STAGS, SMOKERS, AND BLUE MOVIES
By Nina M. Mehta

Imagine yourself in a blue room. It’s cool, dark, awash in a dim, ocean blue light and devoid of any sounds or voices. That is, except for the faint echo of men and women flirting, laughing, teasing, moaning and then screaming. You suddenly feel very exposed in a public space and you actually like it. Welcome to the Museum of Sex in New York and its recently unveiled exhibit chronicling the history of pornography entitled, “Stags, Smokers, and Blue Movies: The Origins of American Pornographic Film”.

The exhibit opened on February 7, 2005 and has been a regular stop for museum visitors since its debut. It features 20 different films ranging from 1915-1960 as well as interviews with Americans who saw some of the films presented. The curators’ vision, it seems for the exhibit is to mimic the forbidden feel of going to see a stag. The space is minimalist and the films are projected either on a screen in front of you or on blocks of wood next to you, so one would have to look down for a view [see picture below]. Conservative or liberal, there is nothing to deter from the fact that you are in a public place with strangers watching other people have sex, and despite that you feel safe, part of a club, even a little turned-on.

	Museum of Sex Website

The exhibit separates the displays into specific themes. These range from “Origins and Exhibition,” highlighting the birth of stag films as well as some of the early shorts and cartoons. Other section themes include “Sex Practices,” which introduces the varieties of sexual behavior presented on film. Other parts of the exhibit show interviews with American men who as boys watched some of the stags on exhibit and their frank and often humorous recollections.

The first thing anyone thinks of when they think of porn movies is cheesy music, non-existent plotlines or movies like “Boogie Nights” or the infamous “Deep Throat”. What is probably less known is that the history of pornography is surprisingly long and mirrors the history of film in many respects – short cartoons and silent films, to the advent of “talkies” and color. It seems whatever happened in mainstream cinema was soon followed in the back rooms.

“Stags,” also known as “Blue movies” or “Smokers,” took their name from "stag party," which was quite simply a party where men watched these illegal films, were in many ways the independent movies of their day. Without apology, these films talked about and presented stories and issues that everyone thought about but rarely spoke about. In fact, what is surprising is that given how sexually aware and seemingly open we are as a society now is how the films of the early 20th century were remarkably ahead of their time; offering up images of sexual fantasies including different positions, orgies as well as gay and straight sex on celluloid.

Many people are not even aware that pornography in its film form was around as early as 1907. It was only in mid-twentieth century that these films began to take on a shape and form and thereby create a genre. “Performers” that were once amateurs gave way to professionals. Film production also became more structured and because of the change in technology distribution multiplied exponentially and on a global scale. In those early days films were produced and shown for a select few and in private. By contrast today’s porn industry produces more than 10,000 videos and DVDs annually in the United States alone.

“The early stag films were funny, often building their narratives from dirty jokes and humorous stories borrowed from folklore in order to satirize and critique contemporary morality, “says exhibit curator Joseph W. Slade, professor of Telecommunications and Co-Director of the Central Region Humanities Center at Ohio University, Athens. These early forays into the genre were amateurish at best but it is easy to see the foundation it laid for the future.

Often quite innocent in its attempt to entertain at first, these films did without meaning to take on a role. This role was sometimes sexual education, as one of the interviewees attests to as being his sole source of carnal knowledge in his youth, to that of challenging societal mores and behavior. These films attempted in their own way, to bring bedroom behavior out of the closet, so to speak. “For generations of Americans, stag films provided their first unfettered view of actual sexual activity,” says Jennifer Lyon Bell, co-curator of the exhibit. “These films make up a crucial chapter in America’s sexual history.”

Thinking about this history and this country’s love/hate relationship with sex and those “freedoms”, you can see its evolution in front of your eyes when going through the exhibit. I was watching a “Behind the Music” special on George Michael recently and as I sat down to write this piece the song he will probably be always known for inevitably went through my head - over and over and over again. It reminded me when that song came out and how risqué it was (despite its safe-sex/pro-monogamy message) and by comparison how tame it seems now. And, moreover how scared we as a society are of one another, of what we do in private and of just being intimate with one another.

Sex is perhaps still one of the last great mysteries men and women face, not the actual act of it but how we navigate and negotiate towards it and as long as that is the case it appears to there will be plenty of fodder for “stags”, “blue movies”, “pornos” or whatever your nickname is for it.