Gonzo
Gonzo Porn As Anti-Porn: The Decline of Eroticism in 1990s Adult Cinema
By Louie Scorbick (galifrey@aol.com)
What is porn? People have been arguing this since Clara Bow first swam naked in the 1920's, and still no two people seem able to agree. Some call art what others call disgusting. Some enjoy watching close-ups of banging genitals, others view that as a horrifying sin. Judgement, recrimination, shame, arousal -- the emotions and societal values intrinsically tied to pornography are many and varied. They are what gives porn its lifeblood. As Woody Allen once said, "Sex is only dirty if it's done right." The dirt is needed. It's what defines the very concept of porn.
Yet for all those harping on the definitions, so little attention seems to be paid to the quality of porn itself. Good porn and bad porn. What works and what doesn't. We debate the merits of good and bad art, literature, film, and every other social product, and yet porn is hardly ever held to any aesthetic criteria other than whether or not the "chick is hot" or "has big tits". Surely there has to be more to porn then this.
And yet why is the industry so quiet on this subject? That's easy. Money. Porn knows it sells fantasy and it knows if objective analysis is brought into this equation, the curtain is pulled back and the Wizard is revealed to be nothing more than a goofy old man (Ron Jeremy?). And this is a billion dollar industry. We can't have that going on.
Pornography, unlike most other forms of entertainment, focuses primarily on the selling of an unattainable sex-fantasy dream. Porn in actuality has very little to do with what it's selling. Like PT Barnum duping people into his carnival with grandiose promises of "the most shocking displays ever," porn is another manifestation of the classic seller's con.
An old adage states that porn is never as good as you anticipate it'll be. You pop the tape in the VCR panting, eyes wide with expectations of being taken to new levels of erotic delight, only to sigh and fast forward through the repetitive gestures by the often-uninterested performers. And when it's over, and you've gotten off, there's a sad emptiness in the air of unfulfilled promise. Until time passes, and you forget. And the allure begins all over again. And you run to the video store once again, where box covers tantalize you - the next time will be better, they promise. And you hope they're right.
And every so often they are. Occasionally you'll find a good scene. That scene that you'll play over and over. There's something different there. Something "real". And you're happy. The woman is exceptionally beautiful. The sex is unusually arousing. The two people move in a way that blows your mind. And for one moment, you know what all the fuss is about.
So what makes good porn? To paraphrase a certain Supreme Court Justice, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." It's something you see. An expression on a face. A moment of interaction between two people who look, even for one fleeting moment, to be feeling exactly what you fantasize you'd be feeling if you were there. But these moments are few and far between.
To properly understand the payoff of porn, one has to look further then the obvious - the carnal satisfaction. Pornography arouses through the concept of connection. The idea of illicit acts of pleasure that the viewer himself might never dare act out, being performed by strangers for his pleasure. Porn as a fundamental concept is aware at all times of the viewer. It is shot in positions for the viewer, it is scripted for the viewer and it is performed for the viewer. Other than the occasional amateur tape, the porn movie is an assembled work of staged shots aimed at the masses of nameless, faceless porn viewers. But the connection here is much more intimate then one would think. People don't pay to see f---ing. People pay to see PEOPLE f---ing. It is the faces of those on camera, their personalities, their raw emotions that the viewer connects with. What they feel is what we feel. If they're having fun, so are we. To call porn stars actors would be an overstatement, but they do have to create empathy in the viewer. And when they do, and it all comes together in a scene - this is good porn. Because it's based on empathic emotion. Not just jizz.
When Porn truly hit the mainstream in the 70's, the performers found their acts liberating and arousing. Sex was a form of equal rights, women and men came together to make statements of freedom and liberation. Okay, maybe not that grandiose, but Porn was new, young, fresh and exciting. And the people began buying.
As porn grew in the 1980's, finding outlets like the Playboy channel and VHS distribution, pornographers and stars found an audience developing, and the two, shunned by society as a whole, came together. Wannabe auteur directors like John Leslie began producing some of the most creative and erotic works hardcore had ever seen. Stars like Harry Reems and a young, thin Ron Jeremy showed a fun loving sense of humor and self-deprecation. They enjoyed what they did, and were happy to have an audience. Passionate performers appeared like Vanessa Rio, Kathleen Gentry, Randy West, Seka, people who seemed to love what they do for the camera. And for a brief time, audience and performer connected. It was them against the Reagan Era. And excellent, arousing work was produced. The people on camera loved what they did, and it showed.
