NATIONWIDE – According to publisher Judith Regan, “The culture has become much more porn-ized.” As examples she cites the increasingly smutty tone of television advertising and the October debut of Skin, a Fox-TV series in which a central character is a porn kingpin played by CFR member Ron Silver. And Regan’s own publishing company, HarperCollins ReganBooks, will accelerate our slide into the sewer next spring by publishing How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, the memoir of porn star Jenna Jameson.
The October 24 issue of Entertainment Weekly calls Jameson “the queen of a booming industry that pulls in a lowball estimate of $10 billion a year.” The 29-year-old daughter of a sheriff and a now-deceased Las Vegas showgirl, Jameson rakes in an estimated $5-15 million through her personal merchandising company. She has appeared on NBC’s prime-time program Mister Sterling – playing a porn star, of course.
While mainstream Hollywood tries to distance itself from its porn subsidiary, Jameson reports: “Everybody that I’ve met who is famous is real intrigued by who I am and what I do. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he was so cool! Jackie Chan. Sylvester Stallone…. Elijah Wood [star of the Lord of the Rings trilogy] once bum-rushed me! I’m standing there, and all of a sudden Elijah Wood and the other hobbit come up to me and are like, ‘Omigod, Jenna Jameson! Can we star in a movie with you?'”
The distance between Hollywood and the smut industry is narrowing. Further evidence of this is found in an October 23 Salon story describing forthcoming mainstream films featuring pornographically explicit scenes. Those scenes include certifiable movie stars such as Meg Ryan and William H. Macy. Salon also noted the recent film Monster’s Ball, which included a porn film-grade nude scene by Berry, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance.
Jameson is currently married to Jay Grdina, her director and co-star. (She was briefly married to another porn film director.) According to Grdina, “Our job is like making donuts. You come in, punch the time clock, and leave.” Their workplace does attract attention from VIPs: “People want to come down and watch. Politicians who you would not believe.”