Why won't Hollywood do HARDCORE porn?

[flyonthewall2983]

The whole question of why Hollywood does not do hardcore is slightly absurd, isn't it? I mean, it is Hollywood we're talking about. This community would have no problem making and distributing anything that made money but it won't produce porn because on one hand the whims of the supposed marketplace (the US rather than the global market, an illusion which will slowly fade with time) are dictated by a prevailing residue of puritanism and a socially encouraged hypocritical bearing. A friend once told me that Hollywood excels at pretending to be liberal when, in reality, they are conservative to their core, they reflect their constituency. On the other hand, the way the present Hollywood power structure probably sees itself would not allow for anything resembling hardcore to emerge in this or the next generation. There is just too much of a privileged assumption that celebrity culture is equivalent to the new aristocracy and in a legitimately aristocratic tradition. It's unlikely that those who wish to see themselves as highly placed models of a sort would consent to being seen as highly paid whores--the overtness of the analogy would probably be too much to accept, even with a very smart script to help sell their efforts as art. Only a few (somebody like Kubrick, of course) could pull this off and only then because the emphasis on star turns would be turned down. If it wasn't, the public inclination to howl about the size of McConaughey's big dick and how it compares to John Holmes would be unavoidable. We'd get more of that nonsense over how the NC-17 was the same as XXX, which would simply confuse the whole point of having it in the first place as no one seemed capable of making a distinction.

Of course, it is true that graphic sex certainly does not inherently equal art even if it does equal provocation. Context is always critical. Don't Look Now is an excellent example of a film that clearly understood what made sex valuable is an emotional investment and that the replication of this triggered empathy and relatability. Crash is much more about structure and design, employing a pornographic sensibilty in that way but transcending it through the recognition of what is lost on the purely formalist level. As Donald Sutherland so astutely noted in his interview on the UK Casanova disc, pornography seems primarily about athleticism rather than eroticism and that shift in prioritization has been reflected in what is fetishized in the culture. It is a restrictive rather than expansive arena, one which functions well to satisfy the often complicated psychological demands of its audience but is unsteady when venturing into emotional terrain, particularly when it is conceptual and abstract. And, yes, I am thinking of Carax's Pola X.

I completely agree. If I may be so bold to say, If something like Blue Movie was made in the 70's, it would (I hope) have changed the way sex on film is represented. It also would have changed that present notion you mentioned about how celebrity culture is almost consid equivalent to the new aristocracy, etc, etc. I don't think actors would be looked at as you said "higly paid whores", and neither would anyone else I imagine. And Julie Andrews would still be remembered as Mary Poppins lol. It's funny, after reading that article posted here, that it wasn't any sort of moral majority that struck production down, but simply just by lawyers. Those were the days, eh?

If I may carry over something from my sadomasochism thread, if Blue Movie was made then, alternative sexualities would be posed in a much better light than it is currently as well in mainstream Hollywood. I don't mean to sound callous and sarcastic to say it, but I'm sure I can count on both my hands gay and lesbian cliches and slurs from films released since the beginning of this year.

[sevenarts]

just to play devil's advocate for a second, why would we want or expect actors and actresses to have real sex for the sake of a film? i think that's as big a part of it as any other factor; not everybody wants to have filmed sex with someone they just met on a movie set. some of the best film sex scenes i've ever seen were in sex and lucia. i don't think they would've been any better, any sexier, if the actors were really having sex, so what's the point? film realism -- especially Hollywood "realism" -- is not the same as documentary realism, nor should it be. they're actors, they're actresses; let them act.

[Cinesimilitude]

just to play devil's advocate for a second, why would we want or expect actors and actresses to have real sex for the sake of a film? i think that's as big a part of it as any other factor; not everybody wants to have filmed sex with someone they just met on a movie set. some of the best film sex scenes i've ever seen were in sex and lucia. i don't think they would've been any better, any sexier, if the actors were really having sex, so what's the point? film realism -- especially Hollywood "realism" -- is not the same as documentary realism, nor should it be. they're actors, they're actresses; let them act.

This is what I was trying to say.

