Kim Kardashian, Superstar. They really named it that. Any doubt about the motives for leaking that suspiciously well-filmed tape has left the public consciousness—not that anyone’s saying that Kim or Ray-J themselves let it slip, but rumor has it that Kim did settle with Vivid Entertainment for $5 million to allow its release, after vehemently swearing in interviews that there was no sex tape. There is no amount of money that could ever convince me to release any tape, even if I had one.” All this after having already used rumors about it to get herself a reality TV show, tons of magazine covers and fashion shoots, and her own clothing store. Now, you can purchase a DVD of her in sexy lingerie blowing and getting mowed for around $35 online-although the jury has come back mostly negative.
Kim Kardashian might not be porn star material, but her romp between the sheets has nonetheless earned her the title of superstar long before the film was titled. It’s kind of a chicken vs. egg question: did the tape make her a superstar, or did her superstardom make the tape worth watching? The answer might be both; from the moment rumors of her sex tape hit the famous-for-being-famous fan, the stacked star of Keeping Up With the Kardashians was on her way down the path famously walked by Paris Hilton in 2004, and by other celebrities who blazed it centuries before.
Make no mistake: celebrity pornography is nothing new. Ever since the idea of the celebrity came along, encompassing people from religious figures to the aristocracy to philosophers to entertainers, the general public has been avidly curious about their private moments. From the hardcore pornographic scenes depicted in Tantra Hindu temples, to the bawdy jokes and slander about royalty in pre-printing press Europe, celebrity porn is an ancient tradition. After books and printed pictures became mainstream in Europe, explicit texts circulated under the names of famous authors and thinkers like Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde, too. Their supposed “confessions” became hugely popular in Europe, but were eventually revealed as fakes. Then, with the advent of the moving picture and the rise of the god-like “movie star”, pornography was, as always, right here keeping up with the times. “Tijuana Bibles,” also called 8-pagers, were short comic-style books featuring caricatures of stars in compromising positions, became huge money-makers in the 1930’s and beyond by exploiting screen heroes from Greta Garbo to Carey Grant (drawn by the notorious “Blackjack” in “Who’s A Fairy?”). The ‘bibles,’ usually distributed on the downlow at barbershops, news stands, and garages, were often drawn by cartoonists who later became giants in the comics industry, like Joe Shuster, who started with Nights of Horror in the 50’s and moved on later to Superman.
As time went on, technology advanced and became more easily available, leading to wannabe motion-picture pornographers exploiting celebrities’ fame. Just like on today’s Internet sites, fakes proliferated, using look-alikes to mimic the stars the public craved. Not surprisingly, Marilyn Monroe was a frequent victim, rumored to star in The Apple Knocker, a short black and white film of a young woman playing with a bottle of Coke and an apple in… inventive ways. Rumored for years to be an early nude Monroe, the young woman in question turned out to be another early Playboy Bunny named Arline Hunter. (Other films purportedly do exist of Monroe, but all are questionable.) Sometime in the 70’s, though, fakes gave way in popularity to the real stuff that began to appear as well, and since the late 60’s big-time stars from Sylvester Stallone to Amy Fisher to our buddy Kim the superstar, have bared their bottoms on film.
The explosion in real amateur celebrity videos (and arguably some professional work as well) came thanks to the advent of portable video recording devices, which made the leap from in-studio, refrigerator-sized cameras to the two-person Sony PortaPak in 1967. The PortaPak and similar soon-to-follow devices by Panasonic and JVC, which could be lugged from place to place for short recording sessions, were not exactly easy to use, and editing still had to be done by hand, with razor blades and scotch tape, but by the mid-70’s and the advent of the Sony U-Pak pre-loaded cassette film, anyone with a fair sized bank account could become an erstwhile director of anything from kids’ birthday parties to hardcore pornography, provided they had the proper lighting. And who doesn’t want to direct? The home camcorder as we know it debuted in 1982, and since then technological advances have come as fast and furious as the amateur porn they’ve captured for posterity. These days, a few hundred bucks can buy you a piece of video equipment that needs no outside light source and can be edited and uploaded to FleshBot, YouPorn, or MySpace in a matter of minutes. Its accessibility and popularity makes it a perfect outlet for exhibitionists and a virtual smorgasbord for voyeurs with a taste for famous flesh.
