Pondering the Porn Industry Bailout

Columnist Ron Hart looks at recent tongue-in-cheek requests by adult-entertainment magnates Larry Flynt and Joe Francis to get in on bailout bonanza and sums up the nefarious logic at work in Washington's actions:

This latest request punctuates the absurdity of what we have become. We are moon-walking up the slippery slope of financial disaster set by Congress with its own special blend of social engineering, government intervention, spending for the moment and utter incompetence. It has privatized profits and socialized losses with its meddling in corporate America, all the while putting itself at the center of it all.

More here.

Comments

[Guy Montag]

I am glad these were tongue-in-cheek requests, or something in cheek anyway.

Conversely, I am amazed that the visual segment of the adult entertainment industry still makes any money at all with all of the free images out there.

Perhaps more analysis is needed. This may take a while.

[ed]

Somebody should tell FOX News that they were "tongue-in-cheek requests." The ex- weathermen and beauty queens there were righteously indignant at the prospect of bailing out Larry Flynt.

[Warty]

Tongue in where?

[John-David]

It's painful watching someone like Hart, who tries so hard to be funny, and fails so miserably.

[P Brooks]

Ron Hart- just like P J O'Rourke. Yup.

They both (presumably) have ten fingers and ten toes, anyway.

[John Mason]

Seems to me that US Government has totally lost its mind.

JT
http://www.anonymity.at.tc

[Warren]

Larry Flynt is the Greatest American Hero.
Cue Joey Scarbury
? Believe it or not... ?

[Kolohe]

Many of the male actors may have to go back to actually delivering pizzas for real

This was a good line, and well-delivered, so to speak. But he trails off after this (and repeats this same joke another time)

That's the thing I've noticed about Hart columns; he'll start of with some relatively decent 'A' material, but seldom has enough to sustain one or two paragraphs, much less an entire column.

[T]

I feel dumber and less amusing for having read that.

And Warren, I dunno about the greatest, but he's certainly up there. You have to admire a man that went to court for his right to call someone an asshole.

[John]

I am not a Randian but if this isn't Atlas Shrugged come to life, nothing is. If it were a novel it would be a comic one. It is like Oscar Wilde writing a Rand novel only played out in real life.

[Warren]

That's the thing I've noticed about Hart columns; he'll start of with some relatively decent 'A' material, but seldom has enough to sustain one or two paragraphs, much less an entire column.

I don't know Kolohe. I thought he kept it punchy. I smiled all they way to the tearful end. he doesn't repeat the pizza line so much as he alludes to it. I like the following line even better.

Recent hardships in the industry have resulted in half of the workers out of jobs. That means 4,000 "actors," 2,000 "actresses," 800 cameramen, 400 fluffers and one writer. I think his name is Murray.

At any rate he's a thousand times more readable than Steve Chapman.

[LurkerBold]

Is this the next new industry for Favre?

[Boston]

Oh hes gets blown on National TV enough allready.

[John]

The death of the porn industry is no different conceptually than the death of any other obsolete industry. We have a good, pornography, that was once produced in an expensive and inefficient manner (8mm films sent in brown paper wrappers and shown in run down theaters) that is now thanks to technology delivered in a very efficent manner via the internet. In addition, technology and the fall of the Iron curtain has opened up new sources of the commodity and allowed people to make and distribute the product in their homes. All of this has resulted in the amont of resources that comsumers have to spend on porn to go down. This allows that money to be spent elsewhere. It also means we need to pay fewer people to produce the commodity which frees those people up to put their productive capacities elswhere and still have the needed supply of porn. In the long run everyone wins.

The bottomline is that it is absurd to bailout the porn industry and stop this progress. Of course, the same logic applies to every other obsolete industry to.

[T. Brady]

Oh hes gets blown on National TV enough allready.

Sez the dude with the handle 'Boston'.

[Boston]

True enough.

[Bob A]

So who will be porn czar? Ron Jeremy?

[Boston]

I've never really got why they use DVD sales as the measure in this day and age. Also, rentals? Is that from like brick and mortar adult stores? Because it seems like that would naturally go down. Where do they get these numbers anyways? What company does porn analytics?

[LurkerBold]

Boston, like all Capitalist/Corporatist analysis it is just a big shell game to exploit the workers and in this case mostly women and other minorities.

[R C Dean]

If you took the exploitation of women and minorities out of porn, you wouldn't have anything left at all.

[LurkerBold]

Only a Capitalist dog would say something that cruel Dean.

[bruce]

it's a long, hard road to economic recovery, and we need stiff policy support from the government to get us back in the pink. i'm in favor of anything that would lube the wheels of commerce so we can come back from where we are to a satisfying fiscal climax.

[Tulpa]

That's the thing I've noticed about Hart columns; he'll start of with some relatively decent 'A' material, but seldom has enough to sustain one or two paragraphs, much less an entire column.

He'll never make it in porn without stamina.

[Tulpa]

The porn industry isn't going anywhere. It's just saturated to the point where upstart producers don't automatically make money as was the case a few years ago.

The big, reputable, high-quality producers that didn't base their entire business model on selling DVDs are still making money hand over fist, so to speak, and will almost certainly continue to do so. As for amateurs, if I want to watch a real woman having sex I'll have sex with a real woman.

[Tulpa]

And Larry Flynt definitely falls into the category of porn dinosaurs. Other than name recognition, Hustler has no real advantage to exploit in the Internet porn market. They've been totally dependent on selling mags and DVDs.

[Stevo Darkly]

If you took the exploitation of women and minorities out of porn, you wouldn't have anything left at all.

Just a bunch of DVDs of fully dressed white men pretending to slap asses that aren't there.

[Howard Huge]

Hart is as funny and bright as any columnist working today. This shows how he can take news events a make it LOL funny. All the while making his point. Brilliant.

[Janice]

Agreed, Hart is damn funny. And to be that humorous and still make a point at the sillyness that Congress has become is why he is on fire now. Our paper just picked him up.

Folks who do not understand the libertarians views are much more accepting of them when parceled out by Hart and his trademark humor.

[Wanka]

This was edited out, but in our paper where Hart said: "Along the lines of a private market solution to this problem, I would suggest retraining some of these workers. Perhaps in the area of tax preparation, since they seem to like to work with people and in a situation where someone is to get screwed. But be real specific when you ask one of them to handle your extension, that could get awkward"

[Ewalk]

He also said that the male porn actors could be retrained to be gas station attendants. If only they could be kept from taking the hose and spraying the cars when they are done...:)

Much of his better stuff gets edited by some of these papers. But make no mistake, Hart is a damn genius.

[YoAdrain]

This Woody comment is pretty sporty too: "Most classes somehow revolve around a doorbell being rung, either by a pizza delivery man or a plumber. Many of his students have gone on to win acting honors in the annual adult movie actors' guild awards. While Hollywood calls its award an Oscar, I think they call theirs a Woody."

Hart is good, I am pretty sure John-David is some kind of unpublished angry writer. Good luck with that.

[Burgess Merideth]

The AVN awards are, in fact, called the Woodys.

[YoAdrian]

Well I stand erected.