B-List: Our Missing Porn Culture

Most recent developments in pornography have left me feeling distinctly like a grouchy old coot who wants the darn kids to stop xxxtreme-fucking on his lawn.  Bukkake, dick-spitting, and the overall trend of casting people who don’t seem to even like each other, let alone want to have sex with each other, all leave me cold.  The fact that inhumanly spherical fake tits have become so common that the lack of them is considered a quality worth publicizing is also not to my liking, and had you asked me 20 years ago what quality I would like to see become prevalent in the porn industry, my answer would not have been “Can you possibly make it even more degrading?”

That said, one recent development in pornography is one that I’d like to strongly encourage, and that’s the so-called ‘porn parody’ film.  I absolutely love these, from the clumsy attempts to shoehorn some hot porn actress into the role of a celebrity she looks nothing like to the often hilariously bad between-sex interstitial scenes where the screenwriter tries to come up with jokes or dramatic situations to copy the source material.  Porn parodies have aped every pop-cultural phenomenon since the late 1990s, from The Office to Avatar, from That ’70s Show to Dancing with the Stars, and from Mad Men to The X-Men.  A few have slipped through the cracks, though, and I’m not quite sure why*.  I’m always happy to speculate, though:

Twilight

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Twilight is already porn; in fact, it’s porn for people who think they don’t like porn.  Also, werewolf makeup is expensive.

Harry Potter

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Most of the cast of Harry Potter are children, meaning that the pornography industry has shown more self-control than the writers of fan fiction.

Old Dogs/Wild Hogs

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Despite the popularity of audience-identification grumpy old men in mainstream comedy, the audience for pornography is less interested in seeing a bunch of squat, hairy, mole-sporting middle-aged dudes with enlarged prostates and high blood pressure mainlining Viagra to keep up with their 20-year-old partners.

Deadwood

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: One of the few successful HBO series to not receive a porn parody remake, possibly because its extreme de-glamorization of the world of prostitution would make people feel kind of depressed about masturbating to it.  Also, “cocksucker” mostly used in pejorative speculative sense rather than enthusiastic literal sense.

The Wire

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Another HBO show without a porn adaptation, possibly because audiences rejected early test screenings where each sex scene required 20 minutes of convoluted backstory.  Also, viewers complained of needing subtitles to figure out sexual exhortations in thick Baltimore street accent.

Lost

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: This one would seem to be a natural:  everybody wants to see attractive people fucking each other in a tropical paradise, and in porn, nobody’s going to complain that you’re just making the story up as you go along.  Reason for lack of development:  the San Fernando Valley is a bad stand-in for Hawaii, or, producers think Lost is already porn.

Futurama

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Test audiences spent too much time vomiting, and not enough time masturbating, during Professor Farnsworth/Dr. Zoidberg coupling.

Parks & Recreation

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: No amount of dick-sucking, ass-fucking, or pussy-licking can make people get excited at the prospect of public service.

NewsRadio

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Andy Dick insisted on reprising his role in the porn parody.

Various Adult Swim programs

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Cast, crew, writers, and audience all too stoned to get anything done, sexually speaking.

Arrested Development

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Audiences were frustrated at incredibly complex structure of stories, complained that they had to go back and watch the three previous installments of the series just to understand a simple girl-on-girl strap-on scene.

Breaking Bad

Possible reason for lack of porn parodies: Decision to cast actual meth addicts in lead roles proved aesthetically untenable.

*If I am wrong about these, and there actually are porn parodies, please don’t write me and let me know, because (a) you’re killing the joke and (b) that would mean you spent more time researching the stuff than I did, and frankly, that was time enough.

 

2 Comments

  1. Christian von Schack

    The Futurama one happened – brain switching and stuff, so technically it was Leela and Fry. But yeah, it was gross – like Legend of the Overfiend or something.

  2. Christian von Schack

    …and please delete that thing above, because I just ruined your joke (was reading on my phone, missed the last section. My apologies.)

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