Girls Gone Wild homepage graphic (March 2008)		Girls Gone Wild logo

The Girls Gone Wild franchise, created by Joseph R. Francis, is a pornographic film series by the production company Mantra Films, Inc., which is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.^[1]

[edit] Content

The first GGW film was released in 1998.^[1] The films contain no conventional plot, and always conform to the same formula.^[2] Girls Gone Wild videos usually involve a camera crew patrolling an area frequented by young drunk women, such as a spring break or Mardi Gras vacation resort, or nightclubs.^[2] The crew search for attractive young women who agree to expose their bodies for the camera, in exchange for a Girls Gone Wild branded t-shirt, shorts or cap.^[1][2] Usually the girls are encouraged to strip by crowds of onlooking young men.^[2] Women usually kiss each other and expose their breasts, buttocks, and/or vulva,^[2] and sometimes the camera crew follows a group of young females back to the GGW "tour bus",^[1] a hotel or other location, and tapes them engaging in additional sexual activities including intercourse. The company claims to only film amateurs, rather than professional porn stars.^[2] The camera crews are normally young attractive men, in order to encourage the girls,^[1] and they receive a bonus for filming particularly attractive women,^[2] or girls who have just turned 18.^[1] Francis appears as the host of many of the films.^[1] Nightclub promoters pay up to $10,000 a night to host GGW film crews, as they ensure large crowds.^[1]

[edit] Business

The films are mainly sold via television mail order, with the companies main call-centre in Inglewood, California.^[1] The films are frequently advertised on late-night television infomercials.^[2][1] GGW subscribers purchase 3 videos per month for $9.99 each, whilst tapes sold to occasional customers cost $19.99 each.^[2] The millions of films sold every year generate approximately $40 million in annual sales,^[1] and Francis is thought to earn around $5 million a year from the series.^[2] As of 2004 the company was planning to launch a GGW themed clothing line, a compilation music CD, and a restaurant chain.^[2]

[edit] Legal status

In some states in the U.S., exposing oneself in a public area is a criminal offense defined by state law as indecent exposure, public lewdness, or sexual misconduct, etc. One notable exception is New York, where the Court of Appeals held in 1992 that the state constitution's equal protection provision allows women to go topless in any public area where men also have that right.^[3] However, whereas toplessness in itself may not be grounds for arrest, many of the women featured in Girls Gone Wild commit other acts in public that may be considered lewd and therefore culpable to criminal prosecution.

Women who expose themselves in this manner have no expectation of privacy; moreover, GGW staff members claim they get a release from every flasher.^[4] The legal effect of these factors has resulted in a waiver of some women and girls' rights to bring a lawsuit against GGW.

[edit] Legal action

The franchise has become so successful in recent years that several knockoff videos emerged bearing the "Girls Gone Wild" name. These videos lack any other apparent connection to the franchise; for instance, they lack the typical stylized intro and on-camera narration from the show's producers, and contain no end credits of any kind—thus, they also do not contain the Mantra Entertainment logo. These particular videos have crews that will patrol the festivals in locations such as Mardi Gras or Las Vegas claiming to be affiliated with Girls Gone Wild, even distributing convincing Girls Gone Wild t-shirts. Videos compiled from the use of this technique have been released to the Internet. Also Wild Party Girls and several other knockoffs have used the Girls Gone Wild formula with only minor aesthetic changes.^{[citation needed]}

On December 16, 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Mantra Films, Inc., and its sole officer and director Joseph R. Francis, seeking civil penalties for violations of previous Commission determinations concerning unfair and deceptive acts or practices and consumer redress. Violations of previous Commission determinations that an act or practice is unfair or deceptive and unlawful carry a civil penalty of up to $11,000 per violation. The Commission’s complaint alleges that since December 2000, Mantra and Francis deceptively marketed Girls Gone Wild videos and DVDs to consumers, automatically shipped these unordered videos and DVDs to consumers, and charged consumers for them without consumers’ consent.^[5]

On July 30, 2004, the FTC announced a stipulated court order under which the sellers of "Girls Gone Wild" DVDs and videos would pay nearly $1.1 million as combined consumer redress and a civil penalty and will be barred from a wide range of activities detailed in a complaint the U.S. Department of Justice filed on behalf of the FTC in late 2003. According to the FTC, the defendants marketed "Girls Gone Wild" DVDs and videos as part of continuity programs that resulted in monthly shipments of DVDs or videos to consumers who did not agree to receive them.^[6]

On September 12, 2006, Francis plead guilty^[7] to federal charges of failing to document the ages of young women engaging in sexual acts in the videos, as federal law requires. There was a plea agreement,^[8] part of which required Francis to pay $2.1 million: a $500,000 fine and $1.6 million in restitution. ^[9] A 2006 episode of Law & Order explored some of the controversy with Girls Gone Wild, using a fictional organization with similar practices.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Mantra Films had been sentenced to pay $1.6 million in criminal fines in December 13, 2006, due to a failure to create and maintain age and identity records for films it produced, and that the “package agreement” between the government and Mantra Films, MRA Holdings, LLC, and Joe Francis required a public acknowledgment of criminal wrongdoing, a pledge of cooperation with the government in future investigations, full compliance with the record keeping laws, and payment of a total of $2.1 million in fines and restitution.^[10][11]

On January 22 2007, Francis was scheduled to be sentenced on similar offenses in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.^[12] Under a three-year deferred prosecution agreement, MRA Holdings, LLC, is to employ an independent outside monitor to ensure that the company complies with federal laws. ^[13] In January 2007, Circuit Judge Dedee Costello in Pensacola, Florida dropped most of the charges against Francis ^[14] claiming that "the evidence did not support the allegations..." However, the remaining felony counts charge that Francis and the company used and conspired to use minors in sexual performances, charges which carry a combined maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. Two misdemeanor counts which also remain charge Francis and the company with prostitution. ^[15]

[edit] Ashley Dupré

On March 19 2008, Girls Gone Wild offered video of Ashley Dupré, the call girl connected with the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, on its website, which the company had discovered in its archives.^[16] Dupré's lawyer said that Dupré was only 17 at the time the footage was taken.^[17] "All nude images of Ms. Dupré were taken in public places and contain no sexual contact. In Florida, where Ms. Dupré was filmed, the law allows even women under the age of 18 to be filmed nude with their consent", company founder Francis said.^[18]

On April 28, 2008, Ashley Dupré filed a $10 million civil lawsuit^[19] against Joe Francis and three other defendants accusing them of unjust enrichment, federal trademark violations under the Lanham Act, false advertising and unjust enrichment under Florida state law. She decided to drop the suit in July 2008 ^[20] after Francis released footage showing her agreeing to be filmed.^[21]

[edit] Parodies

• A parody of Girls Gone Wild was featured in the show Arrested Development, titled "Girls with Low Self Esteem". This was a recurring reference for Spring Break episodes.
• A Chappelle's Show skit features a parody "Third World Girls Gone Wild".
• The show CSI once featured a parody called Chicks Gone Nuts.
• A parody titled Homer Gone Wild was featured in The Simpsons episode "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife". There was also a DVD release of four episodes of the show called The Simpsons Gone Wild.
• The Big Gay Sketch Show featured a sketch called "Girls Gone Wilde" (with an E), in which "Oscar Wilde" advertises his new video featuring "witticisms and titticisms."
• In the Stroker and Hoop episode "XXX Wife", the detectives pose as cameramen for Gals Gone Wild. It is revealed that the actors appearing in the films are actually hypnotized into doing so. Judd Winner, the mogul behind the project, explains this with, "What did you think? TV turned an entire generation of girls into sleazy whores? That we normalized promiscuous behavior to the point where college chicks would get naked for millions of masturbating men for the price of a trucker's hat? C'mon guys! Of course it's hypnosis!"

[edit] List of films

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Official website
• CTV.ca Groups protest 'Girls Gone Wild Canada' tour
• Exploitative Videos: Bumfights & Girls Gone Wild from the Business Ethics Blog
• Girls Gone Wild at the Internet Movie Database