Porn films are no longer a career-killer

By Alonso Duralde
Film critic
msnbc.com contributor
updated 2:32 p.m. ET, Thurs., May 21, 2009


Alonso Duralde
Film critic
Appearances by porn performers in mainstream movies usually fall into one of three categories: one-shots (like “Behind the Green Door” star Marilyn Chambers, who starred in David Cronenberg’s “Rabid” before returning almost exclusively to adult fare), stunt-casting (for instance, porn veteran Nina Hartley’s turn in “Boogie Nights,” a movie about the golden age of adult film) or random cameos (gay icon Steve Hammond’s wordless appearance as a personal trainer on the run from a nuclear holocaust in “Miracle Mile”).

While director Steven Soderbergh has been getting lots of publicity for his new film “The Girlfriend Experience” thanks to his casting of 21-year-old porn starlet Sasha Grey in the lead role, it’s too early to tell whether this role will mark Grey’s first of many mainstream projects or not.

What is clear, however, is that in an era when stars like Paris Hilton and Colin Farrell can emerge unscathed from the emergence of secret sex videos — to say nothing of all those next-door neighbors posting their naughty shenanigans on Web sites like XTube — working in porn no longer means that you can’t still aim for a career in mainstream movies and television. FULL STORY

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Do you really think this is true in the Gay arena?

I know of many female past porn stars that have very successful careers. On the Gay side I can only think of Simon Rex. Are things starting to change?

I think what's happening is porn is such a big world out there. It's not so critical to anyone anymore. People are opening their eyes and not being so judgmental as they were in the 90's. Look at Janet Jackson - her tit fell out at a Superbowl. She's still going strong.

Me personally, I believe there's 3 parts to "porn."
Stage 1 - The XXX World like we're all in.
Stage 2 - The Movies you see where you see the woman's breasts on TV or 2 having a sex romp but shows it softcore.
Stage 3 - Like American Pie where the guys are caught jacking off but shows only a big bulge.

Sex has became a natural thing and with this being 2009, political and judgmental views are not being brought into factor anymore. Now it's like "you did porn?!" AWESOME! type deal and they move on.
$0.02

the line is thinner than ever and the stereotypes that used to be porn and mainstream are a little dated :scissors:

i think it is because a lot of the young people these days are used to seeing and hearing about sex everywhere it is like it is cool for their pop stars sport players and movie stars to have porn movies like that swimmer with the pot stuff a few months back i think he was looked at as cool by everyone under 30 but a lot of the older crowd thought he was wrong