Why did she reject Jack the way she did? - The Girlfriend Experience (2016) Discussion

[–] President_Ackbar_Impeached 9 years ago

The other clients did not start calling her personal and work phones, and showing up in private life.

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[–] MeganCraft 9 years ago

The other clients did not start calling her personal and work phones, and showing up in private life.

That as the trigger, its her reaction to it, that is at the heart of my question. As noted in my original post, up to that point, she handled everything in a manner that kept her clients coming back. Her response to Jack was an abrupt end with Jack, no effort was make to resolve the matter, or break it off in manner that was consistent with her calm style of letting the clients feel they always got what they wanted. Her handling of it made the situation worse and worse, and even over stepping the boundaries of contacting at least one person in his personal life.

The question remains, did she know how he would react by cutting off suddenly, not allowing him to have any type of closure. It the lack of closure that she is denying him. Does she understand that, or is she incapable of that level of empathy.

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[–] Pequod88 9 years ago

Christine is smart and perceptive. Jack's jealous reaction to the very brief and entirely innocent exchange he witnessed between Christine and man who approached her at the pool revealed that he was trouble. His reaction was so out of proportion to what occurred that there surely would have been more difficulties ahead. She did nothing to provoke him. His behavior makes it clear (to me) that he was the one to send the video to her work and family. He wanted revenge for her rejection.

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[–] MeganCraft 8 years ago

Christine is smart and perceptive. Jack's jealous reaction to the very brief and entirely innocent exchange he witnessed between Christine and man who approached her at the pool revealed that he was trouble. His reaction was so out of proportion to what occurred that there surely would have been more difficulties ahead. She did nothing to provoke him. His behavior makes it clear (to me) that he was the one to send the video to her work and family. He wanted revenge for her rejection.

I agree that she did nothing intentionally to provoke him in advance of her deciding not to see him again. And I agree she could see where things were leading, and she didn't want to want to have him as client any longer because it was easy for her to predict that he would become more possessive, ultimately demanding that she have no other clients but him.

It was a dead end road for her once she recognized he wanted to possess and control her, and there was no reason for her wait for things to go from bad to worse, to out of control.... But that is point of my original post. How she handled it did result in the situation getting worse and worse and then out of control. She was denying Jack closure, not allowing him to break it off in a manner allows him to let go and find another GF experience. Did she deliberately do it that way that because she saw it as the best way to get what she wanted (never to see him again)?

My question remains, was the way she handled the breakup with her client Jack, exactly what she wanted and expected to happen; did she want him to get so upset\enraged that he would go to extremes to get in contact with her by doing the things he did.... Or is the story line surrounding Jack about her making rookie mistakes when breaking things off with a (unstable) client. The ideal solution would be she manipulates Jack into getting closure he needed, and he feels good about finding a new GF experience; she gets what she wants, never to see him again.

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[–] Pequod88 8 years ago

"...is the story line surrounding Jack about her making rookie mistakes when breaking things off with a (unstable) client."

Good point. I think this rings true. From a business standpoint, we see that Christine's inexperience makes the situation worse. Breaking things off with Jacqueline left her with no support system, no gatekeeper. Her independence is an essential element of her character, an element Keough portrays brilliantly. It serves her well in numerous situations, but also places her at greater risk. Screening clients is important, as the men with enough money to afford The Girlfriend Experience also tend to be men unaccustomed to not getting their way. Jack reacted very aggressively when Christine asserted control in the face of his bad behavior. His revenge in sending the video was a cruel way of asserting his dominance in the face of Christine's rejection. The kind, gentle widower was a good man. A lonely, wealthy man looking for good sex and company late in life. Christine shouldn't count on finding many like him.

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[–] MeganCraft 8 years ago

Starting with episode 1 and then ending in episode #13, is her decline from a hired girlfriend which was being a true GF for a few hours or a weekend, down to a high paid whore, that no longer is the GF experience with her clients; at the end her encounters were limited to raw sex and fringe fantasies by wealthy men that don't care about her, and she does not care about them. In the early episodes, I got the sense that she enjoyed being with her clients, it appeared to me that she was equally getting the BF experience with the benefit of having them pay her. During the 13 episodes she never appeared interested in having a romantic\typical relationship. The closest was the multi-millionaire who dies suddenly, but that was more of a sugar daddy relationship, where the guy understood there were boundaries he should not cross. He was kind to her, almost like a daughter who he did not judge for being a GF for hire. I got the impression if he had not died, he was the one guy who she might have been willing make her sole client for the right price, and he clearly had the money\interest to setup her up with financial guarantees (ie set her in with big ticket items in her name, house, car, stocks, etc). But, the whole point of that story line was to deny Christine that option with his sudden death, something she could not control.

