LOUIS THEROUX – TWILIGHT OF THE PORN STARS: Sunday 10th June, BBC1, 10pm
In 1997 Louis Theroux made a documentary about the difficulties of making it as a male porn performer. Fifteen years later, he returns to investigate how the industry has changed in what he calls a âpost-PornoTubeâ? era.
It turns out that the industry isnât doing so well. In â97, porn was undergoing a boom, mostly thanks to the internet, but today the net is largely responsible for its demise. While the content is more popular than ever before, people are accessing it for free via video streaming sites. Nobodyâs paying for it, except for perhaps the technologically imposed and true porn connoisseurs.
During his travels, Louis catches up with the participants that he met fifteen years ago, many of whom have retired. One of them, a once promising young male performer, now works in IT and makes progressive hardcore metal music in his spare time. Another, the successful Jon Dough, weâre told, committed suicide in 2006. We also meet a porn actress in her early twenties whose boyfriend is struggling not to take issue with some of her increasingly explicit roles.
âIâm not doing it because Iâm a big whore and I want five guysâ loads on my face,â? the actress explains to her partner. âIâm doing it because it might win me an award!â?
She, and many others like her, are planning on working for a few more years and retire early. Some have ambitions to be like Jenna Jameson and become less of a porn actress and more of a brand, to branch out into other mediums like television.
The highlight of the documentary: Louisâ catch up with pornographer Rob Black, who made a fortune from simulated rape and shock titles like âForced Entryâ?, beforedoing time for obscenity.
Crack is a hell of a drug it would appear. Today Rob looks like a concussed, barely-conscious Robert De Niro, but with the neurotic, nerdish enthusiasm of Quentin Tarintino. He speaks of his body of work as if heâs Bergman, dismissing the work of other directorsâ like âCum Splodgers 3â? (the weakest of the trilogy) as âjerk off shitâ?.
These days heâs moved away from hardcore shock flicks and into porn that he believes men can enjoy with the girlfriends: parody movies of Hollywood blockbusters like Iron Man. Because, you know, women love Iron Man.
Strangely, Louis seems a little disappointed in Rob, speaking to him as if heâs the Weezer of porn somehow: once credible and interesting, but now just truly terrible. âYouâve changed, manâ¦you used to be cool!â? is very much his tone, but Rob very animatedly insists that nobodyâs tamed him. Heâs still wild and crazy.
He does, however, look back on his pre-prison output with criticism, calling some of âsillyâ?. But this is largely where his regrets end.
Like much of Theroux and his production teamâs best work, Twilight of the Porn Stars mixes the aloof broadcasterâs trademark sense of humour and insight with a deeply unsettling subject matter. Itâs not entirely doom and gloom for the programmeâs participants, but itâs certainly turned sour for many of those featured in Louisâ â97 outing. It paints the picture of a dying industry, suffering from the devastating impact of internet piracy and unsure of where to go next. It might just be one Therouxâs best.
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