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a thorough history of the stag film
Notorious pornographer and free speech advocate Al Goldstein recently remarked, "Porn is so mainstream now that it's boring. I'd rather eat a nice roast beef sandwich than watch any of it." Hmm...when someone who has devoted his entire life to porn says something like that you know we're in trouble. But I have to say I find it hard not to agree with him - there's nothing like a really great roast beef sandwich, and the adult industry is in a pretty bad state. Porn is big business, and the attitude towards it, on the part of the film makers and performers alike, seems to be very workman like. Most films are flat, uninspired, predictable - and just boring (of course there are exceptions - particularly with amateur videos - but I'm generalizing a bit). To me, the biggest problems with porno today are that nobody seems to be having any fun, and the films lack an essential ingridient - character. If nothing else, stag films have character to spare. The people in stag films do not seem like porno people - they look like your friends, neighbours and...parents. Some of them look awkward as they perform unspeakable acts, but a good number of them seem like they're actually enjoying themselves. It's a beautiful thing to witness.
From the Victorian age until the early 70's, stag films were the only way people could see explicit sexuality in motion.They were short humorous vignettes, shot in black and white with tiny budgets, and screened to goups of men in brothels, stag parties and private clubs. Writer Dave Thompson just released a thorough history of the stag film called Black and White and Blue. When I spoke to him recently he said, "These films show sex as it really is. There is an enthusiasm to these performances that is simply missing nowadays." Thompson does not think that the majority of the performers were prostitutes and junkies, as is often argued, but rather amateurs who were excited to capture their moments of passion in the then relatively new medum of film. Thompson says that the performances are humorous and full of vitality because the films were screened for groups of men, so the performers knew that their audiences were looking to let loose (so to speak) in public places. Think about how different that is from the solitary experience most of us have with porno these days. So while I don't particularly want to grow aroused with a group of guys, it seems to me that porno itself lost something when it left the theatres and brothels and entered our dvd players and computers.