[Jay]

In all seriousness (or as much as this topic will support), I agree with John Cope's friend's insightful comment that "Hollywood excels at pretending to be liberal when, in reality, they are conservative to their core." Consequently, panicked right wing ejaculations (sorry...couldn't resist) about "liberal Hollywood" never cease to bring derisive smiles to my face. Hollywood is about making money, so a film with a "realistic" representation of sex will almost always lose out to the comfortable mindlessness of Scooby Doo 3 (though if that film managed to work in a "realistic" representation of sex...I'm there).

I also wonder if the argument regarding Hollywood and "realistic representations of sex" wouldn't benefit from an exploration of the complex mechanism of displacement that the industry has long applied to their creations. Is stabbing a breast somehow preferable to kissing one when it comes to putting asses in the seats? To me, the former certainly feels quite pornographic. There also seems to be something akin to Foucault's "repressive hypothesis" at work here. In other words, might "hardcore" sexuality exist practically everywhere in Hollywood cinema, albeit rechanneled into dialogue, "softcore" imagery, and depictions of violence? In other words, if it is -- in a sense -- everywhere (discursively), is the "realistic" depiction of sex already an absence so conspicuous that it is unavoidably present? I can easily imagine a film like a Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2 having a lengthy conventional sex scene, but I doubt that a "hardcore" act (use your imagination here) would ever take place within this context...though I can (a la Clerks and Clerks 2) imagine a character verbally DESCRIBING such an action in extensive graphic detail.

Also, are "realistic" depictions of human sexuality necessarily "hardcore"? What constitutes "hardcore"? Is "hardcore" realistic? Do audiences desire "realism" in sex scenes, or do they want illusion in the form of elaborately staged Zalman King fantasies or conventionally pornographic (and equally staged) scenes where we see an array of sex acts performed with professional aplomb and without one of the participants uttering: "Ow, you're on my hair" or "hold on, the remote control is poking me in my back!"?

[flyonthewall2983]

You know, all this makes me wonder if there was a kind of discussion like this only about the possibility of graphic violence in films, pre-Wild Bunch. I'm sure concerning films about WWII made pre-Vietnam, there was a dissent (most likely a minor one) among veterans about how unrealistic the violence in those movies were. I just wonder if the possibility of a blood-fest like The Wild Bunch was as unrealistic as a real 'hardcore' sex scene in a major Hollywood film.

[Gordon]

It isn't about not seeing lingering shots of peneration, just the lack of full frontal nudity and realistic but nevertheless erotic and sensual lovemaking scenes in powerful stories. This is where one's skewed perspective - at the hands of crude modern hardcore porn - clouds one's judgment and imagination. Experiments in presenting everything else has 'realistically' in movies has been attempted: war; crime; torture; drug use, etcetra, but sex is still not presented in a 'realistic manner'. Maybe it couldn't been made to work, but that is the other side of experimentalism in art and it has always proved worthwhile.

Paradoxically, I have always thought that the best genre to present sex most successfully, would be in a science fiction film. An uncompromised adaptation of Robert Heinlein's landmark 1961 novel, Stranger in a Strange Land would be very interesting. John Boorman's, Zardoz, which I saw for the first time last week, which I loved (I didn't snigger once) and found immensely thought provoking and powerful gave me a stronger belief that a futuristic or other-planet movie about the 'rediscovery' of sex among a species who had lived for millenia without it would be pretty interesting. Though I have the feeling that there is already a novel with such a premise, but I cannot recall its title. Though it is not sci-fi, the mass copulation scene in The Wicker Man points towards the unexplored area of Pagan paradigms of sexuality.

And I agree with the comment about Hollywood being faux liberal. though the opportunity it greater for all. However, a 'Cinema of Truth', if such a thing can be concieved, but have to include all of the harsh truths about life and its experiences - its "thousand natural shocks".

[Anonymous]

"Show me the money-shots!"

[sevenarts]

You know, all this makes me wonder if there was a kind of discussion like this only about the possibility of graphic violence in films, pre-Wild Bunch. I'm sure concerning films about WWII made pre-Vietnam, there was a dissent (most likely a minor one) among veterans about how unrealistic the violence in those movies were. I just wonder if the possibility of a blood-fest like The Wild Bunch was as unrealistic as a real 'hardcore' sex scene in a major Hollywood film.

