Ashley Judd is doing something rare in Hollywood: publicly condemning her own work. The actress called out her 1997 thriller Kiss the Girls for "making entertainment out of sexual torture" against women, calling it "traumatizing" and questioning why such films are profitable.

This isn't performative hand-wringing. Judd has been a vocal advocate for survivors of sexual violence since going public with her allegations against Harvey Weinstein in 2017. Her criticism of Kiss the Girls—a film she starred in at the height of her career—is consistent with that advocacy, even if it complicates her own filmography.

For context: Kiss the Girls was a massive hit, earning $60 million domestic in 1997. Judd played a kidnapped woman who escapes a serial killer's lair, teaming with Morgan Freeman's detective to stop him. The film was part of a 90s trend of serial killer thrillers—Seven, The Bone Collector, Along Came a Spider—that made big money by depicting violence against women in graphic detail.

The question Judd raises is uncomfortable but necessary: why do we find this entertaining? These films claimed to be about catching monsters, but they lingered on female suffering in ways that felt exploitative rather than investigative. The camera dwelled on terror, captivity, and brutalization. Was that in service of the story, or in service of ticket sales?

Here's where it gets complicated. Should we condemn Kiss the Girls entirely? The film also showed Judd's character as resourceful and resilient, not just a victim. She escaped through intelligence and bravery. That was relatively progressive for 1997. But does that excuse the film's voyeuristic approach to sexual violence?

The 90s thriller trend has largely died out, replaced by prestige TV crime dramas that (mostly) handle violence more thoughtfully. But the impulse remains: audiences are drawn to stories about women in danger. The question is whether we can tell those stories without fetishizing the danger itself.