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ashley arbaugh, ashley sabin, cyst, david redmon, documentary, girl model, human trafficking, indentured servitude, madlen, nadya vall, noah models, predatory, rachel blais, switch models, the model alliance, tigran khachatrian
I will start this by saying that Girl Model is one of the more disturbing documentaries I’ve seen in some time. I don’t think it takes a mental titan to realize that the modeling business is fucked up, predatory and generally unsafe for the young girls who ply that trade. How many stories do you hear about bulimia, anorexia, overwork, abuse, and prostitution with regards to this industry? Do a Google search. I doubt you’ll be surprised. Girl Model reaffirms any and all misgivings you might have.
The opening shot of the film basically tells us our tale – a tracking shot through a herd of bathing-suit clad 13- and 14-year old girls crowd a room in Siberia (the coldest fuck place on earth) where model agency scouts measure them, assess their “desirability” for foreign markets and are told frankly that they are or are not, as is the case about 99% of the time, suited for modeling. Too “fat”, and let’s consider fat a relative term here as no one in their right mind would consider these girls fat, not fresh enough of face, hips too big, not young enough – these are the criticisms that dash these young girls hopes as they search for a way out of their small rural towns and poverty.
Nadya Vall with her mother after winning her modeling contract.
The film follows two people’s trajectories – Nadya, the 13-year old who is chosen for a modeling contract to work in Japan and the former model scout who signed her, Ashley Arbaugh. After winning the contract, Nadya is shipped off to Japan where she fits the look that is in there – read: pedophiles like looking at 13-year old girls and that’s what she is. Oh yeah – child labor laws be damned. Armed with a contract that “guarantees” her at least US$8000 and two jobs while there, she lands with no one to pick her up, lost in a country where the language barrier couldn’t be higher. As one might expect, things did not turn out how they were promised or planned. Nadya returns home without the $8000 she was promised and that she and her family needed and instead is saddled with $2000+ in debt, money neither she nor her family can afford.
Ashley Arbaugh, pontificating about the horrors of being a model all while perpetuating them working as a model agency talent scout.
Ashley Arbaugh is the talent scout who discovered and signed Nadya. She works for NOAH Models, owned by Tigran Khachatrian. He named his model agency after the biblical Noah and views his mission as saving his models “one by one” like Noah saved the animals “two by two.” This guy is a slime, basically pimping out young girls all over the world, making money off of them, keeping them saddled with debt so they have to keep working in a sort of de facto indentured servitude. And Ashley is key in making this happen. The most interesting part about her is that she was once a model who did exactly as the girls she scouts for Tigran and hated it, felt exploited and abused. How do we know this? She provided the filmmakers (David Redmon & Ashley Sabin) with the self-indulgent video diaries she made while modeling in which she complains of many of the things Nadya (and her roommate Madlen) complain of. Ashley quit modeling because of these things…but now? She puts other girls in the same situation and makes unreal money doing so. The American dream at its finest. The scenes with her talking about her two baby dolls and the third one she dissected and about her cyst with blonde hair (fresh with picture of said cyst) are pretty fucked up. That Ashley openly admits that these girls for whom she is responsible for sending to other countries often fall into prostitution as the line that delineates selling one’s body for photographs/art/fashion and selling one’s body for sex is extremely thin and malleable. She was the creepiest part of this film without a doubt. This says a lot. Later, even after we’ve seen Nadya‘s plight, Ashley tells a Russian TV interviewer at a casting call, that Japan is “a very safe market. Unlike other markets, the girls never go into debt.” Really, Ashley? The welfare of their models is clearly not in the interest of Ashley or Tigran. They are merely pawns in a complex money game.
Like I said at the outset, what is detailed in this film isn’t really news. It just solidifies how nonsensical this business really is, the superficiality of it absurd. That people can profit on what basically amounts to legal human trafficking is amazing to me. Groups such as The Model Alliance are starting to surface to ensure better practices for these girls, but there will always be a way around any measures put into place. With girls crossing borders into any number of countries, how can they ever be covered no matter where they go? It appears that Nadya still models even after all of this. That makes me sad.
