Pornocrats love to crow about the “mainstreaming” of porn—“Ron Jeremy was on a reality show! Jenna Jameson is practically a household name!”--and in a sense they’re right. Porn is mainstream in that it’s all over the damn place, but the porn-industry’s longing for legitimacy, for a widespread acceptance of x-rated videos as cultural products or even works-of-art, will never happen. Ever.Americans have rightly relegated porn to the back rooms of video stores and the fringes of cultural awareness. Everyone knows it’s out there, and most people are cool with it existing to varying degrees, but it will never be taken seriously because the real goal of a porn movie--to help lonely fellas masturbate—is embarrassing to most people and diametrically opposed to any other artistic intention.
I worked reviewing X-rated videos for AVN, for more than a year, and I never saw a porn flick that was “good” for anything other than inspiring masturbation.* Production wise, porn, at its very best, looks about as good as a Canadian soap opera. The writing is horrible. The acting is worse. Porn that tries to be “deep” and/or meaningful is unintentionally hilarious and prompts “It’s like they’re trying to be a real movie!” from viewers all over the world.
Even the big ticket, large-budget features directed by the “greats” of porn (and you know who I’m talking about) have only one saving filmic grace: Lots of naked broads having sex.**
But look at this: Porn’s shining moment in the cultural spotlight.
Back in the early ‘70s, when porn-movies were new and sort of popular, Pulitzer-Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert took the newborn adult industry seriously enough to write reviews of dirty flicks. More amazingly, The Chicago Sun-Times printed them. Here’s a collection of those reviews, a snapshot of a brief moment when porn was taken seriously.
*An important and noble pursuit.
**If you’re not a self-deluded producer of porn product, I’m sure you’re saying, “No shit, Sherlock” to yourself, but believe it or not, there are a lot of people in “the industry” who believe they are doing something other than helping people jerk off. I’ve talked to them.
posted by Robyn
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Monday, August 22, 2005 
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