Oh Good: Lifetime Made A "Duke Porn Star" Movie

by Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com Porn For Women

One of the great idle pleasures in my life is watching absolute crap on TV.

To be clear, I’m not talking about merely unfunny sitcoms or absurd but expensively-produced major network dramas which only last part of a season before getting cancelled. I’m talking about one-off televised crap, projects which should have died on the scriptwriter’s table, but somehow managed to worm their way into broadcast existence despite lacking any recognizable merit.

Read on…

Some of the very best of these craptastic projects are presented by Lifetime, the network behind such topical classics as “Fifteen and Pregnant,” the delightfully dumb “I Me Wed” and the splendidly hideous Tori Spelling vehicle “Co-ed Call Girl.”

Given the general bent of Lifetime’s past offerings, I suppose it was inevitable they’d take up the story of Miriam Weeks, AKA “Belle Knox,” AKA “The Duke Porn Star.”

Now that their version of it is ready for primetime, we can only hope Miriam’s yarn gets pumped up in appropriate Lifetime-fashion – meaning it really ought to feature several unexpected pregnancies, an evil stepfather and at least one fawning nerd of a male friend who Miriam summarily ignores for years, but later realizes has been Mr. Right all along.

What The Hell? Sounds Like This Porn Flick Has A POINT?

In reading about Lifetime’s spin on Weeks’ story, I must admit the televised crap-fan inside me is somewhat dismayed to hear it may not be as ridiculous, sensationalist and exploitative as I’d initially assumed.

“[They] only wanted to do it if we told the story in such a way that it was not just about a salacious story,” executive producer Sheri Singer told the Washington Post. “We realized that the story we wanted to tell…. was essentially about a young woman who made a choice. It may have been a choice that we wouldn’t personally make, or not everyone would make. But she made it and she had the right to make it.”

Well shit, that’s no fun.

To be clear, Singer makes a solid point, and it’s probably even the right point to take away from hearing about Weeks and her path into the porn industry. But it just isn’t a particularly Lifetime point to make – unless, you know, there’s an evil stepfather and/or stalker boyfriend who drives her into the choice to do porn by kidnapping an infant who turns out to be the mayor’s son, or whatever, and threatening to frame her for the crime.

Reading further, however, instead of an evil family member, we’re presented with an evil classmate, another aspect of the movie which seems to reflect the real story in a reasonably faithful fashion.

As the Post article relates it, once outed by her classmate, “Miriam is harassed across campus, as commenters on anonymous school message boards tell her that she deserves to get raped, or that she should kill herself. Someone paints the word ‘slut’ on her door and she receives death threats.”

OK, while that’s all awful (and again, faithful to Weeks’ story), unless it turns out the person who painted slut on her locker is a one-eyed local fisherman who is later seen standing outside Miriam’s window at night during a deluge of rain making a sign of the cross while Miriam screams in horror, I’m starting to question whether this film is really a Lifetime production.

Ah, Here’s The Problem, Obviously: No Dudes Involved

Just as I was wondering how it came to pass Lifetime apparently made a movie about a college student turned porn star without turning it into a cliché morality tale, the Post revealed the answer.

“Singer is pleased with the movie’s perspective, especially given that it had female executive producers, a female screenwriter, a female director and a female star,” Emily Yahr writes. “That dynamic was important, especially given the subject matter, which included shooting some upsetting scenes.”

Ah-ha! So that’s why there are no car chases, big explosions or comic book supervillain stepfathers in this film: A shocking lack of dudes involved in the creative process!

See, while us ladies might have a knack for accurately presenting the spate of emotions, concerns and dilemmas experienced by our womanly ilk, we just don’t get how to make an action-packed spectacle out of everything we touch.

Sorry, fellas. Maybe, if we’re lucky, FXX will do its own version of the Miriam Weeks story – hopefully starring Vin Diesel, a fleet of fast, constantly-exploding muscle cars and Gary Oldham as the Creepy, Stalkerish Stepfather from Hell.

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