Since the idea of this documentary came from batshit crazy Ashley Arbaugh, the directors seem to tiptoe around any wrong doing on her part, although they let her own words and videos do some fairly loud talking on her behalf. I feel like they were on the cusp of delving into more of the darker side of the business but never pushed far enough.
Here is the trailer:
Spirit of the Thing 
I agree with your assessment of the film… Clearly it is exploitation and these agencies have no moral compass…. and as for Miss Ashley Arbaugh…she looks like a nut case… she didnt like modelling,but encourages other girls to do it.Scouting and making a shit load of money…she is clearly trying to make up for the suffering she had faced before,a life she hated, by using the travelling and money as an excuse. She has no concience…. She sees it as its just her turn to be on top and make that moeny
Ashley reminds me of one of those sick unstable women that let their boyfriends and husbands molest their children. All they talk about through the movie is how much Japan agencies love young girls the younger the better and they don’t want their bodies develop. Guess what that sounds like? Pedophiles I think so. Now I see on the internet how the doc. was portrayed badly and how they stick up for young girls and save them. You sent them to a country with no adult chaperon’s at 13 yrs old and herded them around agency to agency and then said they owed you money and never paid them. Is this why you send them out of the country sounds illegal. Also some become prostitutes yes because you put them in this position at 13. They know no one and in a country they can’t communicate in around adult men taking half naked pics of little girls. Do you even have a conscience or is the pay just that good you are sick and this is why the sex slave industry is so large because people like you.
I just saw the film on Netflix. Ashely Arbaugh, the casting agent, is a monster. I wish there was a legal way to prosecute her for knowingly engaging in exploiting and trafficking young children. Her boss was creep-supreme and a chilling criminal. I feel so bad for that poor girl Nadya and her family. I don’t know how to shake off this film. It is truly disturbing, as you say. Like a horror film, all the more awful because it is real.
Yup, Ashley Arbaugh should be in prison. Or worse. Disgusting.
God forbid that Ashley becomes a mother. She had 3 plastic babies but is down to 2 because she “dissected one”? She lives in a glass house that she hates? Why buy it then? She’s a puppet.
Ashley has a daughter now. Her married name is Ashley Hamedi and she is on facebook.
Tigran immediately struck me as a manipulative and thoroughly unscrupulous. Basically very pimp like
Yes, exactly! He was very disturbing.
I found two scenes particularly damning re: Ms. Arbaugh. First, when she awkwardly visits Nadya and Madlen in their closet-sized apartment. She just sort of brushes off their discomfort, does her visit, then leaves. Second, in the last 5 minutes when Ms. Arbaugh lies to the Russian press about girls never going into debt when they go work in Japan…. Was very subtle. Allowed her to damn herself with her own words and actions. Without those two scenes, I could have bought the idea that she was just a very sad person with some really bizarre twists.
I thought Nadya, Madlen, and Nadya’s family all came across well. But the fashion industry did not. Very interesting film. Difficult to watch. In part because of the subtext of explicit exploitation. Ms. Arbaugh doesn’t exactly paint herself very sympathetically talking about prostitution either.
I just watched this film on Netflix, too. It leaves me with that sick feeling you get when you eat too much candy or spin around in a circle for too long. Just gross. Ashley is sick. She seems to have a split personality and I think she is getting a creepy high from immersing herself in the midst of all the young girls who need her. I think she and Tigran are probably very similar–both criminals, both self-deluded.
