Hollywood has a dirty secret… Alright, Hollywood has thousands and thousands of dirty secrets, but it has one that’s extra-dirty, and extra-secret. It’s this: it’s not the only movie business in America, or California, or even L.A. Just up the road, there’s a whole other system of studios and stars and sound-stages, and Hollywood really, really doesn’t like to talk about it.
It’s not like the world in general doesn’t talk about porn—it’s practically impossible to read a serious newspaper or a media-savvy website right now without encountering someone pontificating about porn: porn’s role in our society, porn and men, porn and women, porn and children, porn and culture. But the same is not true of the movie industry—an industry that likes talking about itself, but really doesn’t like talking about its pervy little brother up in San Fernando. (A little brother, by the way, that has absolutely no problem at all with talking about its older sibling: no major Hollywood film comes out now without a meticulously produced porn parody in which the actual sex often seems secondary to straight-up fan service, as fascinatingly chronicled by Buzzfeed a little while ago.)
“Adult movies” have been accessible without going down to Times Square in a big raincoat for decades now, and since the millennium, you haven’t even had to leave your room (hence all the moral panic), but in all that time, Hollywood has treated them mostly as a punchline, sometimes as a cautionary tale, occasionally as a bit of razzle-dazzle, and very, very rarely as something complicated and interesting and worthy of intelligent commentary. Mostly, it hasn’t treated them as anything at all.
But maybe that’s changing? This cinematic year has been, by Hollywood’s low standards, peculiarly interested in porn. Earlier this year, James Franco produced a documentary “Kink,” about the BDSM site kink.com, and prolific British director Michael Winterbottom (director of 2004’s “9 Songs,” a “mainstream” film featuring unsimulated sex and little else) released “The Look of Love,” a biopic of porn baron Paul Raymond. This week, “Lovelace”, the Amanda Seyfried-starring biopic of the “Deep Throat” star, arrives in theaters, joining the much-discussed “The Canyons,” which is not a porn movie per se (though it features graphic sex), but stars adult film celeb James Deen. And to top it all off, Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s September directorial debut “Don Jon” is also about porn and porn addiction.
So now seems as good a time as any to ask how exactly Hollywood does deal with the other movie industry, when it deigns to do so. Briefly, the answer is “not very well.” And while the quality may range between the movies discussed below, the key factor for many is that their approach gets them off on the wrong foot to start. How? Let us count the ways:
1. By Making Porn Comic
This is Hollywood’s go-to response to porn, and to sex in general, really: naked people (especially naked fat people, or naked old people, or naked people of the same gender) are funny. So people whose job it is to be naked must be, like, really funny, or at least, laughing at them must be really fun.
It isn’t. Two years ago, Tom Brady and a cabal of deeply evil people headed up by Adam Sandler released “Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star,” which turned out to be not just the worst film about porn in quite some time, but also probably the worst cultural product that humankind has ever produced. The arrival of ‘Bucky Larson,’ a story of painful idiocy about a Midwestern hick determined to make it in porn despite having a tiny penis (hilarious!), was redeemed only (and even then only partially) by the opportunity that it gave critics to exercise their bile glands.
But though ‘Bucky Larson’ is the worst such film, others in the same vein have also failed to raise a smile: 2005’s “The Amateurs” (starring Jeff Bridges) was largely just embarrassing for its way-too-good cast, while 2010’s “Elektra Luxx” proved that moving away from brash, fratty sex comedy to arty, ensemble sex comedy doesn’t help at all. A dishonourable mention here must also go to Luke Greenfield‘s teen rom-com “The Girl Next Door,” which is very confused and confusing in its approach to the porn industry (as embodied by Elisha Cuthbert) depicting it by turns as glamorous, hilarious and tragic, frequently in the same scene, depending on what’s convenient for the story.
It may be encouraging that this year’s crop of films about porn doesn’t, for once, include anything in the gross-out comedy vein. On the other hand, quite a lot of it swings to the other end of the spectrum, which can prove just as bad.
Jennifer, i have seen the light and i will obey.
Zinjo my old mate, i think you should get your priorities right, whether or not the word 'repertoire' is in "The Sayer of the Truths" vocabulary is something that simply should not be concerning you, the ONLY thing you should instead be concerning yourself with is the fact that "The Sayer of the Truth" IS INDEED the ultimate truth (as his name would suggest obviously). Just absorb the wisdom of "The Sayer of the Truth", everything else is total bull-shit, believe me.
*Ahem*, if you are going to impersonate someone junior, you might want to at least demonstrate a bit of, shall we say "balance" in your comments.
Show yourself, use your own name and let's see who you REALLY are, or do we add cowardice to your repertoire of identity theft and libel? (I bet repertoire is not even in your vocabulary….)
Another key point here of course is that Americans love to wallow and revel in their own hypocrisy, its a very important part of their lives, especially with regards to everything pertaining to sex, yet another reason why the 20th century will always be remembered by future historians as "THE TIME OF SEXUAL REPRESSION" and we`re the poor bastards who had to live through it, and you wonder why i`m so bitter ! ? ! ?.
Agreed, i just want to see beautiful gorgeous sexy 18 year-old girls being buggered and sodomized all day long, Hollywood doesn`t provide that so why would i want to waste my time with Hollywood ever again ! ?.
Practically every Hollywood movie and TV show is an endless line and succession of sexual inuendos and situations, why are people still watching all that ludicrously out-moded and hypocritical garbage when the real McCoy is now freely available at the touch of a button on the internet ! ?, I dont really understand how that abomination known as Hollywood is still getting away with their ludicrous lies and hypocrisy in this day and age, Hollywood has been getting away with its loathsome deception for over 100 years now, isn`t it time for that deception to end ! ! !.
Porn is the truth and is there-fore the future, Hollywood is lies and hypocrisy and is there-fore the past.
Thank you for NOT peppering this article with pontificating socio-politcal morals about the porn industry. The reality is porn is to sex as Hollywood is to reality! Unlike Europe where a porn star can be elected to government, the US is so entrenched in it's schizophrenic hypocrisy of publicly denouncing of porn as much as it secretly consumes it, that it cannot accept that performers in the industry simply are not scarred or imprisoned by it as the moralists (religious or other) wish them to be. These people "must be punished" for not shooting up a theater but having sex in one instead! I suspect the film, "About Cherry" has to be the closest to reality for a porn set. The matter of fact sex, over performed for the cameras ending with a polite "thank you" from the co-stars and director. Nothing glamorous or traumatic for anyone, just a "job". Granted "Cherry" has issues about how much was too much to fit into a limited amount of cinema time, but I found it to be a refreshing addition to the subject matter. It didn't preach it simply gave the audience a look at the journey of a young woman from a difficult family life getting involved in the porn industry. It could have been better, but as already described in this article, it could have been much worse.
Maybe I missed it, but for an article that attempts to state what's wrong with porn in Hollywood, I didn't read much in the way of solutions. Also, unless there's actual proof that the people from Drive were cut BECAUSE they were porn stars, that's a big presumption.
The issue is not that Hollywood get porn wrong (the same could be said about porn getting Hollywood wrong), but most importantly that Hollywood gets sex wrong. Once the latter is fixed you can start to fix the former, if needed be.
Here's the way i see it pornography isn't addressed in a intellectual context .It's not for intellects its more about sensual pleasures.So when hollywood or any legitimate film makers do a film on pornography it falls by the waste line.I think the way to remedy that is instead touch upon the idea of what sex means .Deal exclusively with sex in its own context not in the one of pornography .Which is very 1 dimensional sex is not and intellectual game and when you have a bunch of brainy people talking about it .Or making films about the particular subject they are doing it from a intellectual perspective .Porn doesn't need to be philosophized over its pretty objective and too the point .What really should be tackled is just sex period which its obvious that.These film makers who do make films about porn have no idea what the hell they are doing.