And then the 90's hit, and the MTV generation took over porn. With a "who gives a f---" attitude, glazed eyes and self-involved narcissictic slant, gonzo porn began to gain in popularity. While mainstream companies like Vivid attempted to keep erotic porn going (with marginal success), the new boyz fired up the camcorders and hit the low budget trail blazing. People who looked like they didn't even know if they were having sex or wrestling, a devil may care 'tude screaming "hey, the audience is a bunch of suckers and I'm glad to take their money for this," these porno people viewed sex as power. Banging away to boost their own egos. No pleasure here. Just self gratification. And certainly no intimacy between the two people in the scenes. And for some reason, people bought in.
So who leads the charge? The names jump to mind - the cold robotic wood-men like TT Boy and John Dough, zombified performers who look like they don't know if they're taking out the garbage, doing the dishes, or banging a hottie. Bratty, inflated bitch-chicks like Shane, Jenna Jameson and Bionca Trump, using sex as their means of power. You can feel the condescension oozing off the screen - these folks think they're pulling the greatest scam on their fans, taking their money for showing a little sex. It's us against them, in their minds. Laughing at porn conventions at the suckers who want their autographs. Feeling like movie stars. Thinking they've conned the losers right out of their money.
But they're against the wrong crowd. They're against their own fans. Gonzo porners like Seymore Butts and Shane, f---ing without a care in the world, offering up the most generic disposable porn ever seen are dominating the industry. And it is through this that porn, for the first time in it's history is not only unerotic, it is fast becoming irrelevant. The curtain has been pulled back. The fantasy is gone. Sex really is just a bunch of limbs after all.
Why does this porn fail? Because it lacks heart. These people feel nothing on camera. They're not afraid they might be ruining their lives, they're not nervous of what their parents might think, they're not aroused or excited or titillated by the very concept of what they're doing. Shit, they might as well not even be alive, since they seem to feel nothing on camera. They're bored and they need money. And they know you're just the sucker to give it to them.
They've taken the very lifeblood out of porn - the illicit eroticism. Now it's like watching people play chess. To quote Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate, "What happened between me and Mrs. Robinson, it meant nothing. We might as well have been shaking hands." And so the porn industry in the new millenium. The professionals who worked hard for their fans have retired, and now a bunch of gonzo young bucks fill the hours of tape with little more than self aggrandizing odes to their own ego. They might as well be shaking hands. Because it sure ain't sex on any real level. And that's about the least erotic thing I can think of.
JBHunter writes: Luke, I don't know where you got the article "Gonzo Porn As Anti-Porn: The Decline of Eroticism in 1990s Adult Cinema'' by Louie Scorbick, but, unfortunaely, it's one of the most accurate and perceptive things I've seen on your site. As someone who was around both during the golden age of porn (as a fan and a participant) and, later, as talent and producer during the post-Staglione gonzo revolution, I'm sad to say that Scorbick has hit the nail on the head.
What was once a revolutionary, tightly knit group of outsiders who found a calling as sexual outlaws and missionaries, (think Jamie Gillis, Mark Stevens, Annie Sprinkle, Serena, even Tommy Byron)-sex-positive, wise beyond their years erotically charged folks who bonded through the very nature of being outcasts with a mission, has become, by and large, an industry filled with the sexual equivalent of disconennected internet millionaires whose mantra is "take the money and run". At one time typical off-hours discussions among the talent centered around pleasure, awakening, self-acceptance and group cohesiveness against a judgemental, hypocritical society.
Now it's more likely to center around contracts, international distribution rights, egos. petty rivalries, and day rates. I miss the days when porn stars felt- and really were- doing something important that they needed to do to complete themselves. Now, more often than not, the industry has come to resemble a giant work-release program. With few exceptions- Roxanne Hall, Sunset Thomas, Missy, Roxanne Blaze and a few others come to mind- the sex industry has become less about sex and more about industry. I'm all for making money at something you love and care about, but if money is ALL you care about, you might as well be selling widgets for Hardware.com.
Girls Gone Wild
3/28/01
Tom Foolery writes on RAME: I've seen these advertised often on Howard Stern, the Man Show, etc. Has anybody ordered these kinds of vids ("Sexy Sorority Sweethearts", "Spring Break", "Mardis Gras", etc)? Would you recommend them?
