MovieChat Forums > Inside Deep Throat (2005) Discussion > Totally self-contradictory.

Totally self-contradictory.

posted 17 years ago by Monigan
6 replies | jump to latest

This film seems to be arguing that all the public disapproval visited upon "Deep Throat" was totally backwards and unwarranted, a product of outmoded religious values and sexual ignorance and political greed and (!?) sexism.

So why are the filmmakers also so confused and disappointed about the fact that porn has gone totally mainstream, that it's sold in every town in every state in the union, that porn stars are household names and appear regularly in major feature films and TV shows, that every boy over the age of 10 can get extreme hardcore barnyard teenage incest action at any hour of the day, that every girl over the age of 10 knows how to give a 4-star BJ and will do so as an unreciprocated favor, that 11,000+ porn movies are made a year vs. Hollywood's 500 or so, etc. etc.?? Shouldn't they be thrilled that Deep Throat was ultimately utterly victorious in its crusade against censorship? Deep Throat's triumph was total!! Or, to paraphrase Charles Keating's words in the documentary, "We were absolutely right."

The whole bitch about "the state of porn today" is so hypocritical and unanalyzed. Not to mention, (like most of this movie), the issue was already explored in Boogie Nights in a way that was far more interesting. [Also, wouldn't extreme hardcore barnyard teenage incest action probably come a lot closer to great art than anything in "Deep Throat"?]

[–] BoogieKnight 17 years ago

Eesh. First of all, Boogie Nights was a great movie but as far as being factual it's off by a mile. Most everyone in the adult business who was there at the time has said that.

And you are overselling the mainstream appeal tremendously. People know Ron Jeremy, Jenna Jameson, maybe Tera Patrick or Peter North. Considering how many people work in porn now, that's a very small group. And their mainstream successes in films have been very minimal so far. The criticism of the film was correct for that era, in how porn was viewed. The filmmakers are confused and disappointed because they thought porn would meld with mainstream, porn performers would appear in mainstream films, and maybe vice-versa, and the directors would be given mainstream gigs. But that didn't happen. Reems and Jamie Gillis got a couple of B-movie roles, that was about the sum of it. The disappointment was in how porn went "mainstream," and by then most of the older guys were already gone. And as they showed at the end of the documentary, none of the current porn performers (and I'm sure most current fans) knew who the old school porners were.

[–] Director-21 17 years ago

A few of the actors in the 11,000 porn films are household names but back in the 70s they thought that porn films would get bigger budgets and become more professional and more epic. Instead they have gotten smaller in scale. These days lots of porn films look like they are shot on home video cameras without any lighting or anything else professional.

[–] oxblood 17 years ago

Porn became a product rather than the artform many directors and actors wanted it to become. Back in the 70's, as depicted in Boogie Nights, hardcore movies were more like regular movies (bad B movies really) but with real explicit sex scenes. Some even had nice size budgets and even action scenes. With the popularity of the video in the 80's and a desire to "cut to the chase" and save money, the industry scaled back productions. Obviously, the viewers were only waiting to see the sex scenes anyway so the stories became less significant and the sex scenes became the main focus of the movies. Eventually you got what you have now: just a collection of sex scenes with no prologue or plot.

The qualities of today's porn is so suspect, anybody can make a XXX movie for pennies with two people, a video camera and a bright Halogen light. You can go to adult video houses in major cities and buy a 4-8 hour XXX porn dvd for as low as $5.00 or go online and pay about twenty bucks to watch full length movies for a month. It's all so disposable yet profitable for the filmmakers.

The few household names in porn dont even have much of a voice or much clout in the industry anymore. Most turned their backs on the industry for good reason. It's an industry tht turns it's back on its own history unless it can squeeze some more bucks out of it.

[–] BoogieKnight 17 years ago

Well at the same time, there are still those who put out superior quality films. Though they are certainly in the minority. Vivid, Wicked, VCA, NinnWorx and others have put out high budget (for porn) films that have decent stories and acting (for porn) not to mention cinematography that is on par with mainstream. It's just that there are so damn many movies released per year, the oversaturation has killed the value of a single movie. And also because of that, there are no real stars anymore.

[–] oxblood 17 years ago

True dat. Evil Angel and the others you mentioned consistently put out quality movies that do very well. The more disciminating XXX fans dont mind spending the extra money for quality. It's a shame they have to compete with the underground "no-budget" market that appeals to base instincts over art.

As for the lack of stars, I must agree. I can barely tell you the names of the most current adult stars outside of my current faves from the last several years (Ashely Blue and Gauge). Im old school. From the Del Rio/NinaH/GingerLynn school.

[–] franzkabuki 13 years ago

There are more than enough godawful films even without any explicit sex in them, so it´s a good thing the delusions of crossing over to mainstream those stooges entertained, never came to fruitition as there´s absolutely no need for any idiotic plots along with terrible acting etc in porn. But, of course, it´s hilarious to see & hear those ridiculous senior citizens with their toupees, make-up and hysterically inappropriate clothing blather about how they approached their films as if they were "Luc Godard or one of those guys" as one mummy put it.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan