Douglas Messerli | Six Short Porn Films of the 1920s [Introduction]

six short porn films of the 1920s

by Douglas Messerli

 

Although when I began collecting all the films of LGBTQ+ interest I had determined to exclude pornographic cinema, over the years I have realized that it is also an important aspect of gay, lesbian, and bisexual cinematic culture, particularly before the 1970s and 80s when pornography gradually grew into a more distinct entity, without major narrative content which focused only on the sexual. Even then there are major exceptions. And I realized, in retrospect, that to completely exclude the cinematic form would also be to distort the record and fail to even mention works that during the same period wherein most of cinema was afraid to even mention homosexuality, chose to recognize homosexual behavior by portraying it.

      This essay includes six examples of pornography from the 1920s that include LGBTQ activity. In nearly all of these, except for the earliest, Le Ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly—which I’d argue is more interested in homosexual sex than in its heterosexual images—these works were basically produced for heterosexuals, despite the fact most of the examples of I have chosen begin with lesbian sexual activity. We all know, however, that lesbian sex is also terribly erotic to many heterosexual men, and in almost every instance in these films, once the women have begun to engage in sex, a male figure enters and their attention quickly shifts to satisfying the male needs—much the way heteronormative society demands it be even today.

      Nonetheless, in many of the films included here, there is also portrayal of gay male and lesbian sex, and in a couple of cases, the gay intercourse appears to demand more attention that the heterosexual activity. I have basically excluded heterosexual images since that is obviously not the focus of My Queer Cinema.

      The films I’ve selected are the aforenamed and the most well known of these works, Bernard Natan’s Le Ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly (1920), and the anonymous works, Atelier Faiminette (Women’s Workshop) (1921), L'abbé Bitt au couvent (Abbot Bitt at the Convent) (1925), La fessée à l’école (School Spanking) (1925), Le grand sout d’homme (Bossom Buddies) (c. 1925), and L’heure du thé (Tea Time) (1925).

 

Los Angeles, September 19, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2023).

[The descriptions and images of these films are not available on Google for fear of censorship. Google closed down my last site. If you’re interested in my quite tame commentary, please e-mail me at douglasmess30@gmail.com, and I will send the appropriate essays and accompanying images.]