WEBVTT - Chapter 10: Beyond JennaWorld 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.680 Everyone thinks it's just a big orgy, but it's so technical. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.080 You have all these other people in the room. A 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.800 three minute scene might take three days to film. Linda 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.080 Wong performer. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:22.919 Coming from the adult industry. I had a lot of 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.799 doors that wouldn't open for me. I would wait for 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.440 the next one, but I try to go in through 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:35.040 the side door, you know. Heather Hunter performer. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:53.920 Welcome to General World. Welcome back to General World. I'm 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:59.800 your host, Molly Lambert. This is episode ten Beyond General World. 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.119 Jenna Jamison feels like her success as a porn star 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.840 is self directed. Sure, it takes a lot to stand 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.080 out in a room of skinny, blonde white women with 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.560 really big breaths, but Jenna also benefits from being a skinny, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.720 blond white woman in the first place, working in an 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.520 industry controlled primarily by white men pushing eurocentric beauty standards. 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.240 Anyone who doesn't fit into a very specific mold is 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:34.560 treated as exotic or niche. But in both born and 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:39.119 mainstream pop culture, there are performers and directors of color 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.480 who want to change things from the ground up and 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.160 create space in their industries for other people who look 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.080 like them. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:51.520 You have to be an exhibitionist, to last long in 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:57.160 this business. I am venessidelio performer. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:04.240 I'm betraying a It's just a character. My personal life 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:05.400 is totally separate. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.080 Even early on in porn history's seventies golden age, there 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.760 are performers who manage to break through porn's racist barriers. 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:20.720 Linda Wong, the Japanese American actress we mentioned in episode three, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:26.359 is born Linda Carol Secchi, a virgo in San Francisco. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.960 Linda is a high school homecoming queen ballerina and college 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.400 dance major who starts nude modeling and is asked to 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.400 do adult films. She co stars with John C. Holmes 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.520 in The Jade Pussycat, one of Bob Chan's Johnny wadd 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.200 series of movies. She struggles with addiction and makes her 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.840 last film, The Erotic World of Linda Wong in nineteen 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.359 eighty five, before dying of an accidental drug overdose in 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.240 nineteen eighty seven at a motel in Petaluma. The first 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.320 major crossover star of color is a d's performer named 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.880 Vanessa del Rio who becomes known as the Latin from Manhattan. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.919 She is born Anna Maria Sanchez. An Aires, the child 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.000 of Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants from Harlem. Raised as 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.480 a strict Catholic, she starts to rebel after her mom 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.959 takes her to see movies starring Isabelle Sarley, a former 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.160 Miss Argentina who starred in a string of hit sexploitation 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:30.200 movies like Fuego. Sarle is considered the Latin American equivalent 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.960 of the French sex symbol Brigitte bardow Anna Maria Sanchez 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.400 drops out of school in eighth grade, learns to code, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.560 and at age eighteen, becomes a computer programmer, then runs 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.880 off with a boyfriend who steals cars to live in 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:50.240 a series of hot Volkswagen Beetles. After tiring of bug life, 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.960 she starts waitressing, go go dancing and bartending topless. She 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.600 also works as a call girl and street walker. Then, 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.760 in nineteen seventy four, or she's offered one hundred and 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.600 fifty dollars to act in an adult film called Cherry Hustler. 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.960 I just asked how much does it pay? She said 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.360 one hundred and fifty dollars, and that's exactly what I needed. 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.120 That was my half of the rent. I guess it 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:16.760 was meant to be. 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.719 She takes her stage name from a friend named Vanessa 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.000 and Dolores del Rio, the Mexican actress who became Hollywood's 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:30.400 first Latina star. Vanessa del Rio stars in films like 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.520 Dracula Exotica. She uses her new influx of cash to 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.280 take herself on a dream vacation to Europe. Vanessa del 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.520 Rio makes one hundred and twenty movies and appears in 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.120 innumerable peep show loops before retiring from adult films in 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.359 nineteen eighty six. She continues to dance and model, and 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.039 appears in a nineteen ninety six episode of NYPD Blue. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.680 Vanessa del Rio has a second wave of notoriety from 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.960 being name checked in songs by ice Cube Digital underg 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.800 in Junior Mafia. She cameos in the music video for 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.240 Junior Mafia's Get Money, and on set, Little Kim approaches 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.120 her to say she's a fan. Vanessa deploys her coding 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.360 skills to create a personal website for her Goddess of 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.479 Lust fan club, where she sells memorabilia and does cam shows. 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.480 There's also a tashi in art book about her. 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:27.200 Listen you Can't unring a bell, I can't be a 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.560 porn apologist. You can't undo the fun. I just considered 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.040 my life an adventure. It's like I let the wind 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.440 blow me wherever. Everything that you could consider exploitative, I 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.440 found something to get out of it. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.200 Stars like Linda Wong and Vanessa del Rio are among 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.360 the first to break the white blonde mold, but performers 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.119 of color also have to contend with issues that white 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:59.520 actors don't like being exoticized and racially fetishized. For these 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.960 performers of color, working within the studio system often means 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.240 agreeing to take racially stereotyped roles because that's all that's 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.479 being offered to them. But in the eighties and early nineties, 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.800 there are actors and directors on both sides of the hill, 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.240 in both Hollywood and porn Valley, who are actively aiming 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.560 to challenge and change the racist status quo by changing 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.960 who is behind the camera, in front of it, and 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:34.080 running the studios. In the nineteen eighties, Eddie Murphy is 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.719 a world famous comedian and a list Hollywood star, wildly 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.600 popular from his stand on Saturday Night Live and blockbuster 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.720 movies like Beverly Hills Cop. Much like porn stand up 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:49.000 involves doing something rehearsed and trying to make it appear spontaneous. 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.760 Bruce Gowers is a Scotsman who directed the proto music 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.320 video for Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Gowers helped pioneer the form 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.320 that became music videos by filming promotional performance videos for 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.240 legacy acts like The Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart. Gower 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.720 shot up to become one of the most sought after 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.400 names in the burgeoning music video economy. 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.240 It changed the way music was perceived. Everyone was doing 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.640 videos and bands were seeing their sales and chop positions rise. 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:23.680 Bruce Gowers director. 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.360 Bruce Gowers moved to La where he directed the music 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.640 video for Michael Jackson's Rock with You and several Prince videos, 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.679 including nineteen ninety nine and Kiss. Eddie Murphy hand picks 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.760 Bruce Gowers to direct his landmark stand up special Delirious, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:46.120 which shares its title with a Prince song. In nineteen 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.920 eighty five, Eddie Murphy hosts the MTV Video Music Awards 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.960 and goes off script, ad libing and cursing in defiance 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:58.800 of MTV censorship rules. The Los Angeles Times runs letters 0:07:58.800 --> 0:07:59.480 of Complaint. 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.720 I was watching the MTB Video Music Awards on Channel 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.520 eleven and was appalled by the number of times Eddie 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.360 Murphy used profanity and was bleeped. My ten year old 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.920 daughter was watching, and even though Murphy was censored, she 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.160 could figure out what he said. If a show was 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.240 going to be aired at eight PM, it should be 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.520 clean enough for the whole family to see it. Susan 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.080 Wattling Chino. 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:28.200 In the eighties, Prince has also become famous and controversial 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:33.840 for his envelope pushing lyrics and raw overt sexuality. Eddie 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.480 Murphy and Prince are both part of what pearl clutters 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:42.959 like Susan Wattling from Chino see as a new raunch culture. Really, 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.360 it's that Eddie Murphy and Prince's huge celebrity as black 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:51.560 men threatens the racist American pop cultural status quo. So 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:56.400 in nineteen eighty three, a backlash starts. It begins when 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.440 Rick Alley, a thirty year old junior executive at a 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.000 Cincinnati tool company, buys the Prince album nineteen ninety nine 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.720 from a record store and brings it home to play 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.440 for his family on the living room stereo. Rick ally 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.080 buys the album because he loves little red Corvette, which 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.320 he thinks is about a car that is small and 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.480 red and not about Quissy. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.959 The whole one side of the album had what you'd 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.559 call top forty hits. We didn't get to the four 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:30.440 letter words until I turned it over, Rick Alley concerned 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:31.800 father Cincinnati. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.680 When rick Ally flips the LP over to Let's Pretend 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.760 We're married, he is shocked by the content and tries 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:41.800 to run his eight year old son an eleven year 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.120 old daughter into another room while his wife, Mitzy freaks out. 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.600 But it's too late. His kids have heard Prince's ode 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.880 to matrimony. Rick Ally runs to look at the record 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:55.800 to see if the obscene words coming out of his 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.080 stereo system are listed on a lyric sheet, only to 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.160 find that there is no lyric sheet provided with the album, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.960 and so rick Alley begins a personal crusade against what 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.400 gets termed porn rock that starts with a demand that 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.120 record stores warn you if the album you are buying 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.040 contains profane lyrics. 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.240 I think Prince is a fantastic artist. I bought Purple 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.679 Rain too. He's an incredible musician, and my wife and 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.080 I are big fans, so you can't say this is 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:28.640 a vendetta. 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.839 In nineteen eighty four, a group called the National Parent 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.560 Teachers Association takes up rick Alley's cause with a conservative 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.800 lobbyist group called Parents Music Resource Center, a coalition of 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.120 women married to influential politicians funded by ghouls like Mike 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:50.839 Love from The Beach Boys. The PTA and the PMRC 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.920 go after the National Association of Broadcasters and threaten to 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.120 get their radio licenses revoked if they play songs with 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:03.040 explicit lyrics or indecent thememes. They demand records come out 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:07.560 with ratings and warning labels for sex, drugs, violence, and 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:13.400 the occult. Good Housekeeping magazines suggests parents write angry letters 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:18.960 and boycott record companies. An anti censorship group forms called 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.320 the Musical Majority, whose members include Martin Scorsese. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:24.600 Hall and Oats. 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.400 The Musical Majority says ratings and warning labels are okay 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.760 as long as obscene content itself isn't being suppressed. The 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:38.840 controversy just sells even more prints records. The record companies 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.960 agree to do the parental advisory stickers, which they have 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:46.319 already been putting on explicit comedy albums like Eddie Murphy's Delirious. 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.679 In nineteen eighty nine. The stand up comedy landscape has 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.600 become rife with comedians whose gimmick is that they are 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.880 raunchy in court controversy, usually by doing sexist, racist, and 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.480 homophobic material. Eddie Murphy resents that he gets so much 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.960 public flack for working blue, while white comedians who do 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.200 much dirtier material and are less funny than Eddie Murphy 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:11.760 seem to. 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.440 Skate hickory dickery dock. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:20.599 Some chick's been sucking my cock clock Struck two. I 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:26.479 dropped my goo, dumped the bitch down the next block. Oh, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.319 Andrew Dice Clay comedian. 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.680 Now when I did Delirious, I got all this flag 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.600 from my material being so filthy. The truth is it's 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.000 nowhere nearest fieldy is some of the stuff they're doing. Now, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.280 I'll feeling like a fucking oh guy watching Sam Kinnison 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.719 or Andrew Dace Clay Eddie Murphy comedian. 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.080 By the late eighties, Eddie Murphy has become one of 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.240 the most powerful people in the film industry after starring 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.360 in a string of blockbuster heads. While Hollywood power brokers 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.360 are still extremely openly racist behind the scenes, they'll make 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.240 an occasional exception for a star like Murphy if they 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.000 sense there's money to be made. In an interview with 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:17.360 Jet magazine, director Spike Lee criticizes Eddie Murphy for not 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:21.000 using his power to help other, less powerful black film 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.440 workers break into a racist industry that runs on a 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.520 closed circuit of gatekeeping and private golf course networking. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.080 If Eddie Murphy, who made a billion dollars for Paramount, 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.040 went into their offices and said, I ain't making no 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.600 more films until you hire some black people in your 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.480 front office, they would have to do it. I hope 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.080 he'll use his clout rather than focus on who gets 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.600 the best table at Spago's Spike Lee. 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:54.920 Director Eddie Murphy directly responds to Spike Lee's comments in 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.800 a Rolling Stone interview, saying that Spike Lee is overestimating 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.240 how much power Murphy actually has with the big movie studios. 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.280 The company is called Paramount, not Eddie Murphy Productions. I 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.000 can't walk into the studios front offices and demand, shit, 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:12.640 how's some black people here. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.200 Murphy also gets critiqued by actor director Robert Townsend, whose 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.160 movie Hollywood Shuffle is about reductive screen caricatures of blackness 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.680 at Hollywood studios. The success of an Eddie Murphy is 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.440 seen as an exceptional outlier, not a sign that a 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:36.320 larger breadth of voices makes for better art. After initially 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.720 getting defensive, Murphy processes the feedback from his black peers 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.880 in the entertainment industry. He hires Robert Townsend to direct 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:49.480 his second stand up special, nineteen eighty seven's Raw. Eddie 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.960 Murphy knows the film industry is racist and that studio 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.160 executives still don't care about fostering diversity, only about using 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.280 him to make more money. He is also a where 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.960 that Hollywood's old white establishment wants to make him a 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.320 token to pretend that the film industry is more progressive 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:11.480 than it is Presenting. At the nineteen eighty eight Oscars, 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.560 Eddie Murphy again goes off script. 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.440 They came to me and said they wanted me to 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.680 present the award for Best Picture. My manager came and 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.840 told me that the Academy had picked me. My first 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:29.320 reaction was to say, no, I ain't going. My manager said, 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.800 but why. I said, I'm not going because they haven't 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.400 recognized black people in their motion pictures. He said, what 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.640 are you talking about black people? Win Oscars? I said, well, 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.960 black actors and actresses have won Oscars throughout sixty years, 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.480 but I'll probably never win an Oscar from saying this, 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.120 but hey, what the heck, I gotta say it. Actually, 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.840 I might not be in any trouble because the way 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:54.880 it's going, it's about every twenty years we get one, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.720 so we ain't due till about two thousand and four, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.480 so by the time this all blows over. I said 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.200 I wasn't going, but my manager said, you have to go. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.920 You can't sub the academy. So I came down here 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.880 to give the award. But I just feel we have 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.360 to recognize as the people. I just want you to 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.640 know that I'm gonna give this award, but black people 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.400 will not ride the caboose of society and we will 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.160 not bring up the rear anymore, and I want you 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:23.960 to recognize it. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.360 Murphy expects his speech to spark a big conversation about 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.400 race and representation on screen. He is surprised to see 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.880 nobody mentioning it in the news or the trades the 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.480 next day, almost as if to pretend it didn't happen. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.040 There are rumors that Oscars brass are very pissed about 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.040 Eddie going off script to critique the Academy, and that 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.520 in doing so he has detonated his own chances of 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.720 ever winning an Academy award. Rather than responding to the 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.600 truth and his criticism with a big show of action, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.479 they choose to punish him for public criticizing the Academy. 