The explosive popularity of porn parodies in the last two years has been staggering, and several folks have asked me to address this since I'm the Big Time Porn Guy And All Around Sex Nerd. Are they worth watching? Are they any good? I've had dozens of inquiries about them, and so I decided to look at the porn parody phenomenon in detail.
After enduring an artistic (and commercial) bout of ennui, the industry hit upon its “next big thing” after the release of Hustler’s Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?, perhaps the most influential porn video of 2008-9. While the actual trend towards parody had begun a year or so before, arguably with That 70's Ho or This Ain't The Munsters, the fact is that Hustler’s Larry Flynt, the Godfather of the porn industry, mixed traditional parody with political satire when he found a perfect porn double of Sarah Palin, the deliciously MILFy brunette Lisa Ann, and rushed a well-done flick to market mere weeks before the election. Buoyed by nation’s partisan feelings at the time, the genuine lust for the intrepid GOP VP Candidate in the souls of American men of both parties, and an uncanny instinct for innovation, Hustler nailed it with Who’s Nailin’ Paylin? While actual sales figures are unknown, I have it from a reliable industry source that they’re at least in the six digit range – and not the low end.
There’s nothing new about porn parody. It’s a perennial favorite, a well of creativity to which the industry has returned again and again. Its popularity has always been the same: to see popular and familiar entertainment augmented by sex. Often (inadvertently) funny, sometimes erotic, the degree to which porn parodies have been commercial successes has often depended as much on the public mood of the time as upon the length and degree to which the producers and directors are willing to go to adhere to the show or movie which inspired it. Fear of legal action by the original show’s cast and producers, the expense of essentially re-creating the elements of a show, and (quite frankly) the limited pool of talent upon which the industry had to choose from made parody a hit-or-miss thing, at best.
There have been really bad porn parodies (Spermbusters, a weekend wonder homage to the Bill Murray flick, remains a stain on my brain) but also some really notable porn parodies in the past – a personal fave is the 1976 ode to Charlie’s Angels, A Coming of Angels. Apparently aping a T&A drama wasn’t too much of a stretch for the industry at the time. But that factors into the equation, as well. With the explosion of VHS in the 1980s into the mainstream market, and the reduction of the cost-of-entry due to the switch from film to far-cheaper video tape, coupled with the loosening of obscenity standards due to landmark legal cases, made low-budget “gonzo” style sex shoots much more profitable than expensive parodies, and new companies specializing in the quick-and-dirty business of four hour stroke-a-thons began leaving the more-traditional porn houses in the dust. Today there are only a handful of companies that even attempt to wrap any kind of story around their porn, and even those are often considered “loss leaders”.
Then came the Internets. Just when the industry was beginning to artistically stabilize in the early 1990s as the insanely profitable DVD market was peaking and attention started to turn once again to parody, the explosive popularity of the internet and the illicit pleasures available therein provided a whole new type of competition, even as it provided a vast new market. Only now, when the novelty of the internet has begun to fade, have the big production houses tried their hand at parody again – only this time, it’s different.
(Continued In Part 2)
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