Actually, that's not really analagous to what we're talking about here. There are plenty of sex scenes on film now that are as close to reality as the violence in The Wild Bunch is to real violence. What we're talking about in regards to sex, if you want to make the analogy to violence, is more like doing a film where if someone gets punched, they really get punched, and if they get stabbed you really stab them with a real knife. Of course, if we do this with sex, nobody gets physically hurt, but I'm just following through on your comparison.

[tryavna]

What we're talking about in regards to sex, if you want to make the analogy to violence, is more like doing a film where if someone gets punched, they really get punched, and if they get stabbed you really stab them with a real knife. Of course, if we do this with sex, nobody gets physically hurt, but I'm just following through on your comparison.

Nobody may get physically "hurt," but can you imagine how sore the actors might get if the director keeps demanding retakes? I mean, if William Wyler had been shooting a hardcore porn in, say, The Big Country and demanded 35 retakes, Gregory Peck wouldn't have been able to walk for a week!

[Gordon]

What we're talking about in regards to sex, if you want to make the analogy to violence, is more like doing a film where if someone gets punched, they really get punched, and if they get stabbed you really stab them with a real knife. Of course, if we do this with sex, nobody gets physically hurt, but I'm just following through on your comparison.

Nobody may get physically "hurt," but can you imagine how sore the actors might get if the director keeps demanding retakes? I mean, if William Wyler had been shooting a hardcore porn in, say, The Big Country and demanded 35 retakes, Gregory Peck wouldn't have been able to walk for a week!

A-HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

On that note, I think I'll bow out of this discussion. But there is something that I have been meaning ask on this forum: Has anyone here heard Camille Paglia's audio commentary on the 2001 SE of Basic Instinct? Because of my disinterest in this film, I didn't take any notice of that release, but I would imagine that her thoughts on the film would be very interesting.

[HerrSchreck]

just to play devil's advocate for a second, why would we want or expect actors and actresses to have real sex for the sake of a film? i think that's as big a part of it as any other factor; not everybody wants to have filmed sex with someone they just met on a movie set. .

How could you even ask that first question???? Do you know how much money pornography makes every year-- especially profit versus invenstment-- dwarfing Hollywood? So obviously folks most emphatically do desperately want to see actors & actresses having real sex (not just real sex but inclining their faces to catch 25 loads in succession, after being dp'd, etc etc on assembly line) on film. Obviously those actors & actresses who don't want to have filmed sex with somebody they just met on a movie set will not have sex " " " " " movie set. But clearly there are banco kachillions of them (many as willing, as gorgeous-- if not more so, nowadays at least... times have changed-- as Hollywoods biggest stars) williing and actually aching to do so.

I've given this subject a lot of thought over the years actually (ta-daaaaa!) and think the best results would be in the zone of the raunchy & the avant garde. Like (and of course this reflects my tastes, but gimme a minute) picture CHUTE-USHER or WARNING SHADOWS with their extreme visual styles, flickering in & out magic lantern-like viz snippets of hardcore, illustrating the insane jealousy & posessiveness of the male protagonists. These kinds of scripts & films with extreme visual power (which can hold it's own alongside a well composed shot of a chick sucking cock-- which is the problem, the hardcore scenes come on & the 'plot' parts get knocked in the solar plexus for most folks & they start zipping around thru the film getting impatient) I think hold the most potential of working in an 'art' context. Porno films are practically silent films in that they are image driven. The soundtrack of groans & grunts is little more than the equivalent of the TABU soundtrack. I think the best use for hardcore imagery in this context is to exploit the power of sex to incur jealousy & agonized posessiveness in men; the way a man will relentlessly torment himself with images of infidelity once he becomes aware of it, reliving it in his head over & over again, his little princess being befouled by base snarling males with low foreheads. I think there are some pretty potent juxtapositions out there remaining unexplored, but one needs to be willing to stand the slings & arrows of hypocracy of the filmgoing world calling them maniacs (then going home & pperviewing hardcore). And certainly one needs more than a modicum of brilliance to pull it off, as such aspirations can turn into extremely boring highwinded slop if not handled correctly.

