independence. Least of all let Zola boost her confidence enough to make her believe she can actually be independent. Because what would a little ol’ girl like her do without a big, strong man to protect her rape-invoking body?
This “philosophy,” indoctrinated for so long into the female psyche, has bled into all aspects of life, most especially pop culture. And, in many respects, the male-manufactured “scam” designed to bolster a lack of self-confidence in women is, in part, how Britney Spears has been trapped in a conservatorship for the past thirteen years.
The implementation of self-doubt into the collective female consciousness being a long-standing male “tool” (one of the few they actually know how to use) that continues to infect with as much clout and pervasiveness as the rona currently does. And it’s only reinforced by the threat of violence that men are all too willing to tout and implement “if necessary.” In other words, if a woman don’t “act right” in his estimation—which is to say, obsequiously.
It’s also no coincidence that, per the Britney analogy, Spears herself likened what has been done to her over the course of the conservatorship to sex trafficking. Forced to work against her will at the whims of her glorified pimp/father, Jamie Spears. And all so she can’t even have full rights to the profit from her labor. Zola, a movie about sex trafficking and the abuse women endure all for the sake of getting some access (if they’re “lucky” a.k.a. complacent enough) to the money they put in all the work to earn, is thusly more pertinent than ever to the enduring misogyny of our culture. Particularly since once women are in charge of their own money, men have absolutely zero use to them. ‘Cause, as 50s housewives can attest, it was never about the dick. It was about the bag. Hence, prostitution becoming a more socially acceptable career for women over time. Lest men forget that one only “needs” dick, ultimately, for the cash it can yield. Which is why strippers and prostitutes alike capitalize on the male weakness of desiring to splooge in a subjugating manner.