I am trying to write a comment. Trying to be measured and objective about this but all I can think is how crazy, literally crazy Ashley is. So beautiful on the outside, so sick and twisted on the inside. The doll scene, the cyst scene, the lies she tells herself and the camera. Just sad and crazy. She probably should be put into intense therapy. I also found the scene with the driver saying how there is no money to be made by anybody complete bull shit. Lies told as nobody would ever fly girls overseas over and over again if there was no money to be made. Maybe these girls would be better off waiting until they are older and becoming prostitutes so they could at least keep the money for selling their bodies… How sad to even think such a thing. After watching this I need to go get clean, but I don’t think they make water hot off enough to get off the filth from this film
And just when you think this industry can’t get any lower or grosser (yes, I used the word grosser):
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/04/22/modeling_scouts_recruit_teen_patients_at_swedish_anorexia_clinic_are_you.html
Recruiting teens at an anorexia clinic. Classy as always, Swedes.
I think I just vomited in my mouth a bit after reading that. How low can this industry go?
This documentary was so unbelievably scary. I am horrified at what I just watched. Ashley really is a monster and also needs a lot of therapy. She is a wounded soul and is perpetuating that hurt onto other young unsuspecting girls. Absolutely awful
I watched this on Netfilx and I am so disturbed. Ashley Arbaugh is either delusional or evil or both. I don’t think I will sleep tonight.
I was horrified by the film. Ashley is mentally disturbed and Tigren do not care about these girls. It is shocking that they can take these girls over there under those conditions. I am not necessarily against young girls modeling. But, they need a parent with them, much better living conditions and limited working while they finish school etc. (much like Brooke Shields and others have done) Ashley had no heart or compassion, how could she not make sure they were fed? Nadya WASN’T EATING!!! She had to borrow money from Madlyn!!! She can’t put a picture on the wall and throw comforter on the bed to make it more inviting…AND LESS SCARY!!! And, they need translators. It’s just ridiculous. The sad thing is that these girls, especially Nadya had real potential and could have a real career. If she were guided properly, and able to also attend school then, when graduating could then hit the global modeling scene. They just gather a bunch of girls throw them out there and see what ‘hits’. Instead of handpicking and sticking with them for the long haul, giving it a couple of years to BUILD A CAREER. THEY USED AND ABUSED THESE GIRLS. Giving them a few weeks or months under those conditions? Models need confidence. How were they to go out and be inspired, living the way they were. All alone at night, with no support or encouragement. IT JUST INFURIATES ME. The whole thing was insane. I grew up in a show business family, and this is just sad. It’s not an easy business, it takes work like anything else, but these conditions and abandonment by Ashley and Tegren was some of the most abusive things I’ve ever seen. Ashley doesn’t have an ounce of compassion for these very, very young girls. Who could of just used a hug sometimes. Some encouragement. They are being scammed. Their pictures are being sold….believe me. They are making money off of them. 12, 13, 14, 15 IS TOO YOUNG!!!! All the TOP agencies, Ford etc…that have global contacts in the world need to stop this stuff that is happening even if they are not directly involved. Tigren is small time in the modeling biz. He’s like a pimp. To prey on families that need money and hurt the confidence of a young, sweet innocent girl….is the worst crime of all. These beautiful butterflies who have so much to give and learn from the world is squashed by sick people like Ashley and Tigren. Ashley didn’t have it to be a model, now she is taking it out on these girls….with no emotion. I guarantee she was not ’12 or ’13 when she was in Japan. She was older and wiser….so at least she had that going for her. And, Tigren…..the ‘inner voice’ inside myself immediately knew he was a sleaze…..and ‘not good’. Just the way he told the story of how some ‘girls’ will instead of modeling ‘spread their legs for money for rich men’…..explaining why this is the reason why he prefers 13 year olds because they ‘won’t do that’. Instead of what? 15 or 16 year olds? I was so offended by his comments as Ashley just sat there in her jaded way. Just the way he explained the story. Like it was normal! I’ll say a prayer for all the models, especially Nadya….because she deserves better, and truly wanted to be there. HOW DARE ASHLEY AND TIGREN DO THIS!
Your comment so clearly explains what I am thinking!! I feel sick after watching this and so sorry for those girls. They need better guidance.
