People V. Larry Flynt

The movie of focus, ‘People vs. Larry Flynt’, is a film by Milos Forman which stars Woody Harrelson as Flynt. Larry Flynt is the president and publisher of Hustler magazine. Hustler is sort of the Mad magazine of written pornography which was started in the early 1970’s. The interest for me was seeing how this movie depicts the sexual exploitation of women in the sex industry with a specific look at how the material devalues women.

The movie starts out in 1952 with a young Larry Flynt along with his younger brother peddling moonshine somewhere in Kentucky. Twenty years later they own a strip club in Cincinnati, Ohio called Hustler. Larry says, “If we could let people know what great lays these girls are, we’d have something.” His magazine begins with an idea of a Hustler newsletter containing only a few double sided pages of written and nudie material geared for men on the go. From there he built a million dollar porn magazine which today is sold globally.

The moral majority protested heavily against Flynt and his magazine on grounds that the material was corrupting people’s thoughts and actions. Keep in mind, Playboy magazine was legally operating at this time. The difference between the two magazines was not that they contain nude pictures of women but the quality of the pictures themselves. Hustler’s pictures were more vivid, real and risky; Playboy’s pictures were more artsy geared for an upper class man. Hustler also included pictures and stories of the sexual acts like bestiality.

Flynt raised eyebrows and dropped jaws with every issue of his magazine, but one issue in particular really got people’s attention. In this issue, the magazine targeted the Reverend Jerry Falwell, former president of the Moral Majority, in a liquor ad parody recounting his “first time”. The ad featured Falwell’s first time with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued Flynt for libel, invasion of privacy, and “intentional infliction of emotional distress”. Hearing this Flynt counter sued which ultimately brought this case to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1988, the high court ruled unanimously in Flynt’s favor.

As you can imagine, the ruling exacerbated the controversy further among the moral majority, feminist, and freedom lovers across the nation. After viewing this movie, I decided to redirect my research from how pornography devalues women to the controversi...

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...g of sexual exploration and what’s all involved including what’s deviant.

The movie, ‘People vs. Larry Flynt’, is really about 1st Amendment Rights. However, I found it thought provoking in regards to the big debate between Anti-porn feminists and those freedom lovers who think that an opposing decision of the Supreme Court in this particular case could have meant the abolishment of all 1st Amendment Rights to everyone no matter what the subject. Pornography in this case is simply a matter of taste not law.

References

Bauserman, Robert. “Egalitarian, sexist, and aggressive sexual materials: attitude effects and viewer responses.” The Journal of Sex Research. V. 35, no.3 (1998). P. 244-53.

Formon, Milos, dir. People vs. Larry Flynt. With Woody Harrelson and Edward Norton. Columbia Pictures, 1996.

Lopez, Peter A.; George, William H. “Men’s enjoyment of explicit erotica: effects of person-specific attitudes and gender-specific norms.” The Journal of Sex Research v. 32, no. 4 (1995). P. 275-88.

Spalding, Alison D. “Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Gender Studies.” Is The Sex Industry Harmful to Women? Ed. Camille Paglia. Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1998. 66-73.