Penetrating Questions and Inside-ful Answers from Directors Fenton Bail and Randy Barbato

QUESTION: Does the original film have a message?

FENTON BAILEY: On the face of it, Deep Throat would appear to be about how to suck cock. A very chauvinist message. You have this ordinary looking person Linda Lovelace who just wants to get off and have fun - very much the mantra of the '70s - and she goes on this quest, finding sexual satisfaction only when she discovers deep throating.  But the film's message is even simpler than that, yet far more radical, and one that transcends the battle of the sexes that so often defines debates about sexuality. 

Because Deep Throat isn't really about oral sex. The movie is really about one person on a quest for sexual satisfaction. There are notions in our society about what is acceptable sexually and romantically, a kind of moral concensus that keeps us all in line.  The whole point about Deep Throat is different strokes for different folks. The DNA of desire is encoded uniquely in each of us. And while her path might seem highly unusual, therein lies the film's very message: Linda's quest for satisfaction stands for every man and every woman's quest. Everybody's path to satisfaction, sexual or otherwise, is an individual path. And the right to pursue that path and those pleasures and freedoms is what life is all about - or should be. And Deep Throat is saying that there's nothing wrong with that,  that sex in all its infinite variety is not only okay but also glorious.  There's nothing to be ashamed of.

 
QUESTION: So what did you learn personally?

FENTON BAILEY: That Deep Throat the movie and Deep Throat the Watergate source are the same thing. At first we thought it was just a coincidence; but there was a deeper connection.  Deep Throat was a secret source, an outlaw voice speaking out against hypocrisy and corruption. And that's what Deep Throat the movie was. An outrageous voice speaking up not just for sexual freedom, but also freedom of expression as became really clear when the film was the subject of dozens of trials trying to silence its unique voice.

RANDY BARBATO:  We are living in an age where we have to be very careful about things like First Amendment rights. And I don't think we ever really thought about that before we started making the film. Now, we started this film over two years ago but once we did so many things happened that seemed to mirror things that happened back in 1972. They had Nixon, we have Bush, both re-elected for a second term. They had Vietnam, we have Iraq, two international quagmires. We learned that there is a very strong connection between 1972 and 2004. So once again we find ourselves at a similar kind of crossroads that society was at when Deep Throat first came out.

FENTON BAILEY: You know, sex and sexuality always get used as a weapon of distraction .These kinds of issues raise their heads when people want to distract us.  So, if you don't want people thinking about what the real issues at hand are, i.e. a war in the Middle East, well then, let's get everyone in a lather about Janet Jackson's nipple. It's a weapon of mass distraction.  But don't underestimate its power to hoodwink us into giving up vital freedoms.

RANDY BARBATO: Personally, I learned it's important to defend the very things that people feel uncomfortable about defending, like pornography. In the climate we live today, people might think something like that isn't so important.  But while they may be happy to let freedom of sexual expression go by the wayside, that really could be the beginning of the erosion of other more significant rights.

FENTON BAILEY: And it's already happening. In 1972, they put the first surveillance cameras in Times Square. And there was such an outcry that they had to take them down. Today, Times Square is the most surveilled place on the planet. Not only do we accept being surveilled, we expect to be surveilled!

RANDY BARBATO: In 1972 the culture war was about a hard-core pornographic movie.  Today its about things that aren't even hard core:  Janet Jackson's nipple, innuendo in a promotional stunt for Desperate Housewives, gay marriage.  So we've come a long way - in reverse!

FENTON BAILEY: What's scariest here is that people are acting in fear. Fear of an FCC fine. Fear of everything.  Bush owes his re-election to the fear factor, fear that we might be blown up at any moment by a bunch of terrorists. And with the perception that our way of life is under attack comes a feeling that our way of life really is morally superior, and therefore needs to appear to be as decent as can be. So no gay marriage, no nipples at half-time, and a lot less sexual freedom. During life in wartime these things are easy to characterize as inappropriate, possibly even un-American.  Of course once you arrive at a place where freedom is un-American you're in a right old pickle.

QUESTION:  And if you had to sum everything up in one sentence?

RANDY BARBATO: What's so funny about peace love and understanding.