A film critical of the porn industry (and that’s O.K., remember – it’s not like it’s Birth of a Nation) will be shown tonight at Pasadena’s Fuller Theological Seminary.
The Price of Pleasure has marketed itself as fair and balanced, but it is not. More than that, producers have actively tried to keep potential detractors from seeing the film, which features interviews taken out of context (according to seminarians, a sin of commission) in addition to the lack of input from many people the film uses to make its point: porn is degrading to the adults who participate in it of their own free will (a sin of omission).
One group that is seen but not heard is gonzo girls. We see segments of the films they’re in, but TPoP‘s producers chose to let the coaxed, incontextual, carefully edited words of a few (Joanna Angel, Annie Cruz) speak for dozens of women whose scenes were held up as validating the filmmakers’ bias.
This will be the only public showing in Southern California of this film. The producers have rented the Travis Auditorium at Fuller for a “non-seminary-sponsored” showing tonight at 7 p.m. (I will be outside at 6:30). TPoP‘s website until yesterday listed the Fuller showing but today removed it, though Fuller employees insist the screening will continue and that attendees should “bring friends.”
Travis Auditorium
180 North Oakland
Pasadena, CA
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: The Price of The Price of Pleasure
See also: Fuller Theological Seminary, The Price of Pleasure
gram, thank you for bringing light to this, smart light at that. i was doing some research for my upcoming pornobsessed website and I came across the trailer for the movie turned topic at hand and was totally bummed out to see that it was yet another downer anti porn flick. blah. i’m sad to see that the so many of the folks participating didn’t catch on earlier. i am currently residing in michigan or else i’d be around in full support, espeically since this is going down in my hometown/beloved los angeles. hope it turns out well.
you’re like one of my heroes. love, vanessa.
After the posts this past week, I went to TPOP’s website and saw the trailer for myself. I believe they actually do raise some valid points about the downward spiral of violence has a lot of porn has taken the last ten years or so, and how that affects how real people have sex (or have it forced upon them), but it does it in the most didactic and intellectually non-curious way possible. They can’t find answers to these questions when they postulated their own before they even started making this flick. It’s no different than hearing a Fred Phelps lecture about pornography: company they don’t want to keep but that they’ve sequestered themselves with all the same.
JR.
Thanks Vanessa – we could have used you there.
…out of anything, it’s the intellectual pretensions built on very shaky research that makes me think a film like this is dangerous.
JR, I do think the film makes valid points, too, and if it were only marketed as a “the views expressed are entirely designed to bring you over to our side”-type project I’d have little problem with it. Because you’re right – it does say a few important (though not original) things.
Why I feel it’s dangerous is because no one associated with the film wats to admit its agenda, which is clear.