There is actually one other porn star who has successfully (depending on your point of view, but I think so) made the jump to mainstream: Brent Coorigan, going by the name now of Sean Lockhart. Saw him recently in a LGBT film called 'Judas Kiss' where he had a supporting role in. Recently, he starred, co-wrote and produced a film that was test screened in Philadelphia at this year's QFEST, Truth, which happened to be an interesting psychological thriller. He has another one coming out sometime next year (don't remember the name off the top of my head). I certainly realize that it's relatively rare that a porn stat can successful make the jump to mainstream film. Brent has demonstrated he was some real acting chops and it seems that the projects he's been getting look very interesting. The trick is that these guys have to know how to promote themselves in order to be success. That's what makes the difference between the big stars, even in porn, and the 'also-rans'.
Don Jon is not about porn and porn addiction (that's why they changed the title of the film from "Don Jon's Addiction" to "Don Jon"). It's about how media consumption can distort our expectations about each other and about love and sex.
"Is it too much to hope for a film about someone watching porn and living a normal life?" Why hope for a movie ABOUT that? It'd make a boring story.
The porn industry is floundering like this year's summer crop of blockbusters. I'm not sure if there's a parallel there or not, but I guess we shouldn't expect Hollywood to address that fact anytime soon when they can just make another lightweight, Oscar-baiting biopic about an obscure porn star. This seems like territory only Errol Morris could really do justice.
Concerning Porn Sars crossing over into Mainstream: Sibel Kekilli had been a porn actress before starring in 2004's "Gegen die Wand" which won her the best actress award at the Berlinale. YOu might know her as "Game of Thrones" Shae!
So there have been succesfull carreer switches, though maybe not in the US.
Great article.
Liked the feature, mostly agree. Hollywood tip toes around porn like it is still taboo, in reality it's like professional wrestling, the truth about what goes on behind the scenes is probably equally daft and depraved and we watch for the same reasons, it's either funny or stupid and we know how it ends.
OK. Well for a through article, you sure missed one porn star that crossed over, and was semi successful. At least in B movies and on TV. "Traci Lords" was infamous for her unintentional destruction of some of the larger porn distribution companies. This happened when her mother informed the Authorities that the young Traci was indeed underage. She started her career far to young but looked over 21. She gave them fake documents and they accepted them. So all her work became "Kiddy Porn" thus the FBI confiscated it and destroyed all of it. She became a outcast in the porn industry. Did one more Porn film in France and then went to main stream Hollywood to get into film, etc. The funny thing is she is in one of the movies you mentioned. The sex comedy âZack and Miri Make A Porno". I read a interview with her and she stated she had just had a child and they were going to ask her to do a topless scene and she said, "NO". It wasn't a deal breaker so she was in the film. Long before this she was in a TV show on Sci-Fi Channel. It was called "The First Wave" and I thought she did a fairly good job, and rarely had problems overacting in my opinion. It aired from 1998 to 2001 . Traci Lords was Jordan Radcliffe in season three. She was also in at least a few B movies. So again, she didn't make it big but she did score a role on a fairly well liked Science Fiction show several years ago now. She was a big deal in Porn till she refused to give her mother money one day and her mother ended her porn days.
How is Shame a Hollywood film?
Thanks, Kate – was going to mention STARLET as well; an underseen gem, with a heroine who has a lot of agency.
Great write-up … even something like "Flight" our introduction to Kelly Reilly is her going to a porn set to score some money for drugs, and it's like the easiest way to let the audience know — she's in trouble right now.
Bobbi Starr's role in "Drive" was recast with Christina Hendricks, so at least they could be considered taking more… bankable? approach? Which is a pity, because Ms. Starr wrote a lovely essay about being cast, and about the barrier breaking down between performers in the different industries.
His name is Kirby Dick, not Dick Kirby. And "This Film is Not Yet Rated" isn't the slightest bit brilliant, offering anecdotes and a few nice insights from individual filmmakers but spending the majority of the movie inexplicably trying to expose the identities of the people on the ratings board like some cheap paparazzo. I've read 300-word articles with more to say about the absurd MPAA ratings system than that movie.
The porn industry is only a backdrop in 'Starlet', but it's an interesting portrayal nonetheless. Neither tragic nor hilarious, mostly banal.