Funk Music and Other Porn Clichés that Aren’t Really Porn Clichés

by Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com.  

Over on BroBible, there’s a recent post by Aimee Porter entitled 5 Times Adult Films Get Disastrously Wrong. Setting aside the fact that I think the word “times” really should be “things,” it’s a pretty solid post, identifying a number of things that are commonplace in porn, but that men really shouldn’t expect their partner to enjoy – or expect her to respond to with anything other than revulsion, realistically.

Porter’s post got me thinking about all those things that people seem to think are common in porn, but that really aren’t, like the use of wah-wah pedals on porn movie soundtracks. However often the porn movies of the 1970s might have made use of a funky soundtrack (which wasn’t particularly often, truth be told), you’re about as likely to hear a wah-wah inflected guitar riff in modern porn as you are to hear Justin Bieber belting out Mozart’s Martern aller Arten at his next DUI hearing.

Then there’s the pizza guy thing. Yes, if you look around, you’ll find plenty of pizza man porno – but I bet you’d find virtually none that was made before the porno pizza man became a mainstay of comedy and parody aimed at the porn industry. The same goes for the plumber cliché; as often as it is referenced, you’d be tempted to think that the porn industry is sponsored by Roto Rooter, but in truth, the vast majority of the plumbing portrayed in porn is of the metaphorical variety.

Read on…

You’ll also rarely see hideous “porn mustaches” draped across the upper lips of the modern porn stud, just as big 80s hair in porn disappeared around the same time it disappeared from the covers of fashion magazines.

The main reason that these perceived porn mainstays have evolved into something more imagined than real these days has to do with the way that so-called “gonzo porn” took over the market in the 90s. For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to porn that is devoid of plot, makes no pretense of telling a story, and cuts directly to the chase without a whole lot of preamble.

From a producer’s point of view, gonzo porn has many of the same merits offered to TV producers by the laughably misnamed genre of “reality television;” it’s cheaper than dirt to make, renders obsolete the need to write anything resembling dialogue, and requires a wardrobe budget of approximately nine dollars per scene. More importantly, from the consumer perspective of all those spare-me-the-plot guys who used to wear out the fast-forward button on their remote control, gonzo delivered instant gratification in a way that ‘feature’ porn never could.

Having said all of the above, there is one porn cliché of yesteryear that I think we should all strive to keep alive, regardless of how dated it might become: the perceived porn-omnipresence of the inimitable Ron Jeremy.

It doesn’t matter to me that Ron performs in sex roles relatively infrequently these days (the guy has a problem with his ticker, after all, a pretty solid excuse for backing off on getting it on), or that in the opinion of a lot of women, he’s not particularly easy on the eyes. When you have put in as much time to putting it in as Ron has, you rightfully reach iconic status. Now and forever, Ron Jeremy IS porn for a lot of people – and that’s both the way it is, and the way it should be.

So, the next time you want to make a wink-wink, nudge-nudge reference to porn that will resonate with people who actually watch porn, don’t reach for boom chicka wah wah, never mind the mustache, forget about the pizza boy, the plumber, the gardener and the pool boy, and instead whip out something relating to the time-tested, porn-slut-approved Hedgehog himself. Recognized by multiple generations, still thrusting after all these years, and undeniably the hardest working man in porn, a reference to Ron is guaranteed to elicit a snicker, a wink or a knowing nod from just about any porn fan – and possibly from the occasional confused Super Mario Brothers player, to boot!