Closet Space

Writes Fenton Bailey: I've just got back from deep throating Australia. Ba dum bum. I had a thorough oral workout giving about 50 interviews in five jam-packed days. The joy of being asked the same sorts of questions over and over again is that you end up with fresh insights about something you thought you'd exhausted. Like, for example, the idea that Deep Throat is a film about the closet, and that the closet is still the political issue of our times.

(More after the jump)

Linda is a kind of Everyman figure. Her clitoris in the back of her throat is a metaphor for the unique sexual DNA that we all possess. The point being that there is no such thing as sexual normalcy. We are all freaks and deviants. 

Through the example of Linda's predicament, Deep Throat rejects the idea that anything about sexuality is a cause for shame or embarrassment. Instead of stuffing sex in the closet, it advocates leading an honest and authentic life. The moral of the film is that it is our responsibility (through experimentation and exploration) to find our unique sexual identity.

This message is the antithesis of the puritan mindset which needs to divide sex and sexuality into the good and the bad: the married vs the adulterous, the faithful vs the promiscuous, the natural vs the perverse. But who can abide by these distinctions? Least of all the priests and the politicians who preach them. As we all should know by now, their's is a set of arbitrary and false distinctions. The only way anyone can live by them is to create a disconnect between the public preaching and private practice. In other words, to build a closet.

The closet may begin with sex but it permeates every area of public life. Maybe that seems overstating it. But just days after Deep Throat was released the Watergate break-in occurred. Watergate is the classic example of closet activity, of public appearances at odds with private realities. And so what else could the source that outed Nixon have been called but Deep Throat?

My favorite moment in Inside Deep Throat is when Roy Cohen (hiss) says to Harry Reems, "You act as if the constitution of the United States was created just for you." Well, hello! And even today the idea of leading an open, honest, and authentic life is still a heresy. No wonder, then, that the gay movement is so inevitably political. In rejecting the notion of the closet, we are attacking the institutionalized hypocrisy that is both the keystone and Achilles heel of the puritan mindset. Which perhaps explains why its such a bitch of a struggle.

A Throat by Any Other Name

The Telegraph has noticed that in all the excitement over the recent revelation of Deep Throat's identity, the origin of the code name is rarely mentioned. "But," says the article, "Deep Throat was a pornographic film of the time, and, as a new documentary to be released on Friday grippingly shows, a phenomenon that had profound effects on modern culture." Fenton Bailey is lavishly quoted in the article, which calls Inside Deep Throat "slick and glossy" with "a funky soundtrack," a documentary that "makes a striking contrast with the amateurish cack-handedness of the film that forms its subject."

Bailey argues that sex is simply a part of everyday life. He doesn't just point to the buffed bodies on every billboard in the Western world. He also mentions the mind-boggling volume of pornography churned out each year. You cannot ignore the statistics that end his documentary. In 2002, Hollywood made 467 movies. That same year, 11,303 adult films were released.

'Inside' International

Release dates around the world:

Argentina 30 June 2005

Germany 11 August 2005

Hungary 2 September 2005

Croatia 30 September 2005

Spain 4 November 2005

France 30 November 2005

Norway December 2005

Deep Throat's Staying Power

Fenton Bailey was interviewed for a New York Times article today about how well or not Deep Throat fares in the rental stores. "It's an icon," he said. "It's an outlaw voice speaking out with a message about sex and sexuality - that there's no such thing as normal. Everybody has a unique sexual DNA, and Linda Lovelace represents that. She goes on this quest to find her sexual identity but also, by extension, her social and political identity."

Also, in an article on the Basque News and Information Channel, Fenton talks about Deep Throat's message, prior to Inside Deep Throat's opening in the UK, and just after the revelation of Watergate informant Deep Throat.

Bailey thinks the desire to censor 'Deep Throat', which was banned in 23 US states, has resonance for America today: 'People responded to its message, which was, you know, we're all unique. We all don't have a clitoris in the back of our throat, but we're all sexually unique in our own ways and there's now shame to that, instead explore, experiment and find our true identity. It's a very healthy message, one that today, it's just hard to imagine today. You know, we live in a climate of fear, and a culture of fear, so the whole idea of experimenting...it's not technically against the law, but it feels like it is.'

The Sun Shines on Deep Throat Inside Arena

Story in The Sun on Deep Throat's opening in the UK. The tabloid quaintly identifies Inside Deep Throat narrator Dennis Hopper by his apparent wizard name, Dennis Potter. And we thought The Sun was scrupulously fact-checked.

Inside Deep Throat, narrated by Dennis Potter, is an insight into the legacy of the outrageous movie that sent shockwaves through 1970s American society when first released.

Also, our Fenton Bailey has written an article on the "pornolization of the mainstream" for the July issue of Arena magazine.

In that same issue, Arena gives Inside Deep Throat three stars, using such words as "beautifully," "great," and "intelligent."

And the June 1 issue of London's TimeOut reviews Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst and Inside Deep Throat, "two new documentaries that take stock of 1970s America."

(Click on images to enlarge)