TV Review: Louis Theroux -Twilight of the Porn Stars

Summary

Fifteen years after he first visited the LA porn community, Louis Theroux returns to find the industry ravaged by online piracy and suicide. A haircut and a child seem to have dampened his lustiness somewhat..

Highlight

Apart from all the sex? It had to be watching Rob Black - a director whose films were so extreme he ended up in jail - show off his new Iron Man porn. "This isn't outrageous!" said Louis. I almost expected him to accuse Rob of selling out.

Lowlight

When Fran the porn secretary moaned about how easy the working girls have it, before explaining that she'd stop her child getting into the industry because "it f**ks with their heads and I don't want a whore for a daughter", I almost reached for the sick bucket.

Full Review

Unless you're a bailiff, a loan-shark or the person who owns Poundland, business has been tough over the last few years and the porn industry is no exception. However it wasn't bonus-hungry bankers who screwed the adult entertainment sector over, but all the amateur enthusiasts who've been flooding the internet with material and ripping off videos left, right and centre. Louis refers to the industry's main bête noire as 'PornTube'.

So when Theroux returns to the Los Angeles pornography circuit fifteen years after his first visit, he finds the industry on its knees - as it were. "The way things are going, in five years there'll be no such thing as a professional porn actor," says JJ Michaels, destroying the dreams of thousands of adolescent lads with one sentence.

Of course whether being a porn actor really is the perfect job is something that Louis is determined to get to the bottom of and he doesn't have to work very hard to do so. You don't need to be a renowned investigative journalist to find out that having sex on camera with lots of other men won't go down well with your boyfriend.

As such, the point that Theroux seems to base his whole analysis around is the fact that sex is an intimate act and spreading yourself around can't fail to play havoc with your relationships. It sounds like a no-brainer, but most of the younger pornographers he speaks to brush the question off with varying success. Young Cagney might be saving up to get out of the business, but apparently she's the exception.

Yet those who've been in the game for a while understand the truth and their insights are by far the most

interesting. Tommy Gunn (not to be confused with the Rocky villain) is open about the fact that his career means that he can't have a proper girlfriend, JJ Michaels who was recklessly blasé about AIDS back in 1997 has quit the industry and one bloke called Jon Dough (not to be confused with Kevin Spacey in Se7en) committed suicide a couple of years back.

For Louis, you sense that settles the matter and when you see a slimy porn boss blame his depression on "the DVD market" it's difficult to disagree with him. Suffice to say, no one frames a question and leads an interviewee with such passive nuance like the bespectacled documentary-maker.

But like the industry itself, Theroux has also changed over the years, as flashbacks of the 1997 film demonstrate. With his unkempt hair and owl glasses, he almost looked like a lanky Harry Potter back then and you sense an edge of fascination and excitement as he dives into a rapidly growing industry. Flash forward to 2012 and although his potent brand of dreamy gonzo journalism still opens people up, just like the porn vets he speaks to, the true nature of the business has dawned on him.