Last week’s release of the new biopic, “Lovelace” had the predictable result in re-igniting the various arguments and stances about the porn industry. I’ve been around the adult scene long enough to know that there is really only one solid “truism” about comparing today’s porn to that of the 1970′s when Linda Lovelace set the standard (for better or worse in her instance): ”It’s More Complicated Now”.
Read on…
As I haven’t actually seen “Lovelace” yet and can’t write a review, I decided to troll around the interweb today to see what folks are saying about both the film, and the general “state of porn” by the various media outlets and op-ed columnists out there. But, before I go into highlighting what jumped out at me, let’s take a peek at the trailer in case you have no idea what film I am talking about:
Looks pretty good so far! Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman are darned good directors. Amanda Seyfried is a VERY solid actress (casting Le Mis “Cosette” as Linda Lovelace was simply brilliant in some way I can’t quite define). James Franco (yes. every movie released nowadays needs either mono-aspect James Franco or Johnny Depp) was probably good for box office, although casting a 35 year old guy that looks 25 years old to play a 47 year old Hugh Hefner does require suspension of disbelief. Sharon Stone as the mother of a porn star is PERFECT! Sharon spent most of her acting career in the 1980s doing hot sex scenes with Mickey Rourke and Michael Douglas that, short of actual penetration, were pretty darned pornographic in themselves!
So, good script based on a true story. Great direction and casting. Let’s see where this takes us in the court of public opinion…..
Lovelace’s IMDB synopsis gives us a pretty good idea that the spin for this movie is going down the “porn is bad” bunnyhole as follows: “The story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life.”
“Used and Abused“, “Coercive” and “Taking Control Of Her Life“. Yep. As that is the SUM TOTAL of the IMDB synopsis of the film, we can be pretty sure that this will simply feed the mainstream corporate cowardice that I went into in a post last week, further ramping up the need for mainstream media to make the porn industry look bad. REALLY bad, to justify ghettoizing it in search engines and social media.
I certainly don’t want to minimize the exploitation of the actual Linda Lovelace in her porn experience in any way, but let’s not forget that exploitation knows no bounds in the film industry, be it porn or mainstream. Look into the back stories of “The Little Rascals”, or even the “Munchkins” in days of yore. But, add the word “porn” to “exploitation and it rings the bell for the Tea Baggers, Morality in Media and other nutbars and we’re off to the races once again!
First out of the gate for coverage to stir the pot was, guess who? (You have three guesses. The second two don’t count): FOX NEWS! Big surprise there, eh? Using porn and abuse and all that offends their readers and viewers to pump some page views. The full article is here, and I do actually have to give author Hollie McKay for giving it the old college try for “Fair and Balanced Reporting”. After the obligatory of trotting out a few “porn is bad” experts (the first, an anonymous one) stating, “Sadly, it still attracts women who were victims of abuse”, and vociferous / damaged goods perennial screamer Shelly Lubben who called it [porn] a “destructive, drug infested, abusive and sexually diseased industry that causes severe negative secondary effects.” [ed/ don’t hold back now, Shelly). Fox then reveals “Less than two years ago, shocking clips were posted online showing women, reportedly on a California porn set, screaming and crying as they were abused, raped and forced to do things they did not want to“. No citations or links on this, so we just need to believe her. She works at Fox. It MUST be true! Simply SHOCKING!!!!
Hollie McKay then opens up the Big Tent At Fox for counterpoint!
Sssh.com publisher Angie Rowntree is quoted with “We treat everybody with respect, honesty and fairness. Nobody has to do anything they are not comfortable with, everybody gets paid and all agreements are honored. Some of the industry’s bad reputation from the old days has been exaggerated and sensationalized. I’m sure there were some ugly [incidents] along the way and bad characters, but Hollywood has really contributed to the image of the sleazy ’70s photographer archetype that exists today.”
Porn Superstar Joanna Angel adds that rules and regulations have helped the world of porn. “You have to get tested at a certain place, you have to have several forms of identification, and you have to sign many pages of paperwork before you even step on-camera.”
Allison Vivas, president of adult company Pink Visual, noted that women are the ones largely driving the industry behind the lens now. “Linda could not have been a CEO of a global adult entertainment firm in 1972. So the role of women in the industry has changed drastically,” she said.
So far, all in all, not a “too too bad” trashing of porn, eh?
However, the next shoe dropped to throw the match on the gasoline (how many metaphors can I get into one sentence?). Veteran adult industry journalist Peter Warren at AVN jumped into the fray to point out some rather remarkable contradictions and omissions of fact in the Fox piece. Read the full article here.
Highlights of Peter’s slapdown/rebuttable are quite enthusiastic, with him throwing down the gauntlet to Fox, saying “Since Fox News’ Hollie McKay chose to disregard the comments this AVN editor supplied her with for the “Pop Tarts” column she published today on the film Lovelace—presumably because they didn’t quite jibe with the clearly anti-porn sentiment she wanted to convey, or perhaps because she was butt-hurt over the reaming I gave her column last week on the movies of Axel Braun—I thought I’d go ahead and point out its many, many fallacies, one by one.”