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[–] FinneganBear 8 years ago

Until Jack, Christine had done a good job of letting her clients think they were close to her while actually keeping them at a distance so that they knew nothing of her real life. But when Jack became aware of her real name, phone number, work and school, she realized she was in over her head and no longer in control of the situation. Her reaction was entirely emotional: a combination of anger, fear and panic. She could see that he was trouble but had no experience in handling a problematic client. There was his poolside jealousy. Then he dunked her in the pool, which resulted in her losing her temper with him. That scene was symbolic because she always wanted to be in control and for that moment when he dunked her, he had complete control over her. Then he wanted her to move in with him, which she couldn't do. And when she went back to his apt to get her phone, she realized he had probably been looking at it. The phone's face was still lit and on a page of her texts with her sister. She had a very uneasy look as she picked the phone up. But she continued to see him and nothing seemed to have come of it so she could have thought he hadn't seen anything on the phone that would compromise her. But then he began calling her private number and referring to her as Christine rather than Chelsea. To her way of thinking, he had no right to invade Christine's life and this was a violation of her privacy. Christine called him and angrily told him she didn't want him in her life. It was an emotional response because she was not prepared for any of Chelsea's clients to know about her life as Christine. Then he stalked her on the school parking lot, calling her Christine and again invading the life he had no right to know about. She was in a panic as she drove away from him. Then the fear turned to anger as she pulled off the road and called Jack's friend to set up a lunch whereby she could get her revenge and try to regain control of the situation. This turned out to be a bad idea but it was purely an emotional-and probably irrational-response to the fear and anger she was experiencing due to Christine's life having been compromised by Jack's unwelcome intrusion into it. I think it was a well written episode because we shouldn't really have expected her to know how to handle having her entire life compromised by a client who was frightening her.

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[–] Aim-JE 8 years ago

Jack is obviously unstable and not ready for just The Girlfriend Experience. He invades her private life and continues to do so after she tells him she wants no part of it.
With all due respect, I don't think a paid sex worker "breaks up" with a client. She terminates the business arrangement. I think Christine did that, but Jack refused to accept it. He wanted her as a girlfriend. The Girlfriend Experience wasn't enough for him.
I didn't see her asking his friend to talk him down as revenge so much as trying to get someone not involved in law enforcement to try to him to back off.

"Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!"

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[–] FinneganBear 8 years ago

Her lunch with Jack's friend seemed like revenge to me because of how she made the call. She was speeding away from Jack, cursing him, and pounding on her steering wheel in a fit of rage as she pulled off the road. She was still cursing him saying, "You wanna play victim!? I'll F you up!" Then she dialed the number left a very calm message to meet Anna for lunch. Seemed like she just wanted to make Jack look bad and embarrass him.

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[–] Aim-JE 8 years ago

Is that what you think she did when she had lunch with his friend? She was understandably outraged when she made the call. Before that, she told him she wanted nothing to do with him. His reaction - stalk her. Jack has been bad and deserves to be embarrassed. He's trying to bully a sex worker into becoming his girlfriend. Knowing she can't get a legal restraining order against him without implicating herself gives him free rein to terrorize her.
I think he's so obsessed that he doesn't realize that he could get in trouble too. (Solicitation) Did she keep any recordings of him that she could use against him if - BIG IF - this became a legal issue?
I haven't watched this show religiously, but is Jack the one who told her to say she liked being paid for sex when they were doing it doggy-style and told her to "take it all in" when she was performing fellatio?

"Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!"

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[–] FinneganBear 8 years ago

Is that what you think she did when she had lunch with his friend? She was understandably outraged when she made the call. Before that, she told him she wanted nothing to do with him. His reaction - stalk her. Jack has been bad and deserves to be embarrassed. He's trying to bully a sex worker into becoming his girlfriend. Knowing she can't get a legal restraining order against him without implicating herself gives him free rein to terrorize her.
I think he's so obsessed that he doesn't realize that he could get in trouble too. (Solicitation) Did she keep any recordings of him that she could use against him if - BIG IF - this became a legal issue?
I haven't watched this show religiously, but is Jack the one who told her to say she liked being paid for sex when they were doing it doggy-style and told her to "take it all in" when she was performing fellatio?