While celebrity porn is not a recent phenomenon, its exploitation by the stars “victimized” by its distribution most certainly is. Long gone are the days when a home video could become a humiliating blip on the radar screen of a celebrity's livelihood, much less a career wrecker. Back in the 1980’s, the leak of Rob Lowe’s “private” moments with two women (one of whom was underage) caused a virtual shit-storm of negative media attention and destroyed his career. But, these days, one need only look at R. Kelly's continued success, even after pissing on a teenager on camera, to see that “humiliating” tapes don’t humiliate anymore. (Someone might want to mention this to 50 Cent, who tried to get a jab in at rival Rick Ross by releasing a sex tape of his baby momma, Brooke, with another man. Not to say the tape isn’t entertaining, with Fitty shouting high-pitched abuse in a blue robe and a wig, but the jab seems to have fallen short of the mark. Rick Ross’s just responded: “We appreciate the attention” – and then got a fantastic write-up in The New York Times.) Even Ray-J, Kardashian’s costar in the Superstar video, whose professional lighting and videography thankfully free viewers from grainy night-vision or badly lit footage, has seen his career spark since the world saw Kim wrap her lips around his shaft. Whereas he was barely making it with a few albums and TV appearances, mostly on the good graces of his famous sister R&B crooner Brandy, earlier this year Ray J starred in his own reality show (“For the Love of Ray J” was stunningly similar in theme and structure to “Flavor of Love,” which begs one to consider how a young, attractive, and fairly hip R&B artist got lumped in with the dried-up braids of the self-caricature that is Flava Flav). Yet, it must be noted, a Google search for Ray J brings up only 6 legit websites before a blog discussing Kim Kardashian, Superstar. The sex tape may, it seems, end up as Ray J’s greatest legacy.
But the legitimacy of musical or reality TV careers aside, it appears that over the past few decades, the distribution of sex tapes has turned from a faux pas to a fairly good idea. The trend may have started in 1997 with Pamela Anderson’s first sex-tape leak featuring her then-husband, well-endowed Tommy Lee. A rare example of celebrities actually having good sex on film, their video actually buoyed the sinking careers of both stars. While many A-list celebs wouldn’t want the kind of attention the tape afforded Pam and Tommy, notoriety is often considered better than obscurity by B-listers, who have taken up the idea of exploiting their tapes for cash. (In the aforementioned tape, Pam and Tommy both saw a resurgence in their careers as celebrities for the sake of celebrity, and both have made chunks of change on all kinds of ventures since.) Some celebs have simply capitalized on leaks by other people, like Dustin Diamond, aka “Screech” of Saved By the Bell fame, who at first balked when his tape of a threesome with two unnamed women was allegedly leaked. But after some consideration, he went in on the distribution, and now makes profits any time someone decides to watch Screech screw (it’s ok to vomit a little when you hear that – I did, too). “I can spend a fortune fighting this,” he said in an interview with US Weekly, “or I can try and make a fortune.” Similarly, when Kid Rock learned that a tape of himself and Scott Stapp of Creed getting groupie head (I'll wait while you run to the bathroom) had gone public, his first response in an AP interview was, “What perfect timing. I got a record coming up.” Others have taken the direct route, actually selling their films directly for profit: former professional wrestler Chyna Doll approached Red Light District, the company that won rights for Paris Hilton’s tape back in 2004, to market and distribute a tape of her and her husband. And even sociopath figure skater Tonya Harding sold a tape in a desperate bid to make headlines again.