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:06.760 The Academy proves his point approximately twenty years later when 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.560 they nominate Murphy for Best Supporting Actor for his role 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.479 in Dream Girls and then have him lose the award 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:18.240 to Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine. In nineteen eighty nine, 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.120 Spike Lee's third feature, Do the Right Thing, comes out 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.280 and hits really big at the box office, both critically 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.439 and commercially. The success of Do the Right Thing helps 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.560 kick off a new era of filmmaking known as Black 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.520 New Wave or Black New Hollywood. Do the Right Thing 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.720 makes almost forty million dollars on a six million dollar budget, 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.200 and as always, it's visions of potential profits that finally 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.680 motivate some producers to bankroll a handful of young black 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:50.359 filmmakers after studios are forced to see that there is 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.280 a large underserved audience for films about the black experience 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:59.160 in America that are made by black filmmakers. In October 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.320 of nineteen ninety, Spike Lee and Eddie Murphy make peace 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.840 publicly in a Spin magazine cover story conversation where they 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.640 clear the air, reminisced about growing up in New York 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.639 and connect over both sponsoring the United Artists Against Apartheid 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.480 benefit for Nelson Mandela or Nelson Mandela told Eddie Murphy 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.080 his comedy made him laugh while he was stuck in prison. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.639 They also discussed Hollywood's double standards for black creatives versus 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.280 white ones, which Murphy experienced firsthand when his nineteen eighty 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.280 nine directorial debut Harlem Knights flopped and he suddenly saw 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.439 himself being labeled in the trades as washed up and 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:37.760 box office poison. 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:41.640 The way I see it, they only want one black 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.520 person at the top anyway, And even though you've made 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.160 two billion dollars for Pair Amount and Hollywood, I still 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.480 think they'd rather have somebody white in that position. And 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.600 anytime there's a white boy that comes around that might 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.760 take the title from you, like Tom Cruise or whoever, 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.640 it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it from Eddie. 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:02.119 You know what? 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.920 I felt like that when I did come into America, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.480 because it felt like that was a really good movie 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.359 and it got really really bad criticism. It was like, well, 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:13.760 what the fuck do they want me to do? 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:14.080 You know? 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.359 But this movie, I think it was an okay movie. 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.399 I mean, we got some bare views and we got 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.400 some really good ones. But I'd expect to be like either. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.080 Or how come we never just talk to each other. 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.359 What they like to do is to separate. You're the 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.359 biggest black director in the world. Okay, I'm the biggest 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.360 black movie star in the world. That's a dangerous combination 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.760 to have us hook up because the people who have 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.640 control don't have control. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:47.080 Then Eddie Murphy and Spike Lee commiserate about the huge 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.360 pressure on both of them to fix the entertainment industries 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:55.840 racism problems. And while they're talking about Hollywood, the same 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.240 thing is happening on the other side of the hill 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:03.080 and the other entertainment and just in the valley. In 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.399 the late eighties and early nineties, porn studios are dealing 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.560 with the same issues as mainstream filmmakers when it comes 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:14.960 to representation and inclusion. Despite Asian American author Bob Chen 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.960 being porn's first big director. As the business becomes ultra profitable. 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.680 It's primarily white men behind the camera, and they tend 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.960 to fetishize other races in their films. The earliest porn 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.639 movies from the seventies are integrated. It's only later in 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.840 the video age that performers of color are really siloed 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.120 off into a separate niche of adult movies centered around 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:43.200 racial fetishism and racist stereotypes. There is always acting work 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.600 for performers of color, but mainly within this framework. But 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.360 some people are always working hard to broaden what pornography 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.840 looks like and make the industry more inclusive and better 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.680 for participants. One of these people is a tall, handsome, 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.959 life black performer who takes the stage name Shawn Michaels. 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.359 When Jenna World returns, we meet the James Bond of 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:24.399 Horn Shawn Michaels. Oh my God, Welcome back to Jenna World. 