While might have been released in late December '96, The People vs. Larry Flynt
ain't no jolly-Christmas family picture.
Leave it to Hollywood to make a truimphant
drama from the story of the founder of Hustler magazine. For those
of you unfamiliar with Hustler, it's the magazine
that puts the "graphic" in "pornographic". Admittedly, the author hasn't done
his homework here; it's been a long, long
time -- early puberty -- since I last saw an issue of this august publication,
and for all I know, in the years since, it's
come to resemble Martha Stewart's Living.
(Not that I'm
counting on it.)
However, some memories stick with
you, and in this case, the long-buried pubescent memory is "Yech." Indeed,
"makes me ill" as a
description would be a kind assessment, and not out of any Puritanical impulse --
but simply an aesthetic one. When you hear feminists decry
pornography as "degrading to women", it's Hustler, not the Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue, that they're talking about. (Usually.) But still,
while I might be turned off by it, there are
a lot of lonely truckers out on I-15, if you know what I mean.
Hustler knows that the lowest common denominator is usually a safe investment.
When the movie was released, I saw an interview with Hustler publisher and
media "darling" Larry Flynt on TV.
The release of The People vs. Larry
Flynt brought Mr. Flynt into the public eye. Which, frankly, is not where he
should be. He's just not that pleasant. It should
come as no surprise that he looks nothing like Woody Harrelson. In fact, Flynt is
overweight and doesn't enunicate well, kind of like his tongue is glued to the
roof of his mouth, which
leaves his speech sort of mushy and suspicious. It makes him sound
stupid, which may be an accurate assessment. You don't need much more brains
than peat moss to produce
low-grade, unpolished smut.
But it does take brains to make smut that people think is "classy". Hugh Hefner's most remarkable achievement may be building an empire on images of naked women and convincing people they have a "girl next door" look. Or his most remarkable achievement may be building an empire that lets him spend all day in his pajamas. But however you look at it, nowadays the women that begin their careers in his magazine are frequently able to springboard into more acceptable media, without any stain for having disrobed for the world. Current overexposed (er, no pun intended) ex-Playmate Jenny McCarthy has gone from newsstand to newsmaker, becoming MTV's current darling and a frequent target of Spy, a sure sign you've "made it". Playboy's also given the world B-actress, gold-digger, and walking set of water-wings Anna Nicole Smith (gosh, thanks) and practically the entire female cast of Baywatch.
"Masturbation is cheap, clean, convenient, and free of any possibility of
wrongdoing -- and you don't have to go home in the cold. But it's
lonely."-Robert A. Heinlein |
But Playboy tries to make the image of "class" not just a ruse.
Jokes about "only reading it for the articles" aside, Playboy does
include articles about fashion, sports, and campaign-damaging interviews with
Jimmy Carter. Sure, everyone knows that people buy it for the woman
with the staples in her stomach -- but it at least makes a nod at being
a "real" magazine. Sort of an Esquire with airbrushed nymphets,
they'd like you to think.
Not so for Hustler, which subscribes to the theory that they're giving "readers" what they really want. Which is not an article about neckties. Nor the interview with Gore Vidal. It's pictures of naked chicks, dude. So if the readers want pictures of trashy bimbos chained to motorcycles, well, who are they to argue? And that's where the hubbub about Hustler comes in. Here is where it boils its own hot water.
Hustler -- and for that matter The People vs. Larry Flynt -- would like you to believe that their magazine is about the First Amendment.
No.Folks, this ain't no free-speech advocacy magazine. It's not the ACLU newsletter. It's about porn. It's about pictures of genitalia, "the most erotic part of the female anatomy", to quote Mr. Flynt. And it's about making money by taking said pictures of "models" and selling them to horny guys for use as a masturbation aid. This is not a free-speech campaign; it's smut. Let's call it like it is.It's not.
Now, before every cyber-libertarian jumps down my throat and spams my e-mail account, let me say right now that of course Mr. Flynt has the right to do this. Selling cheese to the tasteless? Why, that's the American Dream. There's a wanker born every minute. But I've also got the right to say that being attacked by censors doesn't make you a free-speech crusader. Porn peddler does not equal Bill-of-Rights activist. It just means you pissed off the Moral Minority, which is not that hard to do. Take a number, sit down, and shut up.
I suppose I should be glad that Hollywood didn't choose an even less palatable
free-speech "victim" like the Ku Klux Klan or the
American Nazi Party.
But I've got a hard time accepting Hugh Hefner as a hero, and he at least seems to pay attention to
some of our sensibilities. I don't wish Larry Flynt any further
attacks from the Morality Police, but instead hope that market forces --
and standards of taste -- make him go away. Hollywood ain't helping this
pipe dream, but hey, everyone's gotta have a fantasy.
...mine just doesn't involve frontal close-ups.
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