Sex and Trash: Incorporating the Pornographic Film into Popular Discourse

Film theorists and critics alike face an eternal struggle as to what is cinema and what is not. While these debates have affected various genres, modes, and conventions of film, it seems no type of film is more strictly barred from such “cinema” status than the pornographic film. Film critics have largely ignored pornography, considering it something entirely separate. Certain theorists, for their part, have worked to incorporate the study of pornographic film into their body of work, and to extol the virtues of this effort to a broader audience of film enthusiasts. Perspectives on the pornographic film differ in a number of ways, and many are unsurprisingly tied to diverging attitudes towards sex. However, the pornographic film’s struggle to achieve status as cinema—and therefore proper attention and discussion—is also rooted in anxieties over how to label the pornographic film more broadly. Porn is obviously not bound to certain conventions of classical Hollywood cinema, nor is it overtly participating in the traditions of the art or avant-garde film. And so while previous work on the study of pornography has attempted to implement it into this sort of cinematic spectrum, I will utilize Jim and Artie Mitchell’s Behind the Green Door (1972) to suggest that pornography need not conform with notions of the classical, art, or avant-garde film. Rather, the pornographic film, with its obvious interest in the human body, is what film critic Pauline Kael affectionately refers to as “trash.” Pornographic films are “bad” films, and that is precisely why they are noteworthy films. If this assertion sounds divisive or provocative, perhaps it is. Still, it is necessary that we work to understand what it is that makes a film “bad” and why that can be perfectly okay. This understanding, and its application to pornographic film, may ultimately bring us closer to an understanding of what cinema is meant to be and to do in contemporary society.

Before we can dive into Behind the Green Door, we must clarify what we are talking about when we refer to films as “bad” or “trash.” The aforementioned Kael will be most helpful in this discussion via her famous 1969 essay “Trash, Art, & the Movies.” Kael’s essay walks through several films in order to differentiate between “trash” and “art” in the cinema. This distinction, as far as Kael is concerned, is a matter of pretense, with too many films masquerading as art “as if the conditions under which a movie is made and the market for which it is designed were irrelevant” (Kael 341-342). Kael is highlighting here the tendency to focus on a film’s ability to satisfy a singular theme or vision in the quest to label such a film as art. For Kael, cinema cannot be separated from the socioeconomic environment surrounding it, and yet she sees too many of her peers ignoring this component when looking to label films.

One may read Kael’s criticism as an attack on specific film theories, but it is perhaps an attack on film criticism/theory more broadly. She is suggesting that the films we so readily refer to as artistic or important are a product of their environment, and not any sort of artistic undertaking, ultimately suggesting that acknowledgment of this idea could vastly improve discussions around film. While Kael is more than willing to recognize certain films as better than others, she particularly appreciates trashy or bad films for not participating in any sort of pretense. These films are seemingly more forthcoming in regards to their respective intentions and projects. For Kael, and for perhaps a vast majority of moviegoers, this dynamic is ideal. Trash provides a unique opportunity in that it does not purport to be of any grand thematic or artistic significance, and yet we may readily approach it as having such qualities nevertheless. As Kael reminds us, “one of the great appeals of movies is that we don’t have to take them too seriously” (Kael 340). Of course, we can, and we might, but this kind of interpretation is only one approach to cinema, and in some cases, it may not be the most appropriate one, especially when the films we are engaging with openly suggest otherwise.

It should be pretty simple by now to see how Kael’s ideas connect with the pornographic film. After all, film critic J. Hoberman, in his piece “Bad Movies,” actually relies on pornographic films rather heavily in his exploration of what determines the “badness” of a film. Hoberman is not painting all pornographic films as bad, however, but is instead referring to “anonymous pornography” (Hoberman 518). For Hoberman, it seems pornography is bad if the circumstances of its production are unclear or menial. Our aim here, of course, is to demonstrate how the pornographic film at large falls in line with notions of trash, and how this ultimately helps the genre in taking hold in the cultural pantheon.

Even the most narratively or thematically rich pornographic films—be it far removed from my intentions here to determine the validity of such designations—are rather clear in their agendas. The pornographic film aims to entertain, or perhaps more appropriately, arouse. Sex sequences are the real draw in pornographic films, and the films are constructed accordingly. In this way, the pornographic film is similar to the movie musical or the action film, two other genres that often struggle to achieve status as high art and instead often settle in as examples of worthwhile trash. The connection between these different genres of film lies in their reliance upon their respective forms of spectacle. Each genre must break up sequences of spectacle with plot or downtime, but those sequences are what ultimately drive each genre’s fulfillment of its mission. Richard Dyer confronted this dilemma for the movie musical in his work “Entertainment and Utopia,” which worked to advance the genre towards a more appreciative critical perspective. Dyer argues that, while musicals may be considered simple entertainment for entertainment’s sake, even this sort of labelling carries meaning that is often overlooked. For Dyer, the musical, alongside something like the pornographic film, has “the sole (conscious) aim of providing pleasure” (Dyer 467).

