Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Disappearance of Shere Hite’ on Hulu, a documentary about an underappreciated feminist icon

Nicole Newnham’s documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite (now streaming on Hulu) aims to introduce an almost-forgotten figure of the women’s movement to a new generation. In 1976, Shere (pronounced like “Cher”) Hite’s book The Hite Report on Female Sexuality was a phenomenon – it revealed rarely discussed truths about the female orgasm, and became an international hit that still ranks as the 30th best-selling book of all time. Dakota Johnson produces and narrates this biography, which illustrates Hite’s rollercoaster life into and out of a harsh media spotlight. It also asserts that her revelatory work doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Let’s not dance around it, because Hite sure didn’t: Her research showed that women rarely achieved orgasm from penetrative intercourse. Good old-fashioned in-and-out? It rarely does the job, contrary to popular assertions in the mid-’70s. Women, she learned, were far more satisfied with direct stimulation of the clitoris, through masturbation or cunnilingus. With preemptive apologies for the pun, we learn the overall, well, thrust of her findings in the opening scenes of the documentary, via archival footage of a TV interview with Hite. She uses all those words with studious frankness, which surely was revolutionary at the time, and likely shocking for pearl-clutchers of the day. And certainly for men, who were suddenly forced to reassess whether they were really doing the right thing, or if their partners were just, you know, faking it. Not that many were willing to reassess the traditional methodology, mind you – a lot of men just doubled down and insisted Hite was full of it. Cue another interview clip where Hite is parked on a talk show next to David Hasselhoff, who embarrasses himself when he flusters and bumbles through an insistence that his partners have always been perfectly satisfied. You sure about that, Dave?

The film gets into Hite’s origin: Her small town upbringing, primarily by her religious grandparents. Her studies at Columbia University, where she studied social history. Her work as a model, ranging from posing for pulp book covers and movie poster illustrations (her early claim to fame? Her illustrated likeness ended up on a James Bond poster) to a Playboy magazine shoot. Her participation in a grossly sexist ad campaign for Olivetti typewriters turned her toward the women’s movement and feminism, which jibed with her academic work. The National Organization for Women helped fund her research as she developed an in-depth questionnaire about women’s sexual satisfaction. She mailed out countless surveys and got more than 3,000 in reply, using the data and analysis as the basis of The Hite Report. Despite her publisher’s dislike of the book, their hands were forced when copies began flying off the shelves. Hite had struck a nerve.

Thus began Hite’s flirtation with fame. She confidently relished in her defiance of norms – her striking and distinctive looks and fashion combined with her academic intelligence defied the stereotype of the gorgeous airhead more interested in clothes and makeup than books and research. She continued her studies into the 1990s, writing subsequent books about male sexuality and growing up under the patriarchy, predictably stirring traditionalists ranging from classical chauvinists to religious conservatives. Hite was an enigmatic figure – flamboyant, elegant, perhaps intimidating – who courted attention, threw parties in her fancy New York apartment (she was neighbors with rocker Gene Simmons, who turns up as a talking head here, and Donna Summer) and eventually grew disenfranchised with the criticism levied at her, much of it unreasonable. (This isn’t to say her work was flawless; she insisted her studies were scientific, although that’s debatable. Either way, it was still insightful and inarguably groundbreaking.) The media chewed her up, and eventually, she not only retreated from the public eye, she left the country altogether. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Hite Report was a successor to The Kinsey Report, dramatized in the excellent Liam Neeson-led biopic Kinsey.

Performance Worth Watching: Hite herself is a fascinating figure, crafting a persona that deftly walked the line between performative and unflinchingly honest. 

Memorable Dialogue: An interviewee, in voiceover, sums up the impact of Hite’s work: “Shere was breaking a functional silence. It was brave in a way that took my breath away.”

Sex and Skin: Some nude photos from Hite’s photo shoots.

Our Take: Poke all the holes in Hite’s work that you want – scientific studies should face scrutiny, lest they cease to be science – but she was unapologetically herself, and relentlessly pursued something closer to the truth than the long-held assertions of the status quo. It seems odd that she’s not a progressive icon with her face on T-shirts, RGB-style. But that also seemed to be her choice. For years, she engaged in heated public debate over her work, and was exhausted by it; whether she was happier after she moved to Europe in the mid-1990s is a question the documentary, frustratingly, doesn’t answer. She occasionally struggled financially, and kept writing, albeit without an American publisher, but we’re left to make an assumption about someone who’s characterized by the film as something of an enigma.

Which isn’t to say The Disappearance of Shere Hite isn’t a thoughtful, informative portrait of an underappreciated would-be/should-be feminist superstar. Culling from an impressive amount of archival footage of Hite, the film wisely doesn’t force any inferences about 21st-century feminism or the #MeToo movement – it’s smart enough to let us draw our own conclusions about Hite through the lens of our current context. And as so many similar documentaries about burn-hot-and-fade-away public figures of the mid-to-late-20th-century end up being, it’s a harsh indictment of the media of the time. It’s hard to watch Hite be routinely set up to fail on national TV: One talk show put her next to know-nothing celebs (like Gil Gerard, for some reason) who are given equal time to talk about topics about which they know almost nothing, and Oprah once put her on a stage in front of an audience consistent wholly of hostile men.

The subtext is prevalent, and certainly relevant: Hite was ahead of her time. She also was a product of crass capitalism – her publisher tried to limit the initial pressing of The Hite Report, but relented once it filled the coffers, then discarded her once the shine of controversy faded. At the time, truth was a secondary interest for an exploitationist system. Thankfully, there are documentaries like this to reintroduce Hite to the internet-era zeitgeist. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Britney Spears, Monica Lewinsky and Pamela Anderson are more high-profile women who enjoyed personal-reclamation documentaries that reframed the ruthless misogyny they suffered in a necessary new light. Hite doesn’t have the name recognition, but she certainly deserves a sympathetic documentary like this, too.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.