Film: Porn yesterday

Is Linda Lovelace's story proof of porn's abusive essence, or an explosive chapter of the sexual revolution? Neither, writes Dr Brooke Magnanti, as the biopic hits SA screens

The dramatisation of Linda Lovelace's porn career has reignited a discussion about whether the porn industry really has changed since Lovelace's 1970s heyday.

For many potential viewers, with so much porn on tap these days, looking back at what the industry was like in the '70s must be like archaeology. People actually went to cinemas to view these movies? What's with all the lame and protracted plotting? There was an international uproar over oral sex?

Lovelace, who was later known as Linda Boreman, eventually left the industry and went public with claims of violent abuse and manipulation at the hands of the ex who masterminded her career. The discussion over her participation in Deep Throat highlights one of the most important things in sex work: that it is impossible to know from the surface what is going on inside.

Is a particular bit of porn ethical or not? It's a little bit like clothes. You can't tell, from looking at a shirt, whether it was made ethically. You need to know about the manufacturer. You need to know more. Assuming that because something looks glossy and expensive it must be "better" is a dangerous thing to do and ultimately damages any people who may have been harmed in the making of the product.

Take, for example, the recent debate over banning simulated-rape porn. Deep Throat is very tame by today's standards, but according to Boreman it depicts her actually being raped. Meanwhile, there are actresses who do very extreme scenes but fully consent to participating in them. So the law would come down on the simulated rape, while the actual one would probably pass muster? That's madness.

People have since debated her version of events, but if even one tenth of what Boreman wrote was true, then it is still shocking.

I read her memoir, Ordeal, while at school, and was stunned not only by the extreme violence she recounts but also the names she names - as Linda Lovelace she hobnobbed with celebrities, all of whom could have been potential witnesses to her abuse.

The irony, though, is that while Boreman said Deep Throat shows her being raped, the fame she gained when the film went massive was the catalyst to her escape from an abusive relationship. (Her ex had in turn liberated her from abusive and highly religious parents . boxes within boxes.) Without the platform of being Linda Lovelace, her story would perhaps have turned out little different from the many people who find themselves manipulated into bad situations and never escape.

Phoenixes and ashes come to mind. Or, more prosaically, lemons and lemonade.

Thankfully the film, which had Lindsay Lohan attached to play the lead, ended up with Amanda Seyfried in the role. Lohan, while a potentially good actress, nonetheless brings an aura of drama to any of her parts that would have eclipsed the true story behind the script.

Boreman's story is complex. It is not what either side claims it to be. It is not just the flat documentation of the horrors of porn, nor is it the triumphant explosion of sexual culture into the mainstream.

The narrative of an abused woman who leverages a less-than-ideal situation to leave her abuser is a powerful one. It is easy to look in from the outside and say: "I would never put up with that." No one knows for sure until they have been there. For many people in such a situation, the strength to get up and leave has to be mustered again and again as they fight rumour, misrepresentation and vindictive exes. This is as true for people in the public eye as those with more private lives.

The anti-porn movement seized on Lovelace's story without providing the support structure necessary to help her move on with her life. Objectifying her, really. Was it much different from what she had experienced her entire life? - © The Daily Telegraph, London

• Lovelace is on circuit

Non-prom Queen

The star of Lovelace talked to LS about choosing acting over singing, not being cute and why she's tired of being an up-and-comer.

Actress and singer Amanda Seyfried, 28, was born in Pennsylvania and collects stuffed animals. Not the plushie sort, the dead, taxidermised sort. She changed her mind about becoming a meteorologist when she landed her first acting role, in the daytime soap As The World Turns, at the age of 15.

Her first blockbuster part was in 2004's Mean Girls opposite Lindsay Lohan. In 2008 she played the perky Sophie in Mamma Mia! and in 2012 put on a bonnet and bodice as Cosette in Les Misérables . Her role in Lovelace required a different sort of corset, and no singing.

I find porn disturbing but I don't think you can get rid of it. I'm doubtful about the plans to block it online because you can't put a ban on anything.

Lovelace isn't really about sex. It's more about the relationship between two people.

Costume is very important in this job. Lovelace's gear is pure '70s sunstruck look. Wearing leatherette thigh-high boots helped me to get inside her head.

I'm pleased I'm not a beautiful prom-type girl. When I was a kid and did some modelling I was never the cute type. I was skinny and had braces. I'm still not the cute type of blonde.

I get pudgy easily. I have a slim build but I still have to do a load of stuff. A lot of guys have a metabolism where they stay in shape and have an eight-pack but don't have to do anything. It's not fair.

Singing was my first love. I trained classically from the age of 11 to 17 but then I got my first acting role. I thought I was embarrassingly awful, but I did 27 episodes of As The World Turns and chose the acting path.

Every movie I do has another, satirical version of itself. You play this with your co-stars to make it more fun.

I suffer from panic attacks and anxiety. I have never performed on stage because I get stage fright.

I'd like to be an established actor. Being an up-and-comer is nice and sweet, but it's not everything. Everyone is saying, "This is your moment," but to me it just feels like a bunch of good work. It's just a moment in my career. - © Marianne Gray