Deep Throat
by Lewis Church
To tie in with the release of the film Lovelace, Television X are re-releasing the uncut version of Deep Throat across their various media, kicking off with a lavish screening at the Curzon Cinema Soho. Made in 1972 for less than $50,000 (funded by the directors mafia-connected father) it took in anywhere from $100-600million dollars and made an unlikely star out of Linda Lovelace. The film follows her erotic adventures as she seeks out sex that can make use of the clitoris that Dr. Young, played by Harry Reems, declares to be located in her throat. Care to guess how he locates it?
I had never seen the film before, but I was fairly certain of what to expect. Plenty of hairy, moustachioed men plowing away, interspersed with awful dialogue and a flimsy plot to link the sex. Lovelace’s career has become a byword for exploitation, abuse and the nastier aspects of the early porn industry, mainly due to the allegations leveled in her third autobiography, Ordeal, were she claimed that she was coerced into a porn career and beaten during the filming by her partner. It’s impossible to watch the film now without being hyper-aware of this, without wondering if that bruise on her leg is evidence, whether she was really a willing participant in the sex happening on screen. That concern for Lovelace as a person is rather different from a general anti-porn position, particularly as in her fourth autobiography Out of Bondage she claims that she and her story were also exploited by various feminist anti-porn groups to further their cause. Her point is that there is nothing wrong with porn per-se, just the coercion and abuse that she experienced.
With all this in the background, it’s a strange experience watching the film now, particularly among an unruly crowd of UK porn luminaries who regularly shouted out to express their surprise, encouragement and, occasionally, tips, for the sex acts on screen. It’s not helped by just how weird the film is, totally different from the aggressive, macho thing I was expecting. It’s completely a comedy, intercut with laughably surreal interludes. At one point, mid-blowjob, the camera cuts away to a shot of a revolving statue of a kangaroo playing a trumpet. Amongst the more predictable wacka-wacka guitar soundtrack, penetration is accompanied by a xylophone and slide whistle. The title sex act even has it’s own theme song, with what sounds like a hotel lounge singer crooning the words ‘Deep Throat’ over and over again. As pornography, I struggle to see how you could be turned on by something that is just so funny, so beyond stereotype. And that was really my conclusion of the whole event – what is it for? Why watch this now? Funny as it is, I found it troubling to watch, knowing the back-story and the unhappiness it generated. If you were seeking thrills, then as porn it would be so much easier to locate examples of any of the sex in the film in seconds online, without the accompanying comedy soundtrack and 70s hair.
I can only rationalise it by saying that it is interesting as a cultural artefact, a film that broke through into the mainstream and was the site of interesting discussions about freedom of speech and the ethics of pornography. Even then I think if that’s what you’re interested in, the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat would be a better place to start. Taken in isolation, the original film is just a novelty, an often-hilarious example of the early days of porn and low budget 1970’s filmmaking. If you are going to watch it, then I have to say that the cinema is probably the place to do it, where a crowd can laugh and gasp and wince together. Quite what it means now though, after the autobiographies and documentaries, after the biopic and tell-alls, is much less clear.
