Girls Gone Wild creator and celebrity-glommer Joe Francis has apparently let his extended 15 minutes of fame go straight from his head to his groin.
Francis has amassed a multi-million dollar fortune making low-budget films featuring barely-legal age drunk women performing tawdry acts on camera for cheap trinkets. But now, via court records and a blockbuster new report, Francis, 33, is revealed as not just a smut-pushing profiteer, but also an opportunistic sexual abuser, allegedly taking a drunken woman's virginity against her wishes, manhandling a female reporter, harassing pregnant women into miscarriage, and routinely equating women with their genitalia.
Joe Francis may be the most vile celebrity sociopath who hasn't actually killed anyone. Yet.
The strange phenomena of intoxicated groups of girls getting naked on tape while cameramen casually suggest they make-out with their friends, masturbate in front of strangers, or otherwise degrade themselves, is some kind of toxic byproduct of the reality TV-celebrity mania that has taken our popular culture hostage. If pseudo-reality shows like The Real World, Flavor of Love, and Road Rules are the gutters of celeb-dom, then these low-rent party-porn productions are the sewers.
And Mantra, Francis' production company, knows where to strike: mass party settings like Spring Break, Mardi Gras, college revelries, and nightclub events, where mob mentality, peer pressure, narcissism, alcohol, and drugs can easily overcome inhibitions and scruples in the guise of "liberation."
Joe Francis grew up in affluent Laguna Beach, California, and surely this gave him a taste for the finer things in life, like the Ferrari car and Gulfstream Jet he owns. What it didn't give him was talent, values, or respect for women. But having one's own jet certainly makes the ability to travel to warm locales and induce the natives to frolic in their natural environment just that much easier. Girls Gone Wild isn't just Francis' livelihood, but his lifestyle.
With his "film" chops honed and sharpened as a production assistant for the syndicated Reality TV show – where viewers sent in amateur videos – in the mid-'90s, it was hardly a leap of imagination to Francis' first solo business venture, Banned From Television. BFT featured gruesome images of animal attacks, vehicular accidents, and nightmare inducing gore.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Thurston
Hold the phone. You mean to tell me none of these alcoholic girls are to blame? It's not like the guys has magic powers. They're wasted and do this stupid crap for attention.
2 - Dawn
Yes, that's true. But are you saying there is no complicity in providing alcohol, creating an environment where the girls feel pressured and then making a profit that is not shared with the amatuer performer? Does that really seem fair?
Like I said, the issue isn't the videos, which are repulsive and disgusting, but Joe Francis being a vile, repugnant pig inserting himself (literally) into the process.
You can't see the moral issues with that?
3 - Michael J. West
The "alcoholic girl" Janeel Szyszka is to blame for Joe Francis raping her?
4 - Thurston
I think people are responsible for their own actions largely. I'm not defending Joe Francis, but I think sober and intelligent people would steer clear of him.
5 - deepti lamba
Gawd, what a sleaze ball. He is like a wolf preying on the dumb sheep....Back in college a friend of mine got so drunk that she didnt remember that she had gone up a hotel room with a male acquaintance and had been missing for over an hour.
We obviously assumed the worst had happened.
Michael, while men too can get raped why is it that rarely do we hear of date rapes where men have been the victims?
6 - DJRadiohead
It is certainly true if all of the girls in these videos were sober and home studying they would not find their hoo-has splashed all over late night TV. Getting drunk out of your mind is a stupid thing to do and can lead to some humiliating and sometimes tragic consequences.
Joe Francis may have the legal right to exploit the lack of judgment exibited by these girls (not including the part where he allegedly threatens them and rapes them, naturally) but he is a complete son of a bitch for doing it. Just because he can doesn't mean he should. There are gaps between legal and moral. What Francis does is morally repugnant.
7 - Matthew T. Sussman
Eye for an eye: Pants him and his cameraman, videotape them touching each other, sell it.
8 - Dave Nalle
Are you telling me all the girls in these videos aren't actually all whores and strippers? Hmmm....does that make the videos more appealing or less.
