The first Jenna Jameson film I ever saw was Flashpoint. It came out in 1998, and I saw it long after its release, but I was told it was supposed to be really good. As in, one of the reviewers at Good Vibes claimed she actually cried while watching the tale of firefighters and heartbreak, passion and complexity facing life’s most difficult decisions within the worlds of people who put their lives on the line for our communities in the spirit of selfless dedication. And also for, I guess, those formula six or seven standard sex scenes in the six or seven standard sex positions with the brilliance and pathos that always includes the required girl-girl scene nestled within a challenging plot. Challenging, for everyone, it seemed. It sucked. But I was like, oh, that’s Jenna Jameson. Nice boob job.
Preface: I know that by 2007 standards, this is a retro topic. But bear with me, dear readers. I don’t know Jenna; I know quite a few porn performers (as friends, even) but I know little about her other than that she is famous and has many ghostwriters, and is almost as litigious as Suicide Girls. I have nothing against Jenna, nor am I a fan. I am neutral. But having Courtney send me a link today spun me into a certain… je ne sais fug headspace. In which I decided I should use that cheap yet effective, time-tested blogging browser-based manipulation. The dreaded “scrolldown”.
Jenna really hit the porn scene in 1995, which is about the time the first two images (below) are from — the second one is supposedly her “first scene” with performer Draghixa. She looks sort of porn generically pretty, circa mid-nineties, a bit Romy and Michelle, as in, “‘Heather? HEATHER MOONEY? FROM SAGEBRUSH HIGH IN TUCSON?” She almost looks like she’s still wearing her retainer:
And then our Jenna got all growed up. She got surgified beyond the chestial region, had fun with her look, and didn’t look too porny anymore. In fact, in some pics she looked rilly hot. As in:
Romy: “I guess I won’t be seeing you at the reunion, but I’ll tell everyone you said ‘hi’.”
Heather: “Why don’t you tell everyone to go fuck themselves for making my teen years A LIVING HELL.”
Photo by polverino.com.
But I feel that something has now gone horribly, horribly wrong in the fairytale of porn star crossover sensation. I mean, I understand the decades of tyranny barring mainstream acceptance (that the porn industry has cowered under trying to simultaneously decry yet clamor for) that many starlets feel they need to make concessions for in order to feel like they made it, or gain some sort of access that seems like a good idea until you’re like brainwashed and married to Tom Cruise or something. Or playing yet another dead hooker on CSI. And I’d imagine that Jenna is not a bad person by any means, and she is supposed to be really rich and stuff, and yet when I realized that her advertised age is 33, I was flummoxed. Especially because the only way I might know how Jenna feels about all of her successes, real or calculated, would be by her expression in any given photo. Her facial expressions, have however, like Elvis in a clown porn costume at AVN, left the room. Jenna now “blinds us with science”.
Michele: “I know. And what a bitch, taking your hamburger. I mean, what
was that? God, remember the prom? You got so thin by then.”
Romy: “Oh, I know. I was so lucky getting mono. That was, like, the BEST DIET EVER.”
Oh no, that’s not all. Here’s the whole set.
