Nov, 5 2025
European film and television have long used the figure of the call girl not just as a character, but as a mirror to society’s tensions around gender, power, and class. These portrayals aren’t random-they reflect real social shifts, legal debates, and cultural attitudes that changed across decades. From the gritty realism of 1970s Italian neorealism to the sleek, morally ambiguous dramas of today’s Nordic noir, the call girl isn’t just a plot device. She’s a lens.
From Marginalized Figure to Complex Protagonist
In early European cinema, call girls were often shown as tragic victims or moral warnings. Think of the 1953 French film La Ronde, where each character’s encounter with a prostitute reveals their hypocrisy. She’s silent, faceless, and disposable-there to serve the male gaze or the moral lesson. But by the 1980s, that began to shift. Directors like Marco Ferreri in Dinner for Adele and later Pedro Almodóvar in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown gave these women voices, flaws, and agency. They weren’t just there to be saved or punished. They were navigating survival in a world that offered them few options.
By the 2000s, the archetype evolved again. In the Swedish series The Bridge (2011), a call girl’s murder kicks off a cross-border investigation. She’s not a stereotype. She has a name-Sofie-and a backstory. Her clients include politicians, police, and businessmen. The show doesn’t romanticize her life, but it refuses to reduce her to her job. That’s the turning point: sex work became a narrative tool to expose systemic corruption, not just titillation.
Legal Realities Shape On-Screen Stories
European countries have wildly different laws around prostitution, and TV shows often reflect those differences. In Germany, where sex work is legal and regulated, series like Babylon Berlin (2017) show call girls operating openly in brothels with contracts and health checks. They’re workers, not outcasts. In contrast, Sweden’s 1999 law criminalizing clients-not sex workers-led to portrayals in shows like Quicksand (2019) where the woman is portrayed as exploited, pressured by pimps or poverty, while the men face no consequences.
France followed Sweden’s model in 2016, and French TV dramas like Call My Agent! (2015) quietly echo this. One episode features a film producer who pays for sex and later tries to cover it up. The show doesn’t judge the woman. It judges the system that lets powerful men act without accountability. The call girl becomes a symbol of imbalance-not because of her profession, but because of who gets to control the narrative around it.
Sex Work as Social Commentary
Some of the most powerful European stories use call girls to ask bigger questions. In the 2021 Spanish series La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), a character who once worked as a call girl becomes a key strategist in a heist. Her past isn’t hidden-it’s her strength. She knows how to read people, how to manipulate power dynamics, how to survive. The show doesn’t ask us to pity her. It asks us to respect her.
Similarly, in the 2023 British miniseries Small Things Like These, a woman working as an escort in 1980s Ireland helps a teenager escape an abusive home. Her own life is unstable, her choices limited by religion and poverty. But she’s the one who acts. The show doesn’t glorify her work. It highlights how society fails women at every level-except the ones who find ways to help each other anyway.
Why These Portrayals Matter
These aren’t just stories. They shape how real people are seen. When media reduces call girls to either victims or villains, it fuels stigma. When it shows them as complex, resourceful, and human, it opens space for real policy change. A 2022 study by the European Institute for Gender Equality found that media portrayals directly influence public opinion on sex work laws. Shows that humanize sex workers led to a 17% increase in public support for decriminalization in countries where they aired.
Take the case of the 2020 documentary Sex Work Is Work, filmed across Berlin, Amsterdam, and Lisbon. It followed five women who work independently. One was a former university student. Another, a mother of three. None saw themselves as victims. They saw themselves as workers. That’s the same nuance now showing up in fiction. The best European shows don’t ask if sex work is right or wrong. They ask: who gets to decide?
What’s Missing in These Portrayals
Despite progress, gaps remain. Most characters are still white, young, and cisgender. Women of color, trans sex workers, and older women are rarely centered. Even in progressive shows, the call girl is often the only woman in the room with no family, no future, no real support system. Real sex workers have networks, friendships, unions. Some are activists. Some run collectives. Few shows show that.
Also missing: the economic pressure. In countries like Romania or Bulgaria, many women turn to sex work because of low wages, lack of childcare, or the collapse of social safety nets. These aren’t choices made lightly-they’re responses to broken systems. Yet most dramas focus on individual morality instead of structural failure.
Where the Story Is Headed
The next wave of European storytelling is starting to change that. Upcoming series like The Street Women (2026, Netherlands) follow a group of sex workers organizing for legal rights. One character is a retired call girl who now runs a shelter. Another is a student documenting their lives for a thesis. The show doesn’t romanticize. It doesn’t scandalize. It just shows them living.
And that’s the real shift. The call girl isn’t a symbol anymore. She’s a person. And European film and TV are finally catching up.
Are call girls real characters in European TV shows, or are they fictional?
They’re fictional characters, but they’re based on real experiences. Many writers consult former sex workers, NGOs, and activists to ensure portrayals aren’t stereotypical. Shows like The Bridge and Call My Agent! worked with organizations like Red Umbrella Fund to shape accurate storylines.
Do these portrayals influence real laws on sex work in Europe?
Yes. Research from the European Institute for Gender Equality shows that media that humanizes sex workers correlates with increased public support for decriminalization. When viewers see a call girl as a mother, a student, or a survivor-not just a stereotype-it changes how they think about policy.
Why do so many European shows use call girls as plot devices?
Because their lives intersect with power, secrecy, and class in ways few other characters do. A call girl might know a politician’s secrets, a lawyer’s weaknesses, or a cop’s corruption. Her presence exposes hidden systems-making her a natural tool for social critique.
Are these portrayals accurate to real life?
Some are, some aren’t. Early portrayals were often exploitative. Modern shows are more grounded, but still simplify. Real sex workers face diverse realities: some work independently, others in collectives; some choose it, others are forced into it. No single show captures it all-but the best ones try to show the range.
Is there a difference between how Eastern and Western Europe portray call girls?
Absolutely. Western European shows often focus on individual agency and legal rights. Eastern European shows, especially from countries with weaker social services, tend to highlight poverty, trafficking, and survival. The tone is darker, the stakes higher. But both are trying to show the same thing: how society treats women who operate outside its norms.