Yes, I agree completely. But my point was that by calling Anna while in a fit of rage after she fled the scene when he stalked her at school, Christine was trying to get back at him. It wasn't a well thought out plan to find a way to get him to back off (although that would have been a desirable affect).

As an aside, I liked the way the scripts showed gradually increasing problems with Christine's escort work. Initially, she didn't see a downside. She had a lot going for her (family, school, work). Her clients were rich, sophisticated and treated her well. She was having fun, being appreciated by these men and making great money. The first clue was when a client made a crude joke. He was kidding with her as they walked downtown drinking coffee and said, "I'm just F'ing with you. Hey! I'm F'ing you! That's even better." Her smile immediately disappeared as if she was just realizing that no matter how nice she and these men treated each other or where they took her, the bottom line was that she was a sex worker to them. And when that guy's wife found out about her and confronted her, Christine was so shaken after the woman left, she couldn't even hold her drink.

Subsequently, she encountered problems with the family of the guy who left her money in his will, and then found herself stalked by the creepy Jack, who actually seemed dangerous. Later her clients included a drugged out guy who paid her to join 2 other girls, one of whom seemed like a low class druggie while the other, who seemed more like Christine but was more experienced, said the work was easy and financially rewarding but she still wanted to get out. Another client was paying her to be abusive to him while he watched her have sex with another guy (who was also hired). These later, rather sleazy situations demonstrated just how far she had sunk since she began doing it as sort of a lark.

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[–] MeganCraft 8 years ago

I haven't watched this show religiously, but is Jack the one who told her to say she liked being paid for sex when they were doing it doggy-style and told her to "take it all in" when she was performing fellatio?

That scene is designed to be perceived multiple ways. The straight forward one is that he is borderline raping her, forcing her to do something she does not enjoy, punishing her for lying to him, even though its not revealed he's been spying on her.

Its also intended to be perceived that they maybe role playing because Jack may like her playing the whore. Whore role playing is pretty common fantasy for a lot guys. She is giving him the GF experience by playing the whore, just like women sometimes play the whore with their partner.

The scene is also foreshadowing her future.

While Jack is revealed as being a rich guy who can't handle rejection, its just background to the over-riding story arc of her making choices that cause her life to slide further away from the GF experience, into the darker side of prostitution.

Let say for example it was legal for women to sell sex. The GF experience being a respected way of providing service; at the top of the profession. It would like watching a famous actress go from a respected movie actress with an academy award, making bad choices in movies and acting roles, until she finds herself doing porn videos to pay the rent.... Clearly the series does not take it that far, but that is what is being suggested. She starts near the top, but starts sliding down into the darker side.

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[–] FinneganBear 8 years ago

That scene is designed to be perceived multiple ways. The straight forward one is that he is borderline raping her, forcing her to do something she does not enjoy, punishing her for lying to him, even though its not revealed he's been spying on her.

Its also intended to be perceived that they maybe role playing because Jack may like her playing the whore. Whore role playing is pretty common fantasy for a lot guys. She is giving him the GF experience by playing the whore, just like women sometimes play the whore with their partner.

I didn't think they were role playing. The look on her face and tone of her voice while saying and doing what Jack wanted indicated she was not into it. As for Jack, we learned that he was very controlling and that he had strong feelings for her. But we also know that despite his feelings for her, he had to pay her for the time she spent with him. He would have resented that but wouldn't say so because he wanted their relationship to evolve into something more. But making her act like his whore during sex would have been his way of "punishing" her for the fact that he had to pay for her time.

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[–] MeganCraft 8 years ago

Her lunch with Jack's friend seemed like revenge to me because of how she made the call. She was speeding away from Jack, cursing him, and pounding on her steering wheel in a fit of rage as she pulled off the road. She was still cursing him saying, "You wanna play victim!? I'll F you up!" Then she dialed the number left a very calm message to meet Anna for lunch. Seemed like she just wanted to make Jack look bad and embarrass him.

I agree, she wants to punish him.

What I wonder about is if she may have liked him more than she was willing to admit to herself, she not only made mistakes in how she handled the whole situation, she over-reacted, and kept over-reacing, which further enraged Jack. Because we never know what is going on in her mind, one possibility is that she upset with him for ruining a very good thing for both. He got what he wanted, and she got what she wanted, but then he destroyed their special arrangement by crossing boundaries that she most likely perceived as well established. She did not ask about, or invade, the lives of her clients, and she assumed they would not invade hers.