Behind the Green Door, however, seems to be in an interesting position in regards to this pursuit of pleasure. The film’s depiction of sex is surely meant to please and to arouse, but the escalation in the film from sex as a performance by individuals to sex as a communal activity does seem to carry some thematic weight that moves beyond simple entertainment. The Mitchell brothers depict sex, and porn in particular, as something that we may be uncomfortable engaging with at first, but which ultimately is natural and welcoming to us all. This inclination to “read” Behind the Green Door may seem to shift the film away from trash as Kael and Hoberman understand it, but that is not necessarily the case. Kael’s criticism of bad films does not assume a total lack of meaning in those films, only a lazy or heavy-handed delivery of such meaning. And Hoberman only lays out one feature that unequivocally renders a film bad: “to be objectively bad, a film must relentlessly draw one’s attention away from its absurd plot” (Hoberman 520). So, if we consider Kael and Hoberman’s ideas in relation to each other as well as Behind the Green Door, we may come to see how Behind the Green Door and other pornographic films are indeed bad films, and therefore worthy of incorporation into everyday popular culture.

Allow us to return to the aforementioned sequence that escalates from a performance by individuals to an orgy involving the entire room. This sequence makes up over half of the film, which falls in line with our earlier notion of the pornographic film’s agenda: to arouse via the depiction the sex. While the film does establish a narrative at the start, one that is arguably more complex than most audiences would expect, plot is of little significance to Behind the Green Door. Still, one may consider the film’s plot absurd, a feature that Hoberman is willing to forgive in many films if such films are willing to embrace this absurdity. Of course, the pornographic film can only embrace its own narrative so much, as the narrative is unlikely to be the film’s driving force. Behind the Green Door uses its narrative structure to bring its characters into the same space, but from there, allows sex to unfold in a way that feels simultaneously connected and unrelated to the plot. This complication is something Dyer deals with in regards to the musical as well: “a dancer is always a ‘person dancing’” he suggests (Dyer 469). Dyer is noting how, in the movie musical, the performer signifies multiple meanings at once. On one hand, the performer is the diegetic character he or she is meant to be embodying. On the other hand, the performer is him or herself. The joy from seeing a contemporary movie musical like The Greatest Showman (2017) comes not just from learning about the life of P.T. Barnum, but from seeing Hugh Jackman sing and dance. The pornographic film undoubtedly participates in this same dynamic of a complicated diegesis. Consider the central figure in Behind the Green Door, Marilyn Chambers. Chambers was previously known to audiences as the “Ivory Soap Girl,” indicative of purity. Therefore, Gloria’s immersion into the world of the sex club is just as much Chambers’ own immersion. As Gloria is remade into a more sexual being, so is Chambers. The sequence even begins with Gloria/Chambers being brought out on stage in a white dress, a clear reference to the woman’s purity.

But this blurring between diegesis and reality extends past her. Throughout the major sex sequence, the camera cuts away to spectators, whose reactions slowly shift from discomfort to arousal to, eventually, full-blown participation. These are obviously diegetic spectators, actors in the film. They are also, however, us as viewers. At the very least, they are meant to force the audience into a consideration of their own role in the experience of watching Behind the Green Door. The blank stares and fidgeting that we see from these spectators early on are almost surely similar to our own reactions to the film. It therefore follows that their eventual participation in the sex is meant to serve as an invitation to audiences to do the same, to inspect what is behind the green door. This complication would likely be of particular interest to Hoberman, who suggests “a good bad movie is a philosophers’ stone that converts the incompetent mistakes of naïve dross into modernist gold. Such movies are unstable objects. They ping-pong back and forth from diegetic intent to profilmic event (or to their own jerry-built construction)” (Hoberman 520). Hoberman recognizes a self-reflexive nature in bad films, albeit a sloppy one, that can make them effective in their own unique way. Behind the Green Door certainly draws attention to its own construction, but that puts the film in a precarious position as it relates to notions of trash. We have so far established that the transparency of the pornographic film, via its emphasis on sex sequences, moves the genre closer to an interpretation of it as trash. Further, the genre’s complication of diegesis clearly connects it to trash as well. However, the self-aware construction of Behind the Green Door, while certainly connected to the formal construction of other pornographic films, may not be representative of pornography more broadly. On one hand, like any other pornographic film, Behind the Green Door does rely on sex sequences to carry out its mission, but its formal treatment of those sequences may complicate our interpretation of the film as trash. Not to mention, Behind the Green Door features sex very prominently throughout its 72-minute runtime. The film’s extreme emphasis on sex acts as a celebration of the pornographic film, but what is the nature of this celebration? Is Behind the Green Door celebrating porn as a response to the notion that the genre may be trashy or bad, or is it celebrating porn precisely because the genre is trashy and bad?

This inquiry brings us to perhaps the most formally aggressive moment in Behind the Green Door. The central sex sequence discussed previously culminates, naturally, in an ejaculation sequence. It is here that the Mitchell brothers’ celebration of sex and pornography is made especially clear, as, once the ejaculation begins, time slows down and a surprisingly unsettling score kicks in. The tone is ominous at first, soon revealing itself as euphoric via intense manipulation of the image. What begins as a close-up on Gloria and a man’s penis soon dissolves into a montage of psychedelic imagery—vibrant greens, reds, and blues—with the ejaculation, in addition to brief shots of others having sex, replaying over such imagery. The sequence is surreal and markedly different from all that comes before and after it. In some ways, it feels like another complication of the diegesis, as it may confuse the viewer as to when and where they are. It is perhaps more appropriate, however, to interpret the sequence as a visualization of the internal experience of an orgasm.