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.360 Shawn Michaels is born Andre Allen in Brooklyn in nineteen 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.440 fifty eight, up Ices. He attends Boys and Girls High 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.879 School in Bedstye. Because of his striking good looks and 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.560 six foot three height, he gets scouted into modeling. He 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:46.959 moves to la in the late eighties and works as 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.440 a nurse in Woodland Hills. He gets back into modeling, 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.480 this time without his clothes on. In nineteen eighty five, 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.560 at age twenty seven, he decides to get into porn 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.360 as a performer. He combines the names of two famous 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:06.840 men epitomizing luxury and masculinity, Sean Connery and Michael Jordan, 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.080 to form his stage name, Shawn Michaels. 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:16.359 Sean Connery is a man's man on and off camera, 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.520 Shawn Michaels performer. 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.720 When Shawn Michaels enters the industry in the mid eighties, 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.000 films with black performers having sex are treated as a 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.760 niche genre. Money flows predominantly to white run companies and 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:37.600 white performers. White men were still considered the most important 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:42.359 consumers for the porn business to court because American porn 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:46.560 is so racist. Shawn Michaels does his earliest work in Germany, 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:51.760 where is likely racist in a different European way. Shawn 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.879 Michaels has an ambitious plan to make high budget, glossy 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.640 porn for a black audience that reflects his own tastes. 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:05.040 Shawn Michaels wants to portray himself a suave, rich, and 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:09.720 seductive like James Bond, talking women out of their clothes 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:14.159 with his smooth charisma. In nineteen ninety, he appears in 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.199 Oh What a Night, where he's the lone black performer. 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:20.639 His sex scene is with Sherry Taylor, a wife and 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:22.879 mother who entered a wet t shirt contest in her 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.840 thirties and discovered she was an exhibitionist. Oh What a 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:31.200 Night is directed by John Leslie ak John Nuzzo, an 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:36.159 Italian American stud turned director from Ohio. John Leslie, a 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:39.359 five foot eleven Steelers fan in Aquarius, worked at a 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:41.800 steel mill, then moved to New York for art school 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.359 and to play harmonica in a band called the Brooklyn Bluesbusters. 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:48.960 In the nineteen seventies, he moves to Mill Valley, California, 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:52.359 and gets into porn via the Mitchell Brothers. When John 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:55.840 Holmes is sidelined by the Wonderland Murders, thirty year old 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:59.560 John Leslie takes over his spot. Leslie is known for 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:05.840 three watercolor paintings, playing blues harmonica, and directing the hell 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:07.040 out of some sex scenes. 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.880 John was one of the very very very few who 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:14.040 I looked up to as having something to teach me. 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:18.720 He was the best pornographer, best eerotic filmmaker. He was 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:21.240 just an artist in many ways, from his painting to 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:25.400 his cooking to his filmmaking. Paul Thomas director. 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:30.760 Leslie is one of the first performers to move into directing. 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:34.280 In nineteen eighty seven, he directs night shift nurses, and 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.240 by nineteen eighty eight he's directing full time. He is 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:41.040 fresh off a spate of AVN wins when he makes 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:44.720 Oh What a Night for BCA with cub performer turned 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.119 aspiring director Shawn Michaels. 0:24:49.160 --> 0:24:52.000 I was nervous. I knew my lines and everything, but 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:54.639 I was just nervous about working with John Leslie, And 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:57.280 of course I had a crush on Sherry Taylor, so 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:01.200 I was totally intimidated. But put me at ease, as 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:02.960 did Joey, and I was able to pull it off. 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:06.320 That was basically the beginning of my career as a 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:10.280 serious individual in the adult industry. That was my introduction 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:13.000 to an actor becoming a director producer. 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:18.800 Oh What a Night shoots on location in Bodega Bay, California, 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:23.400 where Alfred Hitchcock made The Birds. Sean Michael scene gets 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:26.040 him noticed by the big porn studios. For his on 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:31.159 screen presence and physical prowess. He earns a sterling professional 0:25:31.240 --> 0:25:35.800 reputation and becomes known as the gentleman pornographer. 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:40.240 John Leslie was the first person to give me a 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:43.080 male performer in the adult industry who just happens to 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:45.399 be black, an opportunity to do more than just be 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:48.280 known for being a black dick in movies, and which 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:50.560 also gave me the opportunity to see that the industry 0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:53.240