Ashely is a disgusting human being. I wish I had her email address. To give her a piece of mind. I believe she is a psycho path and what was up with those dolls.
She’s on FB! https://www.facebook.com/ashley.arbaugh?fref=ts
I was so bothered by this documentary that I had to stop watching. Ashley was the most disturbing of all with Tigren a close second. Fantastic review for an otherwise disgusting film.
I watched this documentary last night, and it haunts me and will continue to do so. How could the people who filmed this allow it to happen? Where is Nadya now? She is still only a child and someone needs to find her and bring her home. The ‘contract’ she signed was a completely false, a fraudulent document. Why is no one suing this agency ? What about the fraud they perpetrated on Japanese immigration documents? It is not explained clearly what exactly these girls are in debt for? Sounds like old fashioned indentured servitude.
The moral judgement has been made by all the people above, and I agree wholeheartedly. Ashley should loose her house, and the money should be used as a college fund for Nadya and girls like her.
Ashely tries to make viewers sorry for her, by acting as if she has lost her mind, I believe this is a deliberate attempt to absolve herself in the viewers eye for the crimes she has committed, and continues to perpetrate on these poor girls
In addition to all the above, clearly Ashley is not intelligent at all! She does this movie and she is pictured in it more than the girl models cause she is so vain and cannot help but pose in her bathing suit and in her low cut shirts… etc. Her script is very dumb. Clearly she still has not gotten over being a model. She has no insight into the gravity of her situation and this documentary…. I agree regarding the creepy plastic babies and the cyst… very low IQ.
Omg. I totally agree. Ashley’s self indulgent narcissism is almost enough to stop watching.
And they continue… making it almost impossible to watch with Ashley’s low IQ and her inability to relate or say…um…anything of substance. For example; her talking about her ‘glass house’. I was ready for a metaphor re: the obvious, but she literally talked about the fact the house was glass!! And when she described the cyst in the hospital and saying she’ll have a baby eventually that will come out like that… What a waste of 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. I wonder what they left on the cutting room floor if that was what we were left with. Geez. All this on top of her role and unempathetic attitude towards these going girls make me really hate this woman. From the first five minutes and on…
It becomes a boring, self interested doc that relies and tries to relate too much to a character, Ashley, who is not only emotionally inept- but also intellectually stunted. Authenticity lacking. Moral compass broken. Horrible movie.
I would talk about the film and the other issues, but it is basically the obvious. Horrible. Sad.
This documentary is poorly done without enough insight or real emotional connection except with the young girls.
Very disturbing but obviously representative of a emotionally disturbed individuals who love attention / are narcissists(the film makers/ producers … Ashley and her cohorts) , ill people who are very poor role models to
anyone, had poor role models
as parents , got sucked into what they think other people think is a cool and admirable, prestigious job ( model
scout) Ha! Jokes on you ! Are you serious? We know you have a very real problem , dating back! Real, higher thinking people do not respect this lifestyle of pimping. Pathetic . You do
not care about these women
and are exlpoiting again… ! Ugly
Doesn’t surprise me. Apple doesn’t fall far.
why is Ashley Arbaugh taking body parts pictures and especially there feet without there knowledge? she clearly said on the film.
Can’t figure that out.
I find it interesting that the locus of everyone’s ire is Ashley Arbaugh, the prey that became predator and not the male predators who pimped her ass until she said “hell, I think I’d rather be predator than prey (and in the world she inhabits you are one or the other).” And oh yeah, this industry exists because of people like us who enjoy the “misery porn” we just watched with the euphemistic after-sex cigarette of our outrage that such things take place. We’re “the monsters.”
I don’t think I was exempting my participation in this game nor any male’s for that matter. I think you have made some extremely salient and valid points.
Ashely comes in for most of the criticism because she is fully aware of the hurt she is causing. I read many comments about Tigren, all negative, everyone knows this type of predator, and I doubt the Russian parents in this video would have allowed their daughters to go with him anywhere, which is why he has Ashley, this would not be possible without her or someone like her. She did not seek therapy or help for herself, she turned around and did the same thing to girls even younger than she was when she started. She appeases herself with her beautiful house and other material things which she purchases with the tears of these young girls, shame on her.
