Sex, Censorship and the Supreme Court

Last night we watched Inside Deep Throat an excellent documentary about the aftermath of the 1972 porn film Deep Throat. The documentary is engrossing, if for no other reason than watching all of the interviewees who look and act as though they have just stepped out of a movie themselves. You could not cast a better set of sympathetic low lives, losers, freaks, mobsters and wackos, if you tried—a kind of Goodfellas without Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill character.

The man pictured here is the film’s co-star Harry Reems, who was convicted of obscenity charges in 1976 and faced a potential five-year prison term. His conviction was overturned on appeal one year later.

One of the things I found most interesting about the documentary was its recounting of the political climate at the time Deep Throat was released—the early 1970s—when, according to the documantary filmmakers, President Nixon stacked the Supreme Court with FOUR conservative judges and presided over an administration which wielded censorship laws like they were tax breaks. It made today’s arguments over Harriet Miers pale by comparison.

Oh, and before we Brits get too smug about the prudish Yanks, according to Wikipedia, Deep Throat was banned upon its release in the UK and the ban was upheld by the courts 10 years later. The movie was finally allowed to be sold in sex shops in 2000.