It appears that many stars have caught on to the idea of keeping themselves in the public eye by shoving their naked bodies into our retinas some time ago. But a career built entirely upon a sex tape? Now there is a truly a 21st century phenomenon. Our friend Kim Kardashian – superstar! – and her friend Paris Hilton are probably the biggest celebrities to have had their names made by their private films being leaked. Although both starlets fought the release of their filmed fornication, they both also ended up settling with porn companies to allow their release. Larry Schwarz, former marketing director at Red Light District, which distributes Hilton’s tape, said that he “really does not think” that Hilton profits from the tape, but Hilton's lawyer is on record saying that she does. (If so, she’s made a pretty penny; according to Schwarz, sales of One Night in Paris have surpassed the 1 million mark.) And both Kim and Paris have indubitably profited in terms of their celebrity status; the world had barely heard of them, aside from the occasional Page Six mention, until rumors of the tapes hit the tabloid circuit. In Paris’s case, incidentally, that news conveniently surfaced just before the launch of her reality TV series, The Simple Life, in a foreshadowing of the route that Kim Kardashian – superstar! - would later take.
So, the question remains: how did showing off one’s bits and pieces become a career maker? Why did being exposed to the world so lewdly shed its humiliating label in favor of becoming a rite of passage? What happened here?
One thing is certain, and simultaneously very telling, about our collective psychology: What the careers under discussion have in common can be summed up in the word exhibitionism. The people who chase this bizarre brand of “postmodern celebrity,” as Lola Ogunnaike of The New York Times dubbed Hilton, are exhibitionists in more than the typical sexual way. They build careers on doing very little besides letting the public see as much of themselves and their lives as they possibly can—their wild nights a the club, climbing in and out of cars, shopping, texting, and even sitting around at home, are all available to the public for mass consumption, in exchange for the fame it grants them. They are putting everything on exhibit, literally. Kardashian and Hilton, in particular, truly seem to get off on the idea of their every move being documented, packaged, and sold. Their images, their ideas, their very selves are for sale on magazines and television, in tabloid interviews and their own fashion lines and fragrances, and available for free online. They want people to see them, think of them, be reminded of them constantly. The exposure is what makes them thrive.
And–here’s the really new part of the whole phenomenon–for the first time in history, the kind of media saturation required to meet the exhibitionist needs of these celebrities is actually achievable. While the advent of celebrity sex merchandising is nothing new, what is new is the widespread distribution of their bedroom foibles, with their blessing. Whereas the old films of yesteryear were hard to reproduce and harder to find if one were not a member of an underground stag club, these days one merely needs a cheap digital camera to record, or a non-firewalled computer with Internet access to find clips, trailers, and sometimes entire scenes of superstars bumping nasties. New technology on both the production and consumption sides of the issue have made the distribution of celebrity sex scenes simply an extension of the brand created by the stars themselves. For people who are already selling the private moments of their home lives and telephone conversations, capitalizing on the explosion of media, even as pertains to their bedroom antics, just makes sense.
And exhibitionism from stars who live an overexposed lifestyle makes sense to many of us average Joes, as well. Exhibitionism is a particularly American trait, as noted by Tunku Varadarajan in The Opinion Journal. “Life in this country – large and competitive – is largely about calling attention to oneself,” he notes, and he’s right; on every level from private to professional, many of us enjoy being watched, and we enjoy knowing that one can make a living at it. Ever since the release of the first domestic camcorder in 1980, more and more latent exhibitionists have been trying their hand at home video making, and with the rise of amateur porn websites like YouPorn and RedTube almost anybody can enjoy the thrill of having a sex tape “leaked.” One woman, who chose “Wanda” as an alias, said that she and her husband have been making and releasing their sex tapes anonymously for months. When asked how the idea of others watching her intimate moments made her feel, she enthusiastically responded: “It's exciting!” Likewise, Frank, an older bisexual man who enjoys taking part in couples' threesome fantasies, also films his own male-on-male tapes and has been taped and photographed doing everything from masturbating to taking part in a gangbang. Frank doesn't like being called an exhibitionist because he holds negative connotations of what the term means: “In my mind,” he says, “an exhibitionist forces himself on an unwilling subject. The only people who see me are those who have indicated a desire to do so.” Nevertheless, he advertises frequently on Internet singles and porn sites looking for people to film him, maintaining that individuals willing to watch him were merely “being cooperative.”
And of course there’s a whole new class of less risky show-offs out there, being groomed by new media and technology. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, camera phones, blogs, and host of other self-aggrandizing media outlets that have popped up in recent years exist entirely for the purposes of showing oneself to the world. Classmates and coworkers can now make themselves into pseudo-celebrities by having enough blog followers or Facebook friends. If the term exhibitionism can be used in a loose way to apply to those who love to be watched in or out of the bedroom, it seems most real celebrities and a good half of the American public fits into the category.