My thoughts exactly. You literally covered everything I was thinking during, after watching and about to write here after reading this review.
I grew up in an impoverished part of the global south. I’m used to corruption, exploitation,proverbial violence, and all sorts of diabolical crap. I have goose bumps sticking out of my (very) dark skin, and that says a lot, after watching this doc. This Ashley woman terrifies the living hell out of me. She gives off this sinister,nonchalant ,ominous i’ll kill you in the middle of the night kinda vibe. Those two plastic babies and the dissected third, the stock pile of the girls’ pictures (Dexterish) she keeps in her house – is she is keeping trophies perhaps?.There is so much wrong in this picture (literally and figurately). As for the scumbag schema that is that guy who runs the agency, whatever his bloody name is, we have the kind all over – politicians are the quintessencial bearer of his DNA strand. But Ashley? she is quite special. Im going to get myself a teddy bear so I can graps my arms around it tonight, because after watching this documentary,I am gonna have nightmares.
Quick, someone throw some holy water on that Ashley woman, therapy will be utterly useless.
I just came accross This film on netflix and all i have to say its the perfect example of manipulation, distortion and defamation in the media a Lot like Your tmz and e news…. Ive known ashley arbaugh for several years Now and in a personal level she is nothing but the sweetest and most caring human Being i have ever met and she is an astonishing mother figure not only in her personality but to her girls…. All This film did was edit This in a Way that makes ashley Look bad and she is not she Has even helped me out when i barely knew her she is very selfless and loving. And yes the modeling industry is hard and very awful at times but thats not ashley thats why she clearly States in the film that scouting was not her passion and i knew This Way before the film Now she is very successful doing what she loved and im very happy for her…. All This film is, is bad editinto add drama to something that is not there and it humiliates ashley and the models and makes her something she i not and all of you are judging her as if you knew her.
Dear Val,
Please stop with this fallacy. Just because someone personally treats YOU well or others well, doesn’t negate the fact that a person may and can mistreat others. People like Hitler, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy Jr. were all described be close friends as good and caring people despite doing horrendous things. This is not to equate what Ashley does as the same thing these men have done, but to at least provide an example of why using the “she is the sweetest human and most caring human being” card is a simplistic excuse.
Regardless of whether the movie is edited or not, Ashley chose to speak and represent herself in a particular manner and she must now reap the consequences of the profession and choices she has made. Good for her that she’s nice to YOU and her children.
She made herself look bad they did not need to edit. She speaks only about how young she needs these girls to be and they can’t look like they’ve went through puberty. At least well known industry have chaperons and parents can go with teen models.They are sending under aged young girls to countries with no way to communicate which is shown in the doc. All this does is set these girls up to be abused and they leave them with debt when they already live in poverty. If your a young girl modeling please go somewhere reparable and where they would let a parent go or have money to spend on an interpreter.
Despite the obvious that Ashley is a horrible and disturbing person who pretends to care about these young and innocent girls, I can’t get over how Tigran makes himself out to be some caring father figure to these girls who is only looking out for their best interest. If he was so protective of them, how can he just send these girls off to a foreign country for the first time at 13 without any parental guidance? He seemed to be completely uninvolved with Nadya and her trip, and didn’t care to make sure she was okay there or that she got her $8000 as promised. He basically threw her into the arms of Switch agency, and let nadya figure everything out on her own and send his sidekick Ashley to just make sure everything is ‘ok’. I love how he thinks that conversation he had with Ashley on the couch makes him seem like he cares about his girls, trying to teach them a lesson by sening them to the morgue. He obviously cares more about money than he does about these girls. Same goes with Ashley. Those are two horrible individuals.
