Of all
the distinguished members of the Jewish people—Einstein, Weisel,
Ramone—one
stands forth from the rest. Ron Jeremy 's claim to fame, though,
doesn't lie in the extraordinary (that is, his schlong of Biblical
proportions), or his yogi-like control over his own orgasm, but,
rather, in his very ordinaryness. It's often been noted that his
popularity lies not in the fact that the moyel had to call in a
tree surgeon to circumcise him, but in that Ron Jeremy is a fat,
ugly, homely guy. As such, he's a stand-in for all of us. He takes
the ugly loser sitting on the bar stool and makes him into Bacchus,
a merry, decadent god whose existence is one long Mardi Gras. His
success lies in the fact much like that aforementioned other Jewish
kid from Queens, Joey Ramone, he's the perpetual outsider, a regular-looking
guy in a world populated by the beautiful and breast-enlarged.
Porn
Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy documents the Hedgehog's
career from the '70s, when porn was shot on film and had actual
scripts, plot and acting, to the dog-eat-dog world of cheaply-produced
'80s porn that the home video market opened up, and finally the
decadent gonzo porn of the '90s, which is more or less smut for
smut's sake. We also gain a bit of insight into Jeremy the man,
losing his mother at an early age, teaching special education in
the New York City school system, and talking about how difficult
it is to have a relationship in the porn industry.
Overall,
the film is a pretty good documentary—organized well, and giving
us at least an overview of the main points of Jeremyana. The filmmakers
were too shy, apparently, to include any hardcore action, unless
you count Jeremy licking his own cock with a prosthetic tongue.
This added to the impression that they were holding something back,
respecting Jeremy's privacy just a little. Ron Jeremy may be a clown
in front of all of us, but, like all clowns, we can't be sure when
he's kidding ot not. Most of the information about Jeremy's life,
like the fact that he's a cheap bastard, or his real last name,
or that he carries around a decades-old loosleaf notebook crammed
with names and phone numbers, is already well-known (though the
interviews with Jeremy's father, sister, and Al "Grandpa Munster"
Lewis were pretty damn interesting).
Some
of the most human moments are when the film shows us Jeremy being
used as much as a commodity as much as any woman who works in the
adult film industry, by up-and-coming porn stars willing to fuck
this ugly guy in order to advance their own careers. The emotional
damage—because if you're not fucked up when you start working
in porn, you get that way pretty quickly—lies just below the
surface, and you get to see his pain. Deep down, you get the feeling
that Ron Jeremy just wants to be loved by everyone. You also get
the idea that he's an outsider in an outsider industry—sort
of like the geeky fat kid, beloved by his fellow nerds, but only
tolerated by everyone else because of his masterful computer skills.
Because
of this, Porn Star does a great job of showcasing the hypocrisies
of Hollywood, for it's Jeremy's deepest wish to be a mainstream
actor, and to be accepted and loved by America's Mom-and-apple-pie
side as he is by its Las Vegas-strip-club underbelly. Few people
who have worked in adult films have made any sort of crossover success—Traci
Lords being one notable exception—since porn is anathema to
the same Hollywood that gleefully sells its movies with as much
tits and ass as the MPAA will allow past the censors. Pornography
remains the perpetual rebel, the one transgressive genre that Hollywood
can't co-opt, Boogie Nights aside. The reality is too ugly
for some people. Yet, one gets the idea that in a less prudish,
more accepting world, Ron Jeremy would be a real actor.
Maybe,
with the success of this documentary, he will finally have his chance.