Regardless of interpretation, the sequence clearly falls in line with Hoberman’s recognition of bad films referencing their own “jerry-built construction” (Hoberman 520). And Kael would almost certainly consider the sequence to be in line with the sort of heavy-handedness she identifies in so much of the trash she discusses in her essay. While the audience’s gradually increasing arousal could be argued as either a subtle or an overt attempt to extol the virtues of pornography, this over-the-top ejaculation sequence marks an extreme attempt to cement pornography as significant and worthwhile. But worthwhile for who, and in what way? Kael reminds readers that “if it was priggish for an older generation of reviewers to be ashamed of what they enjoyed and to feel they had to be contemptuous of popular entertainment, it’s even more priggish for a new movie generation to be so proud of what they enjoy that they use their education to try to place trash within the acceptable academic tradition” (Kael 355). Kael is imploring us to enjoy trash, but to only enjoy it for what it is. This idea forces us to consider what Behind the Green Door is asking of us in its adoption of techniques associated with trash films. While we have previously considered the notion that the film is inviting viewers into a participatory relationship with the onscreen sex—perhaps most realistically via masturbation on the part of the viewer—this ejaculation sequence complicates that possibility. The sequence may be useful in instructing viewers how to feel about and engage with future pornographic films, but it is almost surely alienating in isolation. The manipulation of the image serves as such a harsh disruption of the film’s established tone. It is therefore difficult to recognize this moment as a continuation of the film’s extended invitation to its viewers. Rather, it is more likely that this moment is meant to establish pornography, considered to be trash in many circles, in the exact space critics like Kael would rather it avoid. But as Kael points out at the end of her essay, “trash gives us an appetite for art” which may be an appropriate interpretation of Behind the Green Door’s impact (Kael 367).

Interestingly, Behind the Green Door, in its pursuit of erasing the relationship between pornography and trash, cements itself as trash instead. And as it turns out, that is not such a bad thing. For example, film theorist Linda Williams, in her work “Porn Studies: Proliferating Pornographies On/Scene” worries about the “longstanding presumptions, feminist and otherwise, that pornography is for men and only about women” (Williams 787). While these preexisting conceptions of pornography do exist, Williams’ concern is not as pressing when we are able to approach pornography as trash because the very notion of trash works to break down the barriers that otherwise determine who and what certain films are for. Besides, Williams is far from alone in this concern. The Mitchell brothers are sure to include spectators of different genders and body types so as to welcome anybody and everybody into sexual engagement with the film. Admittedly, in his nearly anthropological dive into porn theaters entitled “Blue Notes,” film critic Brendan Gill notes “that the great majority of the audiences at blue movies is male” (Gill 481). This observation surely suggests room for growth as it relates to attitudes towards pornography, but that is precisely what we are trying to effect here. Gill mostly observes how audiences at these theaters engage with the films much like any other audience would at any other theater, with the only notable exception being “Oriental males [who] come into the theatre by two’s and three’s and talk and laugh freely throughout the course of the program” (Gill 481). It seems the broader audience’s comfort with this dynamic suggests the appropriate attitude towards pornography, one that grants it respect, but precisely because it is trash. Kael’s reminder that one of the great pleasures of film is that we do not have to take it all that seriously feels especially poignant here. Pornography provides us with the ultimate opportunity to derive pleasure, perhaps even arousal, without any further expectations being placed upon as viewers. Of course, we may engage however we might like, but there is no need to analyze, to inspect, or to reflect. Rather, all we need to do is enjoy. As Gill puts it, we may “live bathed in a continuous erotic glow, and…recognize pornography as among the thousand blessed things that heighten this glow” (Gill 484). While pornography certainly borrows conventions from several different areas of film, approaching it as trash affords it the opportunity to access spaces, audiences, and interactions it otherwise never could.

Dyer, Richard. “Entertainment and Utopia.” Corrigan, Timothy and White, Patricia and Mazaj, Meta. Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings, pp. 467-478.

Gill, Brendan. “Blue Notes.” Lopate, Phillip. American Movie Critics: An Anthology from the Silents Until Now, pp. 476-484.

Hoberman, J. “Bad Movies.” Lopate, Phillip. American Movie Critics: An Anthology from the Silents Until Now, pp. 527-528.

Kael, Pauline. “Art, Trash, and the Movies.” Lopate, Phillip. American Movie Critics: An Anthology from the Silents Until Now, pp. 337-367.

Mitchell, Jim and Mitchell, Artie, directors. Behind the Green Door. 1972.

Williams, Linda. “Porn Studies: Proliferating Pornographies On/Scene.” Corrigan, Timothy and White, Patricia and Mazaj, Meta. Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings, pp. 776-788.