The other kind of hardcore potential is an expansion of what The Dark Brothers used to do in the 80's (NEW WAVE HOOKERS, LEMME TELLYA BOUT WHITE/BLACK CHICKS, BETWEEN THE CHEEKS)-- freako Blazing Saddles type humor set completely free. Late Nite Television humor taking it's raunchy silliness completely off the wall. The Dark Brothers usedta crack me the fuck up. And the vintage late-80's writing in HUSTLER EROTIC VIDEO of a dude who called himself Christian Shapiro. That kind of sick humor mixes very well with hardcore.

EDIT: Hah! Gregory Dark has graduated from xxx to music videos (Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg, etc) to Hollywood, having just directed SEE NO EVIL (interviewed for suicidegirls.com @ the predecing link).

[The Invunche]

Gregory Dark has been making softcore "erotic" movies under pseudonyms for ages. So he wasn't only a porn director.

[HerrSchreck]

I know.. Greg Brown & Greg Hippolyte. But going from hardcore lunacy like BETWEEN THE CHEEKS to Britney Spears (despite the softcore trajectory linking them inbetween) is luscious irony. Then going to SEE NO EVIL which was Vince MacMahon subsidized (Kane was the killer)... no porn influence in WWF of course, none at all....

[The Invunche]

I'd like to see BETWEEN THE CHEEKS with Britney Spears.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'd like to see BETWEEN THE CHEEKS with Britney Spears.

Yeah, but we need to put her in a time machine first.

[The Invunche]

I don't go for 16 year old girls.

[Polybius]

If you want her now, then you'd better go for 16 stone ones.

[The Invunche]

Hehe.

[HerrSchreck]

Aint Narcotics Wonderful Trivia Dept: Ginger Lynn talking about her uh appearance in BETWEEN THE CHEEEKS, where she takes two schtups in her pee pee at the same time. Inna contemporary interview she got very VERY indignant when uh complimented for her eh performance thereby. Whereby she became furious proclaiming says "I absolutely did NOT take two c^%$s in my pu%%y at the same time!!! Everybody knows I took one in my ass and one in my p%^%y." Notwithstanding how high she must have been to be totally unaware that she did take two au naturale at the same time, the other item worthy of note is how funny it was that she thought that getting double-penetrated anally & vaginally was somehow graceful & feminine, and taking two in the wee wee was Undignified.

So they says, "Watch the ahem movie, Ginger!"

[The Invunche]

I'm still waiting for the mythical DVDA.

[Cinesimilitude]

I'm still waiting for the mythical DVDA.

=D>

[mikeohhh]

Aint Narcotics Wonderful Trivia Dept: Ginger Lynn talking about her uh appearance in BETWEEN THE CHEEEKS, where she takes two schtups in her pee pee at the same time. Inna contemporary interview she got very VERY indignant when uh complimented for her eh performance thereby. Whereby she became furious proclaiming says "I absolutely did NOT take two c^%$s in my pu%%y at the same time!!! Everybody knows I took one in my ass and one in my p%^%y." Notwithstanding how high she must have been to be totally unaware that she did take two au naturale at the same time, the other item worthy of note is how funny it was that she thought that getting double-penetrated anally & vaginally was somehow graceful & feminine, and taking two in the wee wee was Undignified.

So they says, "Watch the ahem movie, Ginger!"

please please please link me to this interview

[HerrSchreck]

O jeez, I read that contemporarily in Hustler I believe, i e the year the film came out. That's what made it so funny. It wasn't even an interview years & years & years later where her memory might have been fuzzy about the precise details. The film was brand new.

Ah Yesterday, Dept: Me & my friends actually cut school (I went to a midtown NYC high-school), smoked a big chong, and, high as clouds, saw BETWEEN THE CHEEKS on the big screen in the 80's when it came out on Times Square.

[Ste]

I'm still waiting for the mythical DVDA.

Not another new fucking format!

[miless]

I'm still waiting for the mythical DVDA.

Not another new fucking format!

hahahaahahhahhhhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaaahahaha...
okay that has to be the funniest thing I've read