When I was in junior high, I had a Social Studies teacher who was a total hippy. He’d play records while we were working on whatever it was we were working on that day. One of his records was “The Worst of Jefferson Airplane”, and I’d always wonder why anyone would name anything “The Worst” of…until now.
I stand by this blog, and my take that the sole purpose of porn is to make a dude ejaculate. In the same breath I’d like to say I’ve never met Eon, but I know a lot of people who have, and everyone who works with him respects him and has nothing but good things to say…but that doesn’t mean he’s right. Nor am I.
This blog’s original air date: November 25th, 2005.
MR sends me an article from the Village Voice on some new porno director dude calling himself “Eon McKai“, part of which reads:
I fundamentally disagree that all porn can do—and should do—is get people off. Porn illustrates fantasies and shows people other sexual worlds. It teaches, it preaches. It validates, invalidates, reflects, inspires, entertains, evokes, even enrages….Some producers want to churn it out as fast as they can and collect their paychecks. But there are others who want to make something different, who have an agenda, who are not just phoning it in. Just because there are close-up shots of cocks impaling pussies doesn’t mean it can’t be art.
Then, McKai is quoted in the same article as saying: Porn just happens to be this thing where the person giving you the money really wants good sex. So you, as the director, have all this room to play in between the humping,” says McKai. “Can you blame me for putting a little art in there?
And to this I say fuck yea, Mr. McKai, I’ll blame you. I’ll blame you all day long…for making bad porn.
Let’s get something straight: porn has never been – nor ever will be – art.
One of the things Paul Thomas Anderson really got right in his film Boogie Nights was Burt Reynold’s character “Jack Horner”. Mr. McKai is today’s Jack Horner. As is Paul Thomas, and the Jenna Jameson crew, and everyone at Vivid, Wicked, VCA, and every other company that spends more than, say, $12,000 for a skin flick.
See, when it gets down to it, all these porno people want to be are “real” movie stars. They want to be “real” directors, and “real” writers. But they can’t. Usually, they can’t because of a lack of talent. It’s really that simple. Don’t get me wrong – they’re great pornographers. Well…most of them started out as great pornographers.
Then, they wanted “more”. They wanted to realize their “inner vision”. Some creative idea that “needed to released.”
Just like Jack Horner’s editor says in Boogie Nights, right after he’s done cutting the latest Chest Rockwell/Brock Landers film, “well Jack, you’ve really done it. This is it. This is a real movie.” And Jack’s chest inflates; he’s so proud of himself.
Not for making good porn…but for making a “real” movie.
Poor Jack.
Poor Eon.
Making a statement like “porn can be art” is offensive. I can see Marcel Duchamp groaning up in Art Heaven right now, over a game of chess. Next to Warhol, who’s hanging out with his old heart throb Truman Capote…as they’re watching Jackson Pollack stumble around, drunk and insecure.
Some work might fall in a “gray area”. Mapplethorpe comes to mind almost immediately. But all it takes is someone with 1/2 a brain about one second to realize Mapplethorpe’s photography isn’t porn. Labeling Mapplethorpe’s photos as “porn” would be a lot like calling a painting by Peter Paul Rebens dirty – or sitting in a musuem, realizing you’re all alone, and trying to rub one out over Renoir’s “A Seated Bather”.
I hate to break the news to ya, but there’s good porn, and there’s bad porn. And that’s it. And porn’s sole reason to exist is to get people off. Nothing more. Ever.
For me, good porn just shows a heet getting pounded by a dude, and she takes a big ol’ load to the kisser. Especially if she didn’t want it on her face. Or a cute white chick getting banged by a big-dicked brother. Or two super hot lesbos making out and fingering each other till someone’s pussy squirts.
For me, bad porn is some bullshit session where “actors” like Jenna Jameson and her crew fuck their husbands/boyfriends on camera after trying to memorize a bad script some two-bit hack wrote…all the while shit is blowing up all around them. Or while pirates are chasing them.
Great porn: Circa ’94 Jenna Jameson fucking Randy West in Up and Cummers #10 cause she needed money desperately.
Bad Porn: Circa ’05 Jenna Jameson fucking her hubby (for the umpteeth time) in The New Devil in Miss Jones for way too much money while Paul Thomas “directs”.
If I want to see a bad action movie, I’ll rent a Steven Segal flick. Or anything starring Sly Stallone.
If I want to see an art film, I’ll go to LA MOCA on Saturday nights.
Just like Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell, “serious porn” (for lack of a better name) is, at best, laughable. It’s mostly dumb and boring. It’s porn being made by mainstream entertainment failures and wannabes who can’t admit to what they are.