This is sick. These girls should be going to school, learning to be independent on THEMSELVES NOT some scouting agents just looking for good money and not caring about these children. Going around, “oh she’s been fat” “her hips are too big”
I wish I could help all of them. It’s not their fault they have to support a family. They just want to have hope…
Wow.
Much like all of the commenters on this forum, I too, stumbled upon this documentary on Netflix.
I just got to the part where Ashley began talking about how nervous she is in her window walled home and then proceeds to showcase her bizarre baby dolls, when I paused to search the web for folks who thought this was was utterly ‘wacko’ as well.
Thus far, Ashley comes across as watery bland, yet seemingly crazy and all around unlikable in the film. Guessing that was the last thing she wanted as she’s already bubbling over with her own quiet sort of self loathing. Assuming she wanted to lament her industry woes and reap in some sympathy from critics and viewers. Didn’t happen.
After reading the like minded sentiments, I will not continue to watch. Yikes on what I’m choosing to leave behind…
I just watched this movie. (1) my sister has lived in Japan for 8 years, so I already knew about the depth of Russian (and Filipina, Thai) prostitution. (2). This woman is a pimp. I’m sorry she was raped (I’m 100% sure that happened). Her cyst (I’ve heard of those hairy ones, but never saw one so big) is painful and traumatic. Nonetheless, I can’t excuse her for her culpability in human-trafficking.
Seriously. What on earth? How is this happening? My heart aches for these girls who have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. Ugh, it’s just infuriating. I don’t even know what to say…except that Ashley girl is a total psycho and I hope she never has that baby she desires.
Ashley is a scout alright, but not for models. We witnessed sex trafficking, and she is the one that lures young girls into the lion’s den. Fuck her and the slime ball she works for. What a laugh, he acts like he’s such a good man
I’d like to give Ashely a slap in the face.
Ashley’s self indulgent narcissism is almost enough to stop watching.
And they continue… making it almost impossible to watch with Ashley’s low IQ and her inability to relate or say…um…anything of substance. For example; her talking about her ‘glass house’. I was ready for a metaphor re: the obvious, but she literally talked about the fact the house was glass!! And when she described the cyst in the hospital and saying she’ll have a baby eventually that will come out like that… What a waste of 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. I wonder what they left on the cutting room floor if that was what we were left with. Geez. All this on top of her role and unempathetic attitude towards these going girls make me really hate this woman. From the first five minutes and on…
It becomes a boring, self interested doc that relies and tries to relate too much to a character, Ashley, who is not only emotionally inept- but also intellectually stunted. Authenticity lacking. Moral compass broken. Horrible movie.
I would talk about the film and the other issues, but it is basically the obvious. Horrible. Sad.
This documentary is poorly done without enough insight or real emotional connection except with the young girls.
I stumbled across this film on Netflix and almost didn’t watch it, because I adhor all that is the world of “fashion”. Think it’s mostly BS.
Anywho, I expected to actually see much worst atrocities in this film, i.e., unbearable to look at thin body frames, girls being pimped out for sex, etc. My expectations were so lowly and horrific, that I saw Ashley and friends as just fashion industry weird and sleazy.
Reading the comments here (that are on the mark) made me see I missed a lot, by expecting the worst. Ashley is the type of person that I’d expect in the biz (taking dumb pics of women’s bare body parts like pieces of that babydoll she dissected).
I would pay-per-view to see what she did to that doll.
That woman is a pedophile herself. Disgusting.
I am sure Nadya had to return due to the modeling contract she signed.
Guys, here on this page you can find all the contacts of this Noah Models Company. Also Tigrans Mail address is there. If you feel like protesting and writing mails, go ahead.
http://www.noahmodels.com/contacts
I will do so for sure. Maybe, if everybody writes, things will change.
Just watched the documentary, and I love your review! I think that people in the business like Ashley are only perpetuating the problem. It’s pretty cowardly of her to continue releasing such young girls to such horrible working and living conditions simply because she’s “afraid to change.” I think she’s comfortable in her little glass castle with her creepy baby dolls. And, quite frankly, I don’t really feel sorry for her. It’s disheartening that people can be so selfish. And my heart breaks for those young girls who feel that they have no other options to help their families financially.
