The Growth Of Hollywood's Relationship With The Porn Industry

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The Growth Of Hollywood's Relationship With The Porn Industry By Jason Feldman
With this month’s release of Kevin Smith’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and James Gunn’s viral video series “PG Porn,” the interwebs have flooded with discussion on porn’s role in mainstream fare. It’s clear that Hollywood and the porn industry have intersected many times in recent years, and that there’s more to love about porn besides the actual sex, but what forces have driven, and continue to drive, the collaboration between these two seemingly disparate industries? Where are the roots to this odd relationship, and maybe more importantly, will those roots grow stronger in coming years?

Technology

The first signs of chemistry between the two industries occurred with the introduction of 8mm cameras, soon after World War II. The newfound affordability of filmmaking led to a surge in pornographic film production, which, as pointed out by The American Heritage, led to a greater demand for the “rental and purchase of movie projectors, screens, cameras and other equipment.” Porn was the driving force for the new technology.

Over the following decades, the porn industry grew at an alarming rate, meanwhile setting precedent on issues of free speech that would impact Hollywood productions, in narrative and technical terms, for many years to come. In 1957, four years after Hugh Hefner’s founding of Playboy, the Supreme Court ruled that obscenity was protected unless it was ““utterly without redeeming social importance.” Within this framework, when VHS and Betamax were introduced in the late 1970s, the porn industry’s adoption of VHS helped push videotape machines into hundreds of thousands of American households. The stage was thus set for Hollywood movies, R-rated, Blaxpoitation, and good ol’ screwball comedies alike, to dramatically expand their markets. As pointed out by The American Heritage, “explicit videotapes hit the stores in 1977, a year before regular Hollywood releases, and over the next few years, more than half of all recorded tapes sold were X-rated. By the mid-1980s, that share had dropped to under 25 percent.”

Betamax and VHS videotapes. Or as we know them today: dinosaurs.

In more recent times, the porn industry has continued to charter the course for mainstream technological trends. Porn led the way with mass expansion to the Internet, downloadable content (burning and then owning a DVD), dealing with the threat of user-generated content, and most recently, in helping decide the victor of the now infamous HD DVD and Blu-Ray wars. However, although technological innovation lies at the heart of the porn industry’s relationship with Hollywood, their relationship is also informed by the content of the films themselves.

The Deep Throat Effect

The 1972 porn flick “Deep Throat” not only helped launch the modern porn industry, but it changed the way American culture relates to pornography in general. Shot in six days for approximately $25,000, “Deep Throat” follows a very ordinary girl, played by Linda Lovelace, who discovers that her clitoris is actually located in her throat. (Don’t you hate it when that happens?) The tongue-in-cheek film received glowing reviews from mainstream media, and it spurred an interest in porn coined “porno chic” by a metro columnist for The New York Times.

For the first time in history, porn was no longer considered taboo, but rather, a novelty worthy of examination. Porno chic quickly extended beyond the masses, into Washington (the informant in President Nixon’s Watergate scandal was famously dubbed “Deep Throat”), and of course, into mainstream entertainment. Numerous celebrities admitted to watching the film, including Truman Capote, Jack Nicholson, and even Barbara Walters.

In 2005, one of Hollywood’s biggest producers, Brian Grazer (“Apollo 13,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “8 Mile”), released a documentary about the film’s cultural significance called “Inside Deep Throat.” "So many things weren't the same after 'Deep Throat,'” said Randy Barbate, one of the two documentarians Grazer hired. "It's almost like 'Deep Throat' and its commercial success was the beginning of pornography being co-opted by big business."

Barbate’s comments couldn’t be more accurate. “Deep Throat” helped remove America’s blindfold for sexuality, and big business, especially Hollywood, took notice. But it’s only recently, with the continued increase of our culture’s “sex sells” mentality, that Hollywood’s relationship with the porn industry hit full throttle.