And finally – to Eon Mckai. Change your name, immediately. It’s an insult to Minor Threat/Fugazi fans everywhere – as well as Mr. MacKaye himself. If you need a good porno name, here’s the rule: take your childhood pet’s name followed by the street you grew up on.
It works almost everytime.
Dude,
I always wonder why people like you have no appreciation or respect for other people work. You’re argument is the equivalent of saying that you like Mexican food and all food that’s not Mexican sucks.
I respect that you’re favorite type of movies are all produced under $12,000 and maybe Meat Holes #8 is your favorite movies of all time, but obviously you’ve never watched a movie with a chick. The thing to remember here is that most men’s sex zone is dick (and for some of our more adventurous brothers, the hinney hole). For women it starts at the top of their head and ends at the toes. Though I don’t think movies like Pirates will stimulate anything more than buyers remorse, there are other movies (like Zazel) that have more than served as a great aphrodisiac for me. Try slipping a Meat Holes on the next time you try loving a lady up and chances are good that before the night is out, the lone arm will ride again.
As far as Eon goes, I appreciate that his movies cater to the hip, young and sophisticated (to me, I look at the porn world a big pie, with slices available to everyone…..or at least for those over 18). The fact that he puts a lot of time and effort in creating his art sure seems to have paid off for him. Since VCA gave him a huge budget to make Neu Wave Hookers AND Kill Girl Kill 3 is number 4 on AVN’s most rented list, I believe I could make a good argument that Italian food is alive and well in America, my friend.
By the way, Taco Bell is not great Mexican food in my book either.
I never said I didn’t appreciate or respect other peoples’ work; in fact, I said I respect Jenna’s early work. I think I called it great.
I don’t watch anything Khan Tusion does. It ain’t for me…like arty porn ain’t for me.
And I love Mexican food and everything that is and isn’t Mexican. But porn ain’t anything Mexican…it’s porn, and it has one sole function.
I stand by my argument, and I appreciate your point of view, too.
Billy:
I see where you are coming from. But I think you need to turn the question on its head. It is not that “art” is some thing we hang up in a museum and appreciate, or that makes us think. Art is just human creation. Art can, and most often does, have a function. A chair is art. A teapot is art. A hotel painting of a seascape is art. A Steven Seagal movie is art — in the sense that it is a human creation, and is designed to do something — entertain.
The question is can porn aspire to be “good” art — which somehow reaches beyond its bare function to capture some “larger truth” providing the audience with an experience beyond its mere function. However, this does not mean that the way to do this is with ornamentation. Just as a simple shaker cabinet, or a short haiku can be good art, so can a “get your rocks porn scene” — like Jenna Jameson is Up and Cummers #10. I mean, perhaps this shows the depths of my perversity, but I would say that the scene in “7 the Hard Way” with Jackie Moore is good art — it certainly serves its function, while at the same time expressing something powerful and fundamental about human sexuality.
For the record Sylvester Stallone’s last “Rambo” movie was fucking awesome (no…really). Undoubtedly the best action flick of 2008.
Let’s get something straight: porn has never been – nor ever will be – art.
Seeing as art is in the eye of the beholder, you don’t get to make that decision for anyone else, hoss. 😉
It is just as artistic as any other videotaped physical performance for entertainment. Just because you don’t consider it art doesn’t mean that it isn’t, so keep that in mind.
I agree with everything you said, Billy. When I watch porn it’s because I’m masturbating and I want to get off. Therefore I don’t need any of these things: 1) Story; 2) Special Effects; 3) Acting; 4) Set Design. All I need is a hot girl getting fucked, well. All the other stuff is extraneous. Art nourishes the mind and soul. That’s not the purpose of porn. The purpose on porn is to get you aroused and then make you cum. End of story.
Hi Billy,
Two things:
1 – Please don’t put threesomes & gangbangs on Manojob.
The whole point of it is to share intimacy, and women surrounded by a multiple guys doesn’t say anything like ‘intimacy’ to me. It says ‘lack of normal boundaries’ and ‘degradation/desparation-spiral’. I can’t make any connection to the girls in those scenes & don’t collect them. Maybe I’m just speaking for myself, but porn isn’t about people fucking like animals. At it’s best it aspires to be something more.
2 – The new site, MRPOV, looks very nice, but it had a lot of dead links in it last week. I click on the ‘MORE’ section on the descriptions, and several times now it has put me in a holding pattern where I have to reboot my machine. I’m using firefox on an older PC, but other sites work fine for me. MRPOV needs more QA work.
Best Regards,
Beggleman
Dude, I can’t stand that godawful garbage that companies like Vivid make and for some reason get praised for. BangBros, Brazzers, your sites, etc. all make smut that is 1000000x better than anything in those horrible “art” films.