Film
Orgasm Inc.
A 2009 documentary that opens the doors on pharmaceutical companies' scramble to create a female sexual dysfunction drug. With wry humour and genuine access, it examines how medical categories get invented, how profit drives diagnosis, and what happens when desire gets medicalized. Smart, unsettling, and surprisingly funny.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy watching institutions squirm under a sharp lens, and you find corporate meetings, market jargon and marketing strategy more gripping than they sound.
Skip it if you need a documentary to stay carefully neutral, since this one takes a clear side and makes its case with a satirical edge.
What it asks of you: Seventy-three minutes, talky and brisk, living mostly in meeting rooms and interviews, so it wants your attention on what people say rather than on what you see.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The Bleeding Edge2018
A surgical-implant documentary that follows the same playbook: how devices get approved, who profits, and what patients actually experience. Rigorous and infuriating in the best way.
But It's grittier and angrier than Orgasm Inc., with less of the absurdist humour to break the tension. Can be punishing to watch.
The Corporation2003
A sprawling investigation into how corporations think, behave, and lobby. Uses wit and interviews to dismantle corporate logic. Same DNA as Orgasm Inc. but with a much wider net.
But Nearly three hours long and more didactic. The anger shows more than the wit, and some sections feel dated.
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism2004
Exposé of Fox News made with real footage and interviews. Same energy: how an institution manufactures reality. Thorough and genuinely alarming.
But Very explicitly anti-Fox. If you're sympathetic to the network, you'll feel hammered rather than persuaded.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Orgasm Inc.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Shortbus2006
Both films treat sex as a territory colonised by outside forces—corporate for the drug, performance and expectation for Shortbus. Both ask: what's left of desire when it's been commodified?
John Cameron Mitchell's narrative film about desire, authenticity, and connection in New York. Uses real sex and real emotion to ask what happens when intimacy gets performed. Formally daring, genuinely moving, never cynical.
But Explicit sex scenes throughout. Not arousing—meant to be humanising—but still confronting. Some find the tone precious or the pacing self-indulgent.
More like this (4)
The Pharmacist2020
A miniseries about a Louisiana pharmacist fighting the opioid crisis and corporate malfeasance. Personal stakes and institutional critique braided together beautifully. Holds genuine emotion without losing the anger.
But Shifts between true crime and drug-war doc, which can feel tonally uneven. Some episodes drag.
How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)2019
A satirical comedy series about a teenager building a darknet empire. Uses humour to examine supply chains, incentives, and how systems actually work. Lighter but structurally similar.
But It's a German comedy, not a documentary. If you want more unvarnished reality, the fictionalization might frustrate you.
Made in Dagenham2010
Both are furious about how systems serve profit over people—specifically women's bodies and labour. But where Orgasm Inc. documents the machinery, Made in Dagenham shows the human cost and the resistance. One informs the other.
A drama about female factory workers striking for equal pay in 1968. Watches how institutions resist change and how ordinary people push back. Serious, satisfying, with brilliant ensemble acting and real stakes.
But Very straightforward narrative. British period drama can feel heavy-handed, and the film doesn't take formal risks. Some will find it earnest and obvious.
Lip Sync Battle2015
Both see how culture manufactures crises and categories. Sync does it formally—breaking apart how narratives themselves get constructed—while Orgasm Inc. does it by observation. Together they show the same rot from opposite angles.
An experimental miniseries that uses Wikipedia articles, found footage, and fractured narrative to explore truth, information, and conspiracy. No interviews, no conventional structure. Treats medicalisation and mythology as the same problem.
But Genuinely difficult to follow and deliberately disorientating. Not for anyone wanting clarity or traditional storytelling. You'll either find it revelatory or unfinished.
People
Cast
- Kim AirsHerself
- Susan BennettHerself
- Laura BermanHerself
Directing
- Elizabeth CannerDirector
Production
- Judith HelfandExecutive Producer
- Julie Parker BenelloExecutive Producer
- Marc WeissExecutive Producer
- Wendy EttingerExecutive Producer
- Elizabeth CannerProducer