The other half, it would make sense to assume, probably fill the complimentary role of voyeurs. After all, Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t be successful if people didn’t want to look at and read about others’ exploits. As of a Fox News count in 2008, 60 million celebrity magazines were being sold every week in this country, not to mention the million plus copies of One Night in Paris that have sold to date. Obviously a lot of people like to watch. In a culture that panders so obsequiously to those willing to expose themselves, it only makes sense. If the stars, who we already feel we know by Facebook “friending” them and examining their outfits on GoFugYouself, want to further expose themselves on Celebrity Rehab, flash their private parts in tabloids, or perform the horizontal polka for our benefit, who’s going to stop them?
As a matter of fact, when stars live such overexposed lifestyles and exist make their names from putting themselves on display, it bears asking why they think anything they have ever put on film would not end up in circulation. After all, there are tabloid photos of people like Paris and Kim going to the supermarket; what would make they think they could perform intimate acts on video and that they would not be distributed? It's a huge leap of logic, but few would attribute huge mental faculties to these starlets or their protégés. Still, one would think they’d at least be aware that having sex on tape is an extremely risky proposition.
Larry Schwarz, formerly of Red Light District, thinks the idea of the tapes being made public is the whole point. “I assume that in fact [the idea of the tapes being released] is in the back of their minds and adds to the danger in making the movie in the first place,” he says. And he’s probably right; thrill-seeking behavior is the calling-card of the exhibitionist, and the favorite viewing material of the voyeur.
So why the intrigue? Why do we care any more when a sex tape starring famous-for-being-famous people is released? Celebrity porn has been going on for ages, and these days we're not seeing much more than the tabloids have already shown, or getting a sneak glimpse into some part of their psychology they wouldn't have told us about anyway if we just asked. It seems counterintuitive for us to even bat an eye at the news of a new tape, much less want to purchase it.
It’s probably safe to say that Kim Kardashian, Superstar will go down as a best-seller anyway. For all her media exposure and fame-whoring, there are still a few things most of us don’t know about Kim, and it’s always intriguing to know how people act behind closed doors. Given how few doors have remained closed in her life, there’s something awfully sexy about that last doorknob. Post-modern celebrities let almost everything show for the camera almost all the time. And given the accessibility of high-quality recording devices in this day and age, whether the scenes are staged or the tapes leaked, it's easy enough to imagine that these stars didn't want people to see their intimate moments. Everybody and their brother has a digital camera, and everybody gets drunk and records stupid things on it. Why not Kim Kardashian, too? Why not Paris Hilton? Why not Colin Ferell, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Dustin Diamond, Chuck Berry, Rob Lowe, Tonya Harding, Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, Amy Fisher (whose tape Mr. Schwarz of Red Light District strongly promotes), Fred Durst, R. Kelly, Bret Michaels, Bam Margera, or any of the other notorious celebs with their junk on tape?
The allure and mystery of celebrity has morphed into something new – an all-seeing, all-exposing mirror of ourselves, with iPhones in hand and lips pursed in Facebook photos. The Kim Kardashians of the world are closer than ever to being just like us, albeit with bigger bank accounts, and better plastic surgeons and stylists. But their transparency and just-like-us-ness gives us a feeling of entitlement, an implied right to watch their private moments, and the ability to do so that was never available to use before. In the end, perhaps the only real difference between filmed exploits that once ruined the careers of the famous, and the fame-enhancing home videos of today, isn’t really in the media used to distribute them, or the supply relative to the demand. Maybe it’s not even our attitudes about what it takes or means to famous, or what shocks – or has ceased to shock – us. Perhaps Americans, for better or worse, have simply reached a point where they’ve become more honest with themselves about what we’re interested in knowing about our celebrities and admitting about ourselves. Perhaps our exhibitionism-as-success mindset has finally reached its apex, and we are at last coming to terms with our own desires to show off shamelessly and to watch others do the same. It may be damning of our culture, or hell, maybe even of all humanity, but at least fewer of us are pretending.
