We would like to call your attention to a new documentary about the publisher of Hustler: “Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone”. Here is how Full Frame, a Durham, NC festival that premiered this film, describes it:
This film celebrates and examines an unabashed vulgarian first known for Hustler magazine’s lack of restraint. His life story includes personal loss and public First Amendment battles. We learn about the death of his first wife, Althea, and the lasting impact of the 1978 shooting that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Flynt’s free speech exploits, marked by brazen courtroom outbursts and anti-hypocrisy theatrics, make him a target for both praise and criticism. His face-offs with Jerry Falwell, anti-porn feminists and various politicians that continue up to the present day are set against his obvious pride in his diversification into new ways to produce and exhibit porn. Graphic content. NK
The text below is adapted from Nikki Craft’s protest site, “Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone?” (explicit link):
For decades Hustler, Larry Flynt’s hate magazine, has been on sale in almost every convenience store in the country. During that time, with each new issue every month he has declared war on women, feminists, people of color, Jews, the disabled, children, and animal rights activists, as well as any other group or individual who disagreed with him [Condoleezza Rice rape fantasy cartoon, other examples]. He also constantly targets animals, women in general and ethnic minorities who have not even done anything to provoke his rage. A full generation of males have now been raised on his contempt and he loves it.
For all this Flynt is being promoted as a free speech hero instead of someone who profits from selling hate. On April 13, “Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone” had its world premiere as the “center frame” film at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, sponsored by Duke University, The New York Times and HBO.
Full Frame’s motto is “How much reality can you handle?”, but the filmmakers have produced a manipulative and superficial examination of Flynt, one that uses propaganda tactics and takes their audience for a ride. It is indeed a very unreal portrayal of Flynt which includes even “very little nudity” and hypocritically did not mention any of the massive amounts of racist, homophobic and misogynist materials he produced.
The real Flynt has little in common with the martyr that he finances people to describe him as. According to his own autobiography Flynt’s first sexual experience was raping a chicken. He killed the chicken to “avoid suspicion”. He has also gone to great efforts to silence his daughter from talking about how she was molested by him. He has used his power in the media to attempt to instill intimidation in any who spoke out against pornography. He used his magazine to vilify activist Aura Bogado with hateful, violent and threatening cartoons and articles. In his column called “Asshole of the Month” he has included Barack Obama, Diana Russell and hundreds of others. In the 1970s he put out “Wanted Posters” for Gloria Steinem and Susan Brownmiller because they were antipornography. He has offered a bounty on feminists who have been critical against him and done whatever he could to silence whoever would be critical against the racist and misogynic material in his magazines.
See more from “Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone?”, including posters you can print (explicit).
See also:
Abuse and Threats Drive Women Out of Online Participation (explicit language)
Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler: “Women are here to serve men. Look at them, they got to squat to piss. Hell, that proves it.”
Hustler: “There are those who say illogic is the native tongue of anything with tits…(women) speak not from the heart but from the gash, and chances are that at least once a month your chick will stop you dead in your tracks with a masterpiece of cunt rhetoric…the one surefire way to stop those feminine lips from driving you crazy is to put something between them–like your cock, for instance.”
Exposure to Pornography as a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization
Playboy, Hustler magazines all “covertly” normalize adult–child sex and promote sex with children (Mayne, 2000, p. 25). There are many examples–particularly of cartoons in Hustler–that quite blatantly legitimatize incestuous and extrafamilial child sexual abuse. Many of them trivialize child sexual victimization by repeatedly making jokes about this crime…
Free Book Download: Diana Russell’s Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm (explicit)
Against Pornography is unusual in that it goes beyond abstract discussions of pornography to present the raw material, so readers can judge for themselves. Dr. Russell reprints and analyzes over 100 cartoons and pictures from publications like Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and Cheri.
Steinem on Flynt: “This pornography is as different from sex as rape is from sex”
[Steinem] asserts that Flynt “has not only the right to say these things, but a lot of money to say them. I’m saying we don’t have to support it. I’m just making the radical suggestion women are human beings… The point of the movie [“The People vs. Larry Flynt”] is to be seductive, and that’s what’s dangerous about it. It’s an extension of the pornography-industry campaign, that if you oppose pornography you oppose sex–and that’s a lie. This pornography is as different from sex as rape is from sex. They’re trying to preclude opposition by saying [anti-porn arguments] endanger the First Amendment. The porn industry has succeeded in positing two alternatives: pornography or censorship.”
The Psychology of Porn for Men
Bill Margold, one of the industry’s longest-serving film performers, was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century. Margold made no attempt to gloss over the realities. “My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. So we come on a woman’s face or brutalise her sexually: we’re getting even for lost dreams…”