Truth Gets Screwed in Larry Flynt Documentary
Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone ignores or mocks the porn tycoon's critics.
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
Flynt’s ascent is a true “only in America” story, albeit one that can’t be told to anyone under 17. He rose from running adult establishments to creating a magazine which out-sexed both Playboy and Penthouse. His name became synonymous with the adult industry and his protracted legal fights changed the pornographic landscape permanently.
To his credit, Flynt rarely backs down from a fight and has spent time in jail defending his beliefs.
Just don’t look here for anything resembling a fair and balanced portrait. Flynt’s critics are ignored, mocked, or included in blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em moments. Gloria Steinem gets the most screen time of any of Flynt’s opponents and she speaks for under a minute.
She gets away easily compared to the treatment afforded the Bush administration. The documentary offers up clips of President George W. Bush and some of his past cabinet members, disjointed snippets meant to taunt, not inform. Even these moments arrive with little explanation.
Not a single talking head appears to defend the administration or its policies. Are Flynt’s opinions so easy to debunk that he needs such protection? You might think so once he starts on one of his many rants. It’s the standard hard-left boilerplate and it begins with the obligatory Bush-Hitler comparisons. Yawn.
It’s also hard to take at face value when Flynt trots out his generous side. After the Private Jessica Lynch story broke, he claimed to have nude pictures of the wounded warrior. But he opted against publishing them — she’s a good kid, he explains. He got better press out of the stunt than if he had run the photos in the first place, and he used the attention to slam the Bush administration, his preferred target.
Perhaps his biggest political victory came with his efforts to out hypocritical behavior in the Senate and House of Representatives during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. That movement paved the way for the resignation of House speaker-elect Bob Livingston.
The most affecting scenes in the documentary involve Flynt’s near-death experience. At first, Flynt accused the FBI or CIA of being behind the shooting which left him partially paralyzed, but it turned out an interracial photo spread likely inspired the shooter.
Flynt has long draped himself in the First Amendment, and in a way he’s a perfect symbol of its fragile strengths. “We figure that freedom of the press is only important if it’s offensive,” Flynt says in the film. “If we’re not gonna offend anybody, we don’t need protection of the First Amendment.”
He’s right. And a solid documentary might take the trouble to show that dichotomy. It also could have mentioned Flynt’s thoughts on the Internet, a subject he’s well suited to explore and he’s done so in the past.
Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone doesn’t shed any new light on its subject. Instead, it seeks to keep viewers in the dark about the full spectrum of Flynt’s life story while attacking anyone who ever stood in his way.
Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
| Comment |  Digg This |
 del.icio.us |
 |
 |
 PJM Home |
7 Comments
1. ursa major:Why anyone would watch a program on this scummiest of scumbags is beyond comprehension.
Aug 7, 2008 - 3:40 am 2. RE:I too have wonder about anyone with any interest in a scumbag like Larry Flynt.
Aug 7, 2008 - 6:52 am 3. Larry Flynt, Hero to the Bush Bashers | KyleSmithOnline.com:[...] about porn. It was about speaking out against the evil George W. Bush regime. Christian Toto has more about the lopsidedness of the [...]
Aug 7, 2008 - 7:13 am 4. kabud:there is something on Larry Flynt of a VERY BIG importance:
in 1983 KREMLIN shot down Korean passenger plane KAL 007
On board of that plane was US Congressman McDonald
Later in 1983 or 1984 Larry Flynt published phonographs of McDonald in bed with prostitute or something like that- very bad taste act, a devious act aimed to discredit diseased politician
Larry Flynt magazine Hustler also publish an article, A UNIQUE occasion when Hustler EVER published political analytics AND IT WAS A CONSPIRACY EXPLANATION HOW CIA SHOT DOWN KAL 007 to kill Congressman McDonald
article was written by Mae Brussell. Here is who she is:
Anyways, in the early ’80s publisher Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine began sporting hard hitting and serious investigative anti-conspiracy journalism in its pages. Larry Flynt came into orbit with researcher Mae Brussell after she contacted him and explained who the personnel involved in the failed assassination attempt against him were which put Flynt permanently in a wheelchair. He was so impressed that this widowed housewife living in Carmel, California could know all this when his own security team were apparently stumped. Brussell and Flynt thus became closely associated and Mae began writing articles that Larry Flynt published in Hustler. (See http://www.maebrussell.com.)
As time progressed well into 1983, Flynt offered Brussell her own magazine so she could get exposure outside of Hustler. Flynt said, “Your stuff is so important and so great, Mae, I can give you a serious magazine with no nude pictures that’ll go up against Time and Newsweek and you can be at the helm as editor and we’ll pursue these gangsters ruining our country relentlessly. You pick who you want to write for it, I’ll put up whatever money needed.” Mae said: “Thanks, Larry, I’ll write for your new magazine, but I don’t want to be the editor.”
http://www.wavelengthtoronto.com/regulars/matrix/02_01.html
It is still a mistery:
who made pictures of Congressman McDonald?
who blackmailed him?
who delivered pictures to Hustler?
who is Mae Brussels and what is her REAL relationship to those who shot Larry Flynt?
Why all the above so closely Interveined?
There is one more character that i remember from 80s publications on KAL007:
John Rees, an aid to Congressman McDonald, a shady person, well rumor has that John Birch Society has thrown him out.
google it- you ‘ll find lots of interesting details mixed with desinformation
Aug 7, 2008 - 9:52 am 5. newton:Who wants to watch a documentary film on Jabba the Hut? Really!
I don’t.
Aug 7, 2008 - 1:04 pm 6. WHAT WOULD TOTO WATCH? » Larry Flynt: A real American hero?:[...] Pajamas Media review tells the rest of the story. Also check out Kyle Smith’s withering review at the New York [...]
Aug 7, 2008 - 2:13 pm 7. Zhombre:I will never forgive Milos Forman for directing The People v. Larry Flynt presenting this First Amendment liability as a First Amendment hero. If you can’t discern a pimp from a martyr then Western liberalism is blinkered and decadent.
Aug 7, 2008 - 4:24 pm