Andy Warhol & The Golden Age Of Porn

Are Porn Films Works of Fine Art Or Just Smut?

Warhol’s 1969 Blue Movie & The Reshaping Of American Adult Cinema

The last person that comes to mind when you think of the founders of the Golden Age of Porn is the artist Andy Warhol. After all he’s best known for gay pop art, pampered dachshunds and the underground art scene in NYC during the 1960’s. Warhol did all those things but his real strength was understanding his prominence and how to use it to instigate societal change. One of his biggest accomplishments however is rarely recognized and that was his ground breaking contribution to the world of adult film cinema.

The Golden Age of Porn in America is considered to have begun in 1969 with Andy Warhol’s release of the film Blue Movie. This was the first time in cinematic history that a theatrical film with a plot actually showed sexual intercourse. Prior to 1969 all adult films could be categorized into two categories. The first category were stag films. These were basically films that had no plot whatsoever! No story. No dialogue. No nothing. Not even a cool logo graphic at the beginning of the movie (like Swedish Erotica would incorporate years later). Basically the film would begin by showing people engaged in a sexual activity and it would end the same way. The production quality was typically worse than horrible. Most stag films had poor lighting, minimal sound (with the majority being silent films) and poor uninspired sex.

The second category of adult movies were called Sexploitation Films. These were typically independently produced, low-budget feature films with salacious titles such as Faster Pussycat. Kill! Kill!, Olga’s Girls, Black Lolita, Vampire Lovers and Coffy. Though they marketed themselves as being sexually explosive, there content was actually quite tame. They were loaded with tons of needless nudity, suggestive dialogue and at best simulated sex! But never the actual thing. Many of these films were imported European productions (Bavarian Porn) or sexually suggestive comedies (Mexican Sex Comedy). As can be imagined, many patrons of these films left the theater feeling a bit cheated. It wasn’t that they didn’t like the films but they wanted to see MORE!

All of this changed in 1969 when Warhol released his first film, Blue Movie. As the title implies it was a pornographic movie. At the time Warhol was considered to be a genius artist. He was regularly depicted in the press as among the finest creative forces in the world. So brilliant that few could understand his artistic genius.

Blue Movie was the first film to have real actors and a plot where they actually perform sexually in front of the camera. Warhol’s budget for the entire project was just $3000. So he filmed it in under two weeks. For those not familiar with the movie, it’s like most porn films from this era. The plot is minimal, the dialogue is secondary, the lighting is crap and the entire film has a light blueish green tint to it because Warhol mistakenly filmed it using night film. For all of it’s faults, however the film had one thing that made it a box office smash: real sex! No simulated fake sex with suggestive dialogue. The sex was raw and real! For the first time millions of voyeurs and exhibitionists had something to fantasize about. Hallelujah!

This may not sound like a big deal today with websites such as pornhub.com that have libraries of millions of sexual videos. But in 1969 it was HUGE! No film had ever done this before. Indeed in many parts of the United States showing sex of any type, let alone penetration, was considered to be obscene and could get a theater owner thrown in jail. However Warhol’s film was able to finally get around the artificial barriers that society has placed around sex in films.

He did this by claiming that the film was piece of art. Because it came from the great Warhol, how could anyone argue otherwise? With such a prominent artistic figure being the films director, producer and writer the chances of labeling the work obscene was a legal challenge. Moreover after the US Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Roth, the chances of getting a obscenity conviction for something with such artistic credentials was remote at best.

Warhol’s name on the film also helped to draw cinema sheepish movie goers who may have been hesitant to be seen entering a cinema showing such a sexually explicit film. But because of Warhol’s association people could claim they were going to see a fine art film by an artistic with deep meaning. It was considered to be such a genius work that even the coveted New York Times gave it a review.

Probably the biggest barrier that the film broke was it’s financial success. No one ever imaged that a film that cost next to nothing to make could be such a international smash hit! In the United States the film was a runaway success for several years! Theatre owners across the US clamored for the film. Because it was considered to be a niche movie that catered to a niche category of viewers, it allowed these cinemas owners to to charge $2.00 to view the film whereas regular movie ticket prices were only $1.00 Regional film distributors also loved the movie because it had a longer shelve life than regular films. Blue Movie was still in active circulation well into the late 1970’s. An unheard of feat for any film!

All of this financial success quickly got the attention of other film producers of the time. They may not have had the artistic reputation that Warhol did but they understood the strong demand by the viewing public. Within a few short months after the release of this film individuals like Alex de Renzy Gerard Damiano, the Mitchell Brothers and Bill Osco were fast exploring how they could do the same. The films that soon followed would all be sexual classics: Mona The Virgin Nymph (1970) starring Georgina Spelvin, Deep Throat starring Linda Lovelace (1972) and The Devil in Miss Jones (1973). Before you could catch your breath porn films became rampant and showing across theaters in the US. Within a decade the Video Cassette Recorders (VCR) and Betamax would further revolutionize how we consumed porn in the privacy of our own homes.

It took a genius like Warhol to start the ball rolling. As many of his biographers have noted Warhol was not just a brilliant artist but also a masterful social instigator who understood how to leverage his star power against the mainstream establishment. It was this ability to bring about social change that makes his works so relevant today.

Thanks Andy, we all owe you one.