Today's Climax

In today’s culture, we expect our celebrities to wear scandalous clothing, our late night talk show hosts to dabble in provocative and occasionally offensive sexual innuendo, and to be honest, we’d probably be more than a little disappointed if a new sex tape didn’t “leak” onto the Internet every six months. Meanwhile, traditional Hollywood fare grows stale: there are only so many explosions, hostage situations, and predictable romantic comedies we can watch before audiences, as well as Hollywood auteurs (ie, creative types), yearn for something different, a story that legitimately pushes the envelope. And now more than ever, Hollywood is discovering that “something different” through the inspiration of porn. Here are some of the seminal moments, thus far, in the Hollywood/porn industry relationship.

The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) Directed by Milos Forman (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”), the film follows notorious Hustler publisher and porn producer Larry Flint (Woody Harrelson) as he builds a media empire and defends it in the name of free speech. The film marked Hollywood’s first major showcase of the porn industry. It was well received by audiences and critics alike, earning Oscar nominations for both Harrelson (Best Actor) and Forman (Best Director) and winning the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival.

Boogie Nights (1997) Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (“There Will Be Blood”), the film chronicles the rise and fall of mammothly endowed porn star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) and explores the dark underbelly of the late 1970s/early 1980s porn industry. Featuring an all-star ensemble cast including Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Don Cheadle, the film is widely acknowledged as the most haunting yet artful depiction of the porn industry to date.

Porn Star: The Legend Of Ron Jeremy (2001) At the time of “Porn Star”’s release, several Hollywood films had featured porn actors in cameo roles. But this documentary, detailing the on-screen and off-screen life of porn legend Ron Jeremy, truly explored the industry through an insider’s psyche, filled with hopes, fears, and a wonderful and perverse imagination. Although Brian Grazer’s “Inside Deep Throat” came four years later, “Porn Star” paved the way for its warm reception.

Pirates (2005) With a budget of over $1 million, more than 300 sound effects, and an entirely original score, “Pirates” clearly took a page out of Hollywood’s playbook. Featuring A-list porn star Jesse Jane® (“Family Business”), the film capitalized on the buzz surrounding Hollywood’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels, and garnered tons of mainstream media coverage. In January 2008, it became the first pornographic film to receive a Blu-Ray HD release.

James Gunn’s PG Porn (2008) Since technology has played such a pivotal role in the relationship between Hollywood and the porn industry, it’s only fitting that they’d come together for an online, viral video series. Directed by James Gunn (“Slither”) and produced by Spike.com and Safran Digital Group, the series features a mainstream actor and porn star in every 2-3 minute episode. The tagline for the series is “for people who love everything about porn… except the sex.” The first episode, starring Nathan Fillian (“Firfly”) and Aria Giovanni (“Naked Diva”), generated over one million views within ten days of its launch on Spike.com.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) Written and directed by indie film guru Kevin Smith (“Clerks”), the film follows two platonic friends (Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks) in their effort to make a successful porno and eliminate their financial woes. Despite Smith’s indie film background, “Zack and Miri” is his most accessible film in ages and without question, it’s the most mainstream showcase of pornographic subject matter to date.

So long as sex to continues to “sell,” the coming years will only build upon the chemistry between Hollywood and the porn industry. 2009, for example, will see the release of “Finding Bliss,” a romantic comedy about a struggling filmmaker (Leelee Sobieski) who, like Zack and Miri, wants to make her own porno. Meanwhile, top tier Hollywood directors are filling their casts with porn stars: Stephen Soderbergh has slotted 20-year-old Sacha Grey as the lead in his upcoming “The Girlfriend Experience,” and Quentin Tarantino is looking at Tera Patrick for his remake “Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill.”

Will Hollywood and the porn industry continue their flirtations forever? Maybe not. But certainly in the short term, as America plunges deeper into a period of economic garbage, the spirit of rebellion inherent in porn only becomes more appealing to mainstream audiences. And from the Hollywood perspective, they’ll probably do anything to create the biggest bang for their buck. Even if that means including an actual bang.