Celeb sex tapes

[TheEnforcer]

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/cffs/story

Celebrity Sex Tapes as Cultural Anthropology
(Friday, January 20 12:00 AM)
By Daniel Fienberg
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) Once upon a time, in a mystical and innocent land called America, movie fans were content with getting to see their favorite actors in posed glossy photos and at staged publicity events. This is a fairy tale that I have no choice but to believe. We know from books like Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon," the denizens of the nascent movie industry were every bit as naughty, depraved, deviant and lecherous as today's Tinseltown icons. But fans didn't have to know the location and texture of every birthmark and plastic surgery scar, or whether they used public restrooms in their bare feet.
Celebrity obsession isn't a dignified addiction like, say, Twinkies, jelly beans or baseball card collecting. It's a tawdry and shame-filled business, much more like crack, sipping Sterno, a furry fetish or admitting that you like watching "Laguna Beach." The saddest thing isn't the rise of the paparazzi, who provide helpful public services like capturing Lindsay Lohan in three different colored bikinis over the New Years holiday, but the fact that paparazzi images are themselves a gateway drug. In the age of New Voyeurism, where we're no longer content just to spy on the stars whenever they have the temerity to go out in public, capturing that rawer and more personal side becomes necessary. Dean Martin used to sing that "You're nobody 'til somebody loves you," but in 2006, you're nobody until somebody loves you, tapes it and posts it on the Internet. Celebrity sex tapes have superseded tabloids as the best way to stare at our idols and into their private abysses (always remember, though, what Nietzsche warned will happen if you stare into the abyss long enough).

On Jan. 10, Colin Farrell joined an esteemed club when an intimate video recorded with former Playmate Nicole Narain penetrated the online world courtesy of the not-so-discretely titled website DirtyColin.com. Amidst threats of legal action by the "S.W.A.T." star, DirtyColin.com was pulled almost immediately, becoming just another unaffiliated directory page with a domain name available to the highest bidder. Sure, the video was withdrawn, but per usual, the withdrawal method wasn not a reliable way to prevent reproduction. Those with menial Internet research skills won't have any trouble securing the actual 15-minute video, a grainy portrait of young love gone bad.


Independent filmmakers are often heard talking about how advances in digital technology have increased their ability to tell stories. The same appears to be true of proliferating celebrity sex tapes, a not-quite-industry that must look at Pamela Anderson as something of an Eve, or George Washington, or Thomas Edison for her widely disseminated performances opposite both Tommy Lee and Bret Michaels. [Note: Tonya Harding's wedding video may have predated Pam's masterpieces, but... ew.] As so often happens, after the early innovators, nothing is ever quite so good again. The collected adult forays of Jenna "Survivor" Lewis, Tom "Whizzinator" Sizemore, Joanie "Chyna" Lauer, Gena Lee Nolin, Fred Durst and the immortal Paris Hilton are to Anderson's efforts what the former "Baywatch" star's "Barb Wire" was to its "Casablanca" source material.
Those are just a few of the factual, verified, unimpeachable pieces of naked celebrity anthropology available on the Internet, though rumors of similar recorded dalliances have prompted law suits from the likes of Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. I know nothing about any such footage and would make no claims as to their veracity. Don't sue me. Pretty please?

One of the most interesting sequences in Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" finds the film's soon-to-be-devoured anti-hero Tim Treadwell fascinated by two grappling bears, but his curiosity is even more piqued when one bear voids its bowels mid-fight. Treadwell points out the dynamic defecations because it's an unscripted detail that separates what he's watching from standard nature documentary footage. In theory, a celebrity completist, a true aficionado, would approach a sex tape in the same way -- for those doing SAT prep, sex tapes are to "Access Hollywood" puffery what ursine poop is to Animal Planet. I described these sex tapes as cultural anthropology, because nobody watching any of them would ever commit the cardinal sin of thinking them erotic.

Watching the famous and their bedroom antics would seem to be the ultimate no spin zone and none of the previously linked videos do anything more than confirm that behind closed doors, Hilton is just as dead-eyed and self-absorbed, Lewis is just as yappy and shrill, Sizemore is just as discombobulated and loutish, and Durst is just as boorish. It's hard to chart the progression of tails wagging dogs and dogs wagging tails, but the sex tapes have percolated from exactly the kinds of classy quarters you might expect them to and for that reason, beyond minor feigned shame, none of the offending parties have experienced popular blowback. Actually, a distressing amount of Hilton's fame and popularity is attributable to her collaboration with Richard Salomon, a tryst that helped build buzz for "The Simple Life" and somehow contained a more lifelike recital than "House of Wax." At their worst, the sex tapes have offered enhanced visibility and profile to D-list celebrities who desperately needed the help and can now embody the cliche that no publicity is bad publicity.

Farrell is by far the biggest name to find himself in this predicament. Although it's impossible to find any box office statistics to back up the assessment, he's considered something of a movie star. However, DirtyColin.com popped up at the most serendipitous moment for Farrell. His new film, "The New World," goes wide this week lacking both critical adulation and awards momentum. His updated "Miami Vice" has been drawing horrid word-of-mouth for months. There have also been fears that Farrell's recent decision to seek treatment for exhaustion and a prescription drug dependency might drain him of his most appealing characteristic -- his unpredictable bon vivant attitude.

The actual 15-minute video is only sexy insofar as Farrell and Narain are good-looking people who look like they did a few crunches before the cameras began rolling. More notable than the foreplay, ugly bumping and insincere moaning is Farrell giving his former girlfriend an "Our Bodies, Our Selves"-level pep talk about the beauty of her nether-regions. That counseling comes immediately after Farrell takes control of the camera and stages a freaky point-of-view shot from somewhere below his waist as "Humpty Dance" plays in the background. Farrell probably should never be allowed to direct ever again ("Where's the zoom on the f***ing piece of s***," he muses). It isn't much, but it's a better movie than "Daredevil."

Fans who seek out the film will probably be a loss at how to process the information when it's done. They aren't alone.

"What do you want to do?" Narain finally asks. "Do you want to watch what we just did?"

"Sure," Colin announces. "Then we can do it again."

Well, if you don't, Colin, some other celebrity probably will. And when it happens, against our better judgment, we'll be watching.