Jeff replies on RAME: Somone had posted the while GGW tape to ABME some time ago.. natch, I downloaded... I find the comericals to be far more erotic than the actual tape was. the mystery of the "censored" bar is far more captivating than the actual nipple shots. Now, granted, the nipples were all very nice, but after an hour, it was all prety numbing. The tape itself has no rhyme or reason -- it's an hour of edited together camcorder footage of some guy(s) walking around an area with a high concentration of drunk girls and trying to get them to flash them. The "come on, flash me" discussions are inane and not particularly charming if memory serves -- and the camcorder guys end up coming off piggish; which is my biggest criticism of the whole genre -- too often the participants have to be (gently) coaxed into showing their tits by the camera guy, instead of the camera guy just capturing the moment of her flashing her tits to some other bunch of guys... it's the difference between an objective observer and being a participant. I prefer the observer model... while most gonzo is of the participant model. (which goes back to why I like the commerials -- more "fly-on-the-wall/newsy" presentation...)
David Wilt writes on RAME: I've seen a couple. They are very mild, sometimes have a couple of brief glimpses of excellent babes. Note that a number of them have staged scenes which tend to run longer and be a bit "harder," but we are still talking soft-core here. The primary interest is for glimpses of "real" people as opposed to porn industry pros or "amateurs." For example, "Naked Mile Run" is not erotic at all but it's amusing to see numerous naked college students running through the streets.
Kory writes: You might want to check out GM Video (www.gm-video.com) and AMX Video (www.sex-fun.com). They carry similar Mardi Gras, Spring Break, etc. tapes, but often have explicit nudity and even explicit sex acts by the revelers.
Count writes on RAME: They're decent to just take a look at once. Only get one, they're pretty much the same. Like someone said, it is pretty numbing after a while and barely erotic. It's like watching MTV Spring Break with occassional tit flashes. Beaver sitings are few and far between.
DarkJourney writes: There are 5 main companies that put out this kind of stuff that I know about GM, AMX, Dreamgirls, Voyeur, Girls Gone Wild. Keep in mind that since these companies are shooting the exact same events (i.e. Mard Gras, Spring Break, Fantasy Fest) there is often the exact same footage in all of their videos(and I mean exact same footage, as if the camerman sold his tape to all of the companies).
I bought the GGW tapes they advertise on TV. They are essentially Mardi Gras tapes. Nothing special unless girls flashing their breasts and occasional bush is your thing. Might be worth the $10 to you then, but I put them up on E-Bay almost immediately so I didn't think so.
I have generally heard GGW is the tamest and most redundant of these companies, which might explain why they are hundreds of their videos on E-Bay. The Dreamgirls Real Adventures series is the hottest of the bunch. They show a diverse group of events(nudist camp, wet t-shirt, public flashing). Although their obvious trend lately toward using professional strippers to perform kills what I think was most exciting about their product: real amateur girls willing to strip for the camera. Check out their web site www.dreamgirls-videos.com, and any of the Real Adventures before #40 was back when they used a lot of amateurs.
GM was the first company to do this kind of thing, and they are real hit or miss.I stopped watching a lot of their product because they would advertise a Spring Break video and 90% of it would be a couple they hired to have sex in a bedroom. You are essentially watching an amateur porn instead of a gonzo vid. They occasionally come up with a winner though. AMX seemed to be in a similar soft slump for awhile, but I rented the Best of AMX 4 the other day, and was really blown away by the level of public nudity- and public sex!- in their vids. They seemed to have come back really strong.
Voyeur I am not as familiar with other than that they do a lot of their own product shot at the Ponderosa nudist camp, which tends to be hardcore, and shooting the same Spring Break stuff as the other companies.
Overall: Girls Gone Wild tends to be soft Mardi Gras footage which is exactly the same on all the companies vids. Save your money. Check into Dreamgirls and AMX for the real goods.
Kafka writes: The foodchain in these kinds of vids starts at the top with Dreamgirls Real Adventures, then goes down to AMX and Albedo, then goes down to Incident Images and GM Video, and has Voyeur Video and Girls Gone Wild on the bottom, with regard to quality of video, and the number of attractive women exposing themselves, and the quality of that exposure (IMHO).