By now, many of you know that the only celebudick in more trouble than Mel Gibson is Girls Gone Wild fiendmeister, Joe Francis.
The LA Times nailed Francis to the wall for assaulting one of their reporters and repeatedly putting on exhibitions of himself as a sadistic predator whose whole operation could be called Rape-Lite.
GGW procures and pimps young women in a scheme just one hair from criminal offense. —Or not. At the rate the lawsuits and subpoenas are piling up, Francis is one powdery white line away from a complete self-incineration.
Aside from the huge quantity of alcohol discussed in the Times story— used to lubricate every GGW scenario— there's no evidence described of other drug binges. No, the story only reeks of them. This guy is the king of The Mickey In Your Drink and the poster brat for Speed Kills. As Feministing says, it's "male privilege on crack."
Francis is such a lost cause that other attentions have turned to the young models, who fall for, and even seek out, his video camera's attentions. The girls think they're going to be "stars," they thrill to the idea of being "hot" without actually having to give up anything real (i.e., their virginity).
Francis, however, has every intention of taking their cherry and smashing it in their faces— but his PR is that it's all good fun and Mardi Gras beads.
Many parent-types have asked, "Why are we at a place where the only way a young woman thinks she can be important or meaningful is to take her top off for a creep's camcorder?"
Good point.
But many feminist daughter-types have countered, "It's not the topless part that's the problem, it's the exploitation by this prick. If the women took their tops off for their own movie, their own orgasm, and their own point of view, it would be a completely other story."
I identify with both sentiments. I made a lot of DIY "feminist porn" with my friends when we were young, and never had a single regret, nor would I ever say that "it was all a blur." On the contrary, we had wildly ambitious goals about what we wanted to say about our bodies and desires. I still do.
Francis' dirtiest secret is that he traffics in porno-puritanism, in sexual shame. His profit lies in young women snookered into doing something "shameful" that they will want to hide the rest of their lives— once they sober up. They have been ruined— the ultimate GGW turn-on. It's the frisson of humiliation that makes him, and his audience, hard.
And why, pray tell, is ruination the hottest American Fantasy du Jour?
It seemed appropriate that when Francis himself got assaulted by one of his little druggie pals, he was made to stick a dildo up his ass, at gunpoint, and repeat on camera how much he loved every minute of it. (I'm tellin ya, it's all in the LAT!)
Whoever pressed that button wanted to make sure that Francis finally got a taste of his own medicine. Too late— I'm afraid the nausea of repressed prurience already ruined us.
For an interesting take on what it's like to be a female viewer of Girls Gone Wild porn, check out Greta Christina's analysis, which I think beats the hell out of anything Joe Francis or the Times could articulate.
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