Space and Culture

In 1972, Linda Lovelace made $1200 for her role in Deep Throat. The movie was filmed for $25,000 and supposedly grossed $600 million, which would make it the most profitable film in history. It also brought porn to the mainstream and reshaped the American sexual and political landscape.

In her first two autobiographies, Lovelace extolled the virtues of free and open female sexuality, while in her third and fourth autobiographies claimed she had been forced into prostitution and pornography. She also testified before the Minneapolis City Council at hearings for the Dworkin/MacKinnon Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Ordinance and at the Meese Commission on Pornography. These changes led one writer to remark that in Lovelace “we have both the yin and the yang of the sexual revolution played out before our eyes.” While Lovelace was in turn embraced by pro-sexuality and anti-porn feminists, porn insiders dismissed her accusations and coined “Linda Syndrome” to refer to traitorous stars that disavowed their pornographic pasts. Lovelace, for her part, described her relationship with feminism as one of disappointment:

“I think they got a good start on what they were trying to do because of me. They haven’t really helped me. They’ve all made a lot of money off me. They used to say, ‘All these people make a lot of money off of you, but you don’t want to go after that money. It’s dirty money. And I’m like, ‘Okay, are you gonna take care of me for the rest of my life?’ I guess I’m more disappointed in the women’s movement than anything else.”

Lovelace died in 2002, and this Friday will see the wide-spread release of INSIDE Deep Throat, a documentary that looks at the 30 year cultural impact of the movie that made her famous.

Update: Inside Deep Throat: The Talk of New York

IMHO, it’s a shame that MacKinnon manages to be so extreme that critical debate shuts down — and this Fox News story demonstrates how total that shut-down can actually be.