And then the fun begins with Mr. Warren taking her apart, one paragraph at a time from an adult industry perspective. A few highlights (Fox story —> AVN retort) are as follows:
• Opening paragraph: “As Amanda Seyfried’s highly-anticipated, highly-sexed flick Lovelace hits theaters today, many are reminded of its predecessor, a cultural phenomenon called Deep Throat.” —> The overall stench of hackery wafting off this sentence aside, one thing Deep Throat definitely is not is a predecessor to Lovelace. Its subject material, yes. Please look up “predecessor.”
• Paragraph three: “And while the Deep Throat makers and managers made a fortune off Lovelace’s fame, she barely saw a penny.” —> Deep Throat had managers? Who were they? And what kind of managing did they do, exactly? Oh, and by the way, Linda Lovelace’s fame was directly and wholly due to her appearance in Deep Throat; nobody had heard of her beforehand.
• Paragraph six: “‘Sadly, [adult] still attracts women who were victims of abuse,’ one adult actress told FOX411′s Pop Tarts column.” —> Regardless of the truth of this statement, why can’t you identify the adult actress who said it? Or did you just make it up for oomph?
• Paragraph seven: “Less than two years ago, shocking clips were posted online of women, reportedly on a California porn set, screaming and crying as they were abused, raped and forced to do things they did not want to.” —> What clips are you referring to? Where were they posted? And by whom? And from what set? And who were the women in it? The vagueness of this assertion is outrageous.
Others, of course, have chimed in as well. Aurora Snow, a former porn actress, in an op-ed on The Daily Beast, says it’s a shallow look at Linda Lovelace the woman.
“The ingenuity of Lovelace was to show the distinction between two realities, both potentially true. Linda’s tenebrous tale isn’t fully revealed until we see her take a polygraph test six years later, when the film takes us back to some of the same moments we’ve already seen, but from a dour perspective. Ironic how she paved the way for the sexual revolution while trapped in it.” She adds, “What has changed dramatically since the Lovelace era is how the world of porn is run. Today it’s less of the distraught social playground Lovelace entered and more of the legitimate business it always should have been, complete with licensed agents and medical-testing protocols. Though the adult industry itself is not abusive, there certainly are abusers within the industry—something the onetime Linda Boreman (Linda Lovelace) found early on.”
[ed. “Paving” often can be “dour work” and indeed, there are always bad apples in every bunch, from Wall Street to Walmart. Porn is no different.]
Joanna Angel got an opportunity for amplification and expansion on complex.com, saying, “Things are different now, and there’s really nothing that’s going to help my career to learn about what exactly happened to Linda Lovelace. I get uncomfortable watching or hearing anything about girls that had bad times in porn. But people love to hear a sob story. People don’t want to hear about a girl that went to college, who gets along fine with her family, who also happens to make porn for a living. If I could write an honest TV show about porn, I would love the opportunity. If anybody out there from HBO or Netflix wants to give me an original series, I will write the shit out of that.”
[ed. I could not ever had said that better myself, Joanna. Go Girl!)
I suppose this is all going to lead into yet the next round of “defining porn” based on ethical practices at the end of the day regarding “good porn -vs- bad porn” (yawn?). The “new adult industry” and media has not really found an actual term that describes “good porn (i.e. safe and non abusive to performers). ”Feminist Porn”, although a good name, does have the effect of alienating about half of the over-40 male and female population alike with vague memories of angry 1970s Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis with fists in the air. “Ethical Porn” is also pretty good, but sort of sounds a bit like Starbucks getting coffee beans from progressive growers that provide good working conditions. ”Non-Exploitive Porn” is excellent, but does not lend itself well to search engine optimization (kidding. sort of). “Green Porn“? Well, I sort of know what that means, but any use of the word “Green” with regards to human beings does tend to invoke the word “Soylent“, which is just bad on all levels. Thankfully, the dreadful term “Mommy Porn” from last year has now faded from the mainstream media lexicon. Well, until the Fifty Shades of Bad Dialogue and unsafe BDSM practices movie is released.
Thus, we are off and running for the next exciting saga of the “porn-is-bad and the “porn-is-usually-good” face-off!
I’m sure there is much more to come soon on this hot topic. Like lawsuits! Our great American Tradition.
No op-ed yet from this from the other sexuality authors and pundits such as Cindy Gallop, Tristan Taormino or Violet Blue, but I’ll be interested in their stance on this as well.
Maybe even Minster Pat Robertson will chime in on this one!
Stand by for updates…..
I’d better go see the movie tonight so I can add some first person viewer informed opinions (i.e not pulling it out of my ass like I did on this post) about the actual film
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