Perhaps none of the evidence of the mainstreaming of the pornography industry presented in “Frontline’s” “American Porn” episode is as powerful as the fact of the episode itself: PBS, home of Big Bird and Bill Moyers, is paying attention to porn.
Typical of “Frontline” (9 p.m., WTTW-Ch. 11), the hour is a closely reported, revealing look at a business that blossomed with the rise of the VCR and then has gone well beyond that, thanks to the ubiquitous, free-flowing Internet and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of willing young participants.
It’s a tale of changing social mores by turns fascinating and depressing.
Producer-director Michael Kirk and correspondent Peter Boyer take viewers onto the sets of both “upscale” sex movies and one so violent the camera crew leaves.
They visit Internet legend Danni Ashe and pioneer Larry Flynt, as well as lawyers who have prosecuted porn cases.
They talk to a Dartmouth man, a blue-collar guy and one who specializes in the human derriere and employs his mother as his company treasurer, all of them getting rich in the flesh trade.
The proliferation of porn is an old and oft-told story, however. The intriguing angle “Frontline” pushes is that porn has wormed its way into legitimate, mainstream businesses: AT&T, via its cable operations; major hotel chains, via in-room pay-per view; General Motors, via its DirecTV satellite system.
This, in turn, the theory goes, has helped to numb society to pornography, at least a little bit. Indeed, after aggressive federal obscenity prosecution from the Reagan Justice Department, President Clinton’s effectively halted such prosecutions, “Frontline” says.
But look out. The porn business senses potential storm clouds gathering both in John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, which was preparing an offensive before Sept. 11, and in local jurisdictions such as L.A., which is preparing to bring before a jury its first obscenity case in years.
It’s a compelling story whose telling is made less powerful by the occasional note of disapproval that creeps into Boyer’s voice.
When working with such strong material (and viewers be warned — it is strong), it’s best to let the facts make their own case.
