The Federal Communications Commission – specifically chair Kevin Martin – is apparently ramping up the pressure on cable programmers to accept the same sort of "indecency" restrictions the FCC now applies to radio and TV broadcasters. But we're guessing such pleas will fall on deaf ears at Sundance Channel, which apparently has recently created a regular late-night-Saturday slot (no pun intended) for porn documentaries.
Dec. 3's offering, which we caught halfway through, was titled "The Curse of Debbie Does Dallas." It focused on the always-difficult "Where are they now?" problem as applied to the performers in that seminal hardcore comedy. They managed to locate Eric Edwards and R. Bolla without too much trouble – Edwards still shoots and edits in the industry; Bolla went the soap-opera route and had a small role in the first Spider-Man movie – and the producer got each to talk about his post-porn life – and neither seemed very happy about it. The elusive star of the flick, Bambi Woods, though, remains elusive – if she isn't dead, as the show implied. However, there's no listing of her demise on the Internet Adult Film Database (iafd.com).
This past weekend, though, tackled 2004's HIV outbreak in a 45-minute-long presentation titled "Porn Shutdown," a muddled piece that tries to conflate Darren James' bringing the virus back after a "rogue porn shoot" (huh? LOTS of people shoot in Brazil) with the fact that people like Rob Black and Max Hardcore are producing edgy material right here in America.
The narration is right out of '50s sexploitation flicks.
"Amid the clamor to control an epidemic, the dark underbelly of the porn world was exposed," a British-accented voice intones ominously. "This is the story of how hardcore porn got out of control."
Industry-bashing rhetoric can perhaps be excused, but claims like "60 gallons of semen are ejaculated for the cameras every year" are just absurd. Inaccuracies like that are peppered throughout this production.
Infectee Lara Roxx logs a bit of overtime to her 15 minutes of fame here, where she's shown in conversation with Hardcore and one of his assistants, and the more erudite Meriesa Arroyo gets even more.
Vivid's David Schlessinger explains the popularity of porn (as if it weren't obvious to most), and Vivid contract star Briana Banks talks about why she's happy her company is condom-only. Rob Black, who is "defiant in the face of legal challenges," tells how he's the first producer in "almost 15 years" to have a federal indictment handed down.
"Rob certainly pushes freedom of expression to the limit," claims the Brit narrator, who apparently is not clear on the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against abridging freedom of speech. "Much of his material will shock anyone unfamiliar with this world. Gonzo actors appear to revel in violence and abuse; gonzo producers aim to shock... Gonzo is high-adrenaline, high-risk porn. Although legal, the gonzo men are the bandits of the porn industry."
Huh? Whatthefuck!?! Doesn't every company have a gonzo line? Is every producer, then, a "bandit?"
Behind-the-scenes footage from Extreme productions are presented to back up the claim, and Kami Andrews, who seems inexperienced in talking to the press, clinically relates the experience of having two cocks up her ass.
And of course, Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition gets a chance to say "how destructive this industry is" and how the HIV outbreak "go[es] against nature."
"But porn seemingly doesn't need external enemies," the narrator says. "The gonzo world does the job perfectly well on its own."
On the positive side, the show gives props to Dr. Sharon Mitchell, Ph.D., for preventing the virus from spreading by calling for a moratorium on shooting while all possible infectees were identified and tested – but it takes them nearly the entire 45-minute running time to get around to mentioning that a grand total of four (4) performers actually caught the disease.
Mitchell is allowed to present the reasons why outside regulation of the industry is a dicey idea at best, and another public service is performed when she reminds everyone that the PCR-DNA test isn't perfect, in that there's a "window period" of about a week after infection within which NO test will show positive. It also lets Mitchell note that her model is a "harm reduction" one rather than a preventative one.
But even as to Mitchell, the show gets some of its facts wrong. For instance, it claims that she studied to be a doctor, when it fact her major was public health – a big difference.
"Every day a new 18-year-old gets off the bus in Pornoland," the filmmakers summarize. "Some will prosper but most will be chewed up by the machine and spat out."
We're not sure what machine that is, and we don't know how many people try to break into porn on a daily basis, but we strongly suspect that if they're reasonably sane, free from disease and have a libertarian attitude toward sex on camera, "most" will earn quite a decent living from the business.
Oh, there's some unintentional humor here, such as when the film presents an AIM "commercial" showing tiny blonde Britnee getting her test and then being picked up on the street by Max Hardcore – but the simple fact is, the industry deserves not to be misrepresented so egregiously, especially on a channel that prides itself on its support for independent filmmakers.
The next "documentary", to be shown on Dec. 17, is titled "The Last Porn Virgin." We can't wait.
