Chicken Ranch

In the late seventies, early eighties, feature films like Lizzie Borden‘s WORKING GIRLS and Marleen Gorris‘s GEBROKEN SPIEGELS offered a feminist perspective on the doings and dealings of whores and whore-hoppers, undermining unambiguous romantic views of the prostitute as a saviour or wretch. From the same period is Broomfield‘s CHICKEN RANCH, a home-video-like, often comical documentary about the ins and outs of the Chicken Ranch, a drive-in brothel in the Nevada desert, near Las Vegas. The customers arrive by private planes or in fast cars and are pampered in various ways: for example, the Ranch has a passion chair with 37 different positions, a VIP room with waterbed, bubble bath and videos, and arousing drinks with exotic names like Crème de Menthe Frappé and Bianca-Blast. Broomfield and his co-director Sandi Sissel ask madam, owner and girls about the sex act, the customer and the dollar.