24 Aug Film Fund-amentals: The Post-Porn Industry

When Fred Willard recently got busted doing his fly-fishing impersonation, the news story contained an amazing tidbit. There is actually a porno theater still in operation somewhere in the United States. Goodness! This half-dilapidated joint is virtually a museum piece. Heck, the whole concept of a porn theater is such a relic, I’m half surprised that Willard doesn’t tell the court that he was simply working as a re-enactor. Just like those folks in Colonial Williamsburg. The porn industry has long been a bellwether of trends in the commercial film industry. A major example of this was the lead porn took in jumping into the video home rental market back in the 1980s. The format war between VHS and Betamax was not determined by porn. The industry went both ways and was primarily focused on moving big time into the home market, period.

The reason was simple. The porn industry realized that more people were willing to sneak home with a porn movie and watch it than would ever go near an adult theater. In the process, they also discovered – and quickly expanded – into a female viewer’s market that few even realized existed. Though good statistical data is hard to come by (and many surveys are conducted by some half-shaky operators), the female audience for porn is somewhere between 30 and 66 per cent. Though these figures are unreliable, basic indications are that women do make up a noticeable audience for home viewing.

This has resulted in some odd shifts in the industry. Various women have taken over in the porn trade as directors, producers, and company CEOs. In a sense, this isn’t so surprising. Despite many arguments that can be made about porn and the treatment of women, the industry actually places a higher value on its female performers than the male “actors.” This doesn’t often mean much, but there is a basic view that men are much more replaceable (yes I know, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all – more or less). But the modern adult film industry is faced with more than shifting demographics. It is basically in the tank. Aside from several recent shut downs caused by sexually transmitted diseases, as well as business loss due to piracy, the porn industry has taken a massive beating at the hands of the digital amateur market. Just like cooking, it is cheaper to make porn at home.

The main bulk of the current porn market heavily consists of amateur (and what could be termed semi-amateur) material available through numerous online web sites. The porn theater business is dead. Selling porn at adult bookstores is heading to the graveyard. In the process, the amateur porn industry has resulted in a greater mainstreaming of the whole concept. In the old days, men bought porn from under the counter at stores that sold the material in sealed paper bags. Today, porn performers publicly endorse political candidates while others expand their career into the health, sex therapy and advice trade. A few have even run for public office, though I am surprised they would lower themselves to that level. Likewise, porn has mainstreamed into commercial film making. Two movies about Linda Lovelace are currently in production. James Franco is planning (maybe) to do explicit gay sex for an indie movie. Shia LaBeouf allegedly will do real sex for Lars von Trier’s movie The Nymphomaniac. I’m almost anticipating the next Indiana Jones’ flick to be Indiana Jones and the Tripoli Threesome.

You would expect the usual commentators to crank out numerous op-ed pieces on modern decadence and the collapse of American civilization. And sooner or later they will. But oddly enough, a lot of people don’t particularly care. Porn has become, for better or worse, part of the mainstream scene. Heck, even Jenna Jameson’s endorsement of Mitt Romney barely resulted in anything more than a few cheap jokes on the late-night talk-show circuit. From a sociological viewpoint, porn has simply become one component to the increasingly complex network of niche markets in the contemporary media business.

However, the old-styled commercial porn business is falling apart. In an attempt to salvage itself, many porn films have been trying to go the tent pole route. Pirates and Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge were both made on unusually large budgets in their attempt to cash in on Pirates of the Caribbean. Larry Flynt pushed the budget even further with This Ain’t Avatar XXX (in 3D). The big budget epic has become the porn industry’s last hope in its losing competition against the digital revolution.

Will this work? Nah. The mainstream commercial porn industry simply no longer controls the industry. And remember what I said about the porn business being a bellwether for the rest of the film industry. The only crucial difference with the rest of Hollywood is that they have more money to lose, so they can hang in there longer. But that is about it.