I wrote an article for Thought Catalog about the morality of the fashion industry. Read it here: http://thoughtcatalog.com/melissa-sirois/
And for more of my work and daily ramblings, check out my blog: http://melissasirois.tumblr.com
Just saw the movie…got me thinking of how the predators exploit the dreams and desperation of these kids and their families. It actually reminded me a lot of sports, with boys. At some point it stops being about fun and (at high levels, but young ages), becomes a magnet for middlemen, agents, and other vultures to exploit the kids. They work on volume…the more bodies they feed into the system, the more hits they’ll get, apparently with the families/kids putting up all the risk. But the real driving force is the longing for glory, $$$, recognition and an escape to a dreamland of glory and fame. The ceremony where they crowned Nadya beauty queen in order to exploit her was the key to the process. I confess to feeling (only) ambivalence to Ashley while watching the movie; perhaps mesmerized by her beauty. Thanks for this review for waking me up.
Very good review of the film. I like how you said that the documentary crew never delve any deeper into the corruption that Ashley promotes. She is one creepy bitch. Her strange videos and oily face speak loudly, though.
I just stumbled upon this on netflix as well. It is so disturbing! You wrote an excellent review, highlighting the creepiest parts of the film. It’s shocking how narcissistic and twisted Ashley is. I felt such a sense of fear as they showed the girls in Japan, especially after Ashley pointedly mentions that Masayo (was that his name?) is 40 and the girls are 12-13 and that he likes models. As if that disturbs her? Is she thinking back to her own experiences and feeling traumatized/confused? Or, is she a twisted individual who relishes seeing others in pain? I can’t tell whether she is a disturbed person in need of help or a borderline psychopath. This woman wants children? Please, no.
Who were the people behind the camera? There are two movies here. The bold print says they’re trying to bring to light broad issues with underage modeling. The fine print hides a psychological web of lies and abuse. It’s gross. It’s obvious that this movie makes any normal human being feel bad…the only good thing that came of it is seeing that you all feel the same way. Thank you for that!
I saw it today, and I felt so sorry for the poor young girls getting exploited by the completely unacceptable contracts. These girls are children protected by the United Nations basic children rights that I hoped both Russia and Japan ratified. There were some moments in the movie that got me real chills. The contract is a SLAVE CONTRACT. The bloke Tigran says he killed lot of people and takes these models to morgues to show them dead young people or even DEAD YOUNG PEOPLE AFTER AUTOPSY. Are you fu**ing serious? That is criminal behaviour, and Ashley is simply listening to it with understanding and amazement. That is criminal too. And then the Japanese guy Messiah being 40, and Ashley comments it that he is 40 and LOVES YOUNG GIRLS that as 12-13-14, innocent and preteen, basically declaring an implicit knowledge of taking advantage these girls, making the guy a crminal as well.The Japanese Penal Code sets a minimal age of consent of 13. All right, then, so this is why they want them young and fresh. Ashley knows that and Tigran knows that. Ashley says that their pictures of girls goes not only to modelling agencies, but also to prostitution/porn industry. I bet they don’t say that to the families i Russia eagerly waiting for the success of their dear ones. Deception, lying and preying is tha staple here. The actions of the pyramide-like structure from the hunters/scouts to the shooters/photographers and publishers in Japan all exploit these girls.
Just watched this movie on Netflix. If the Japanese model industry was portrayed accurately, then they can all go to hell for exploiting poor, helpless girls and their families. Oh yeah, Ashley, you need to go to hell, too, you ugly bitch.
All of them made money off these young girls from poor families, except the girls…. All those portfolio sessions were actually paid sessions except the young girls are too naive to understand they would never get any money to get their photos taken. A total scam. And that Ashley is a serious psychopath pretending to be a well-wisher. Nasty woman. And very strange.