Dave
9 - Dawn
Gee Dave, I don't even know how to respond to that? Please tell me you were kidding.
10 - Bryan
Eye for an eye: Pants him and his cameraman, videotape them touching each other, sell it.
No, Suss, an eye for an eye would be to get Joe Francis liquored up and then rape him repeatedly. Not that I'd condone it, but he's guilty of a lot more than just exploitation.
And, Dave, I second Dawn's response. What do you mean?
11 - Dave Nalle
Yes Dawn, I was being sarcastic.
Dave
12 - Dawn
Whew, I was worried there for a second Dave. Sarcasm is hard to interpret in pixels ;)
13 - Lady Dragonfyre
I don't even think the word "misogynist" is strong enough. Deplorable!
He probably liquors them up so they won't remember how much he sucked in bed. The only girls he can attract are empty-headed teenagers with no respect for themselves.
That being said, she chose to take that first drink. Whether her assumption about Girls Gone Wild stemmed from the liquor or her stupidity, we cannot ignore the fact that she put herself in a very vulnerable position.
14 - Victor Plenty
Aside from any criminal guilt, the moral guilt is shared by everyone who has ever paid money to Joe Francis for his "productions." His undeserved wealth is what gives him the power to abuse young women so easily and with so few consequences. The morally repugnant way he has acquired his wealth makes it clear he is the type to abuse, even if he is found not guilty in any specific case.
The real danger sign for our society is not the existence of Joe Francis, as disgusting and pathetic as he is. Every society has scum like him. Giving him the freedom to be scum (if he can control himself well enough to avoid breaking the law) may be an unavoidable price we pay for enjoying the freedom to make our own moral choices.
The far more serious symptom of our societal decay is that so many of our fellow citizens eagerly pay him to exploit young women.
15 - Jim
Once again, these dumb girls think they can take things just so far and everyone will stop when they say so. This poor virgin thought that she was just going to flash and get a T-Shirt. I think flashing to get a T-shirt puts a woman in a differnet category. Don't drink and wander off with a guy that makes videos call "Girls Gone Wild". Come on, everybody knows what those videos are about these days. I am surprised a girl would even go into a place that these guys are at. After all, they park the bus with a banner on the side of it right in from of the bar. Sometimes they even advertise ahead of time that these guy are going to be there. I guess my point is that if you don't want to fall into the pit, don't step over the line that everyone knows it there.
16 - Victor Plenty
A crime is a crime even if the victim is stupid.
Waving your wallet around in a high crime zone makes it more likely you will get mugged, but anybody who robs you should still go to prison for it.
The same principle applies here. Rape is still a crime even if it happened after the victim made a bad decision by entering a sexual predator's lair, and the rapist still deserves to go to prison.
17 - duane
There's no doubt about that Victor. I think Jim is making a separate point. Of course, waving your wallet around in a Milan train station is perfectly legal, but it's perfectly stupid, too. You play around with snakes and eventually you'll get bitten.
18 - Victor Plenty
The point would be separate, if casting blame on the victim were not so frequently used as a tactic for allowing a rapist or abuser to evade responsibility for his crimes.
Nobody argues that a mugger gains a legal right to take your wallet without criminal culpability, just because you were stupid enough to flash your cash in a bad neighborhood. In that case it might be a separate point.
But in the crime of rape, the cultural habit and the morally bankrupt tactic of blaming the victim has not yet become fully separable from the legality of the rapist's actions.
19 - Mistress La Spliffe
These girls are 18. They're kids . . . insecure idiot kids, drinking like idiot insecure kids . . . and if you don't see something wrong with sexually and financially exploiting idiot insecure kids, then I hope to Jesus you never have any yourself because you'll do an awful job with them. In fact, I hope you're never allowed around them. Revolting.
20 - Mat Brewster
My bosses daughter did a flash dance for GGW. She's on the cover of one of the videos, and I periodically see her on late night/early morning TV. The boss has been embarassed ever since.
I knew the guy was a sick bastard, but had no idea it was this bad.