My thinking if she did not over-react (for whatever reasons), she would have handled the situation in a manner where she maintained control over him and the situation. In a more predictable series (which this series is not), she would have calmed down, got in contact with him, manipulated him in such a way that he moves on, finding another GF experience and she moves on replacing him with another wealthy client. None of that happens, and with each episode her clients become less and less interested in having a GF experience. They just want a whore, and have no (or very little) interest in having a GF experience.

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[–] FinneganBear 8 years ago

What I wonder about is if she may have liked him more than she was willing to admit to herself, she not only made mistakes in how she handled the whole situation, she over-reacted, and kept over-reacing, which further enraged Jack. Because we never know what is going on in her mind, one possibility is that she upset with him for ruining a very good thing for both. He got what he wanted, and she got what she wanted, but then he destroyed their special arrangement by crossing boundaries that she most likely perceived as well established. She did not ask about, or invade, the lives of her clients, and she assumed they would not invade hers.

We don't know. But there seemed to be (at least to me) a few clues. In bed, Jack asked her to tell the truth about her real name and where she was from. She immediately lied about both. He gave her a key to his place and wanted her to move in. The distant look on her face behind his back as they hugged suggested that this was something she had no intention of doing. And when she had to deal with him as Christine Reade instead of Chelsea or Annabel (the fake "real" name she gave him in bed) she became irate. I thought it was symbolic that when she called him and said she did not want him in her life, she was calling from the office, hair up, flat shoes, conservative clothes. She probably enjoyed him as a client. But that was as far as it would ever go and he was clearly not welcome in the life of Christine Reade.

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[–] MeganCraft 8 years ago

We don't know. But there seemed to be (at least to me) a few clues. In bed, Jack asked her to tell the truth about her real name and where she was from. She immediately lied about both. He gave her a key to his place and wanted her to move in. The distant look on her face behind his back as they hugged suggested that this was something she had no intention of doing. And when she had to deal with him as Christine Reade instead of Chelsea or Annabel (the fake "real" name she gave him in bed) she became irate. I thought it was symbolic that when she called him and said she did not want him in her life, she was calling from the office, hair up, flat shoes, conservative clothes. She probably enjoyed him as a client. But that was as far as it would ever go and he was clearly not welcome in the life of Christine Reade.

What I like about the series is that there are very few clear indications what is, or isn't the reality of the situation. She and the situations can be perceived multiple of different ways, and the pieces\scenes still fit together. Another example, which I posted previously somewhere, is that she is getting the BF experience as well as giving it. If it was a straight forward relationship, she (or other women) might be doing much of the same things to stay in the relationship with a wealthy man. By having the BF experience at the same time as giving the GF, she gets to have sex and nice day\evening\weekend, but return to a different life\reality, much in the same way her clients do.... This of course fades away as things fall apart, and she becomes more of a whore who strictly deals in sex and fringe fantasies, and less and less in the GF experience.

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[–] FinneganBear 8 years ago

What I like about the series is that there are very few clear indications what is, or isn't the reality of the situation. She and the situations can be perceived multiple of different ways, and the pieces\scenes still fit together. Another example, which I posted previously somewhere, is that she is getting the BF experience as well as giving it. If it was a straight forward relationship, she (or other women) might be doing much of the same things to stay in the relationship with a wealthy man. By having the BF experience at the same time as giving the GF, she gets to have sex and nice day\evening\weekend, but return to a different life\reality, much in the same way her clients do.... This of course fades away as things fall apart, and she becomes more of a whore who strictly deals in sex and fringe fantasies, and less and less in the GF experience.

I think that sums it up well. Initially she didn't think of herself as a prostitute. Avery told her how much fun it was, how much she liked the attention and how profitable it was. When Christine first tried it, she was uneasy about taking the money and was told it was just for drinks and anything else was up to her. As her client list grew, she seemed to enjoy her time with those guys. Great restaurants, a day on a yacht, listening to them talk about their business. She was enjoying the fun parts of relationships without the stress of the less enjoyable times that eventually become a part of a real relationship. But then it became a full time job and the quality of her clients diminished. She seemed to get little if any satisfaction from her clients (some were downright creepy) and just did what she needed to do to maintain a profitable business.

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[–] madsketcher 8 years ago

Because he was a jealous, obsessive, creepy butthole who was stalking her. This wasn't terribly subtle - the cues were all there. That scene of him internally combusting whilst she talked with that guy by the pool was the first major red flag. I knew it was all downhill from there. He saw her as his property, and that was very clear when she kicked him to the curb.

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