Big Ed's PlaceReview: Sex: The Annabel Chong story
Sex: The Annabel Chong story is a documentary produced by Annabel and a director she’d been involved with, Gough Lewis. For those who don’t know her, Annabel Chong is a porn star who, in 1995, set the record for having sex with the most men in a gangbang. She took on 251 men in a 10 hour period for a porn video, which earned her a fair amount of notoriety before the record was subsequently eclipsed.
The documentary is disturbing…
…in the sense that it reinforces the stereotypes of the porn industry at the same time Chong is talking about how empowering porn is for women. She entered porn, she says, as a feminist statement. She was an undergrad at USC at the time, and came from a traditional middle class family in Singapore. Yet in watching the film, you can’t help get a sense of how screwed up her life is. Despite desperate desires to please her mother and be an honorable girl, she goes back into porn after having quit it. There are hints that a gang-rape in the past that started off semi-consensually may have contributed to her choice to enter porn. There’s also discussions about lots of drugs and random sex partners. At times, Chong is very articulate–as seen in her classes and later in a conference panel discussion. But in many other scenes, she’s incoherent, spacey, and prone to outbursts.
The porn industry doesn’t come off well either. The producer of the Gangbang video never paid her and pretty consistently comes across as a sleaze. She works with another producer and we get a horrifying look at negotiations. They’re arguing about whether she should be paid $850 or $1200 for a film that will include fisting and golden showers. The nastier and sleazier she’s willing to be, the more she’ll get paid.
I personally thought that the amounts were trifling as well. But the trivia surprise for me was that her video was considered a “blockbuster” because it sold 40,000 copies. That was “three times” a “hit” in porn. So a hit is 15,000 copies sold? That seems surprisingly low. It speaks to why the production values are so poor for most porn films and why they have to keep churning them out.
The documentary is not erotic. Seeing it, I doubt the original gangbang film was either. It isn’t slick–the low production values are also apparent (I actually got distracted enough to check email during the film). It also doesn’t provide any good answers and left me wondering about the agendas behind it. In the end, I have mixed feelings about recommending it. Folks interested in the cultural aspects of the porn industry might find it fascinating, but others are probably just better off taking a pass.
Two out of five stars.