Ken Park

Larry Clark is a pervert and probably a pedophile. He makes no effort in trying to hide his obsession with preteen and teenage sex acts, and is notorious for taking many of his young actresses to bed. Larry Clark’s film Ken Park is probably the photographer turned film director’s most perverted and graphic film. The film follows a group of young degenerate skaters as they discover the pleasures of group sex and displeasures of incest. With Ken Park, decided sexual taboos were out of the question. Scenes featuring teenage skater boys performing cunnilingus on their girlfriend’s middle aged mother gives an accurate look at why Larry Clark is a filmmaker.

One could call Ken Park pornography as I am sure the film would get many people excited. On the other hand, Ken Park features some of the most sexually disturbing scenes ever featured in a somewhat mainstream (although it has never had a wide release) film. A film featuring dope smoking, suicide, and fake tits is typical of American cinema. Ken Park, however, is much different than films of similar subject matter. Ken Park doesn’t feature gratuitous scenes just as a quick way for the filmmaker and producers to make a quick buck. Ken Park features scenes like a scrawny Italian American teenager's auto erotic asphyxiation because Larry Clark wanted to fulfill a pervert fantasy of his through film making.

Larry Clark’s debut film Kids is still his best. Whereas Kids follows a group of broke ass teens from the inner city, Ken Park features middle class skaters from the suburbs. Larry Clark also recently directed another skater film Wassup Rockers which follows a group of young teenage Latino skaters as they face “discrimination” of sorts. One could say that Larry Clark is the only filmmaker to tackle the many different skateboarding subcultures in America. It is about time a filmmaker focused on skateboarders and their subversive culture(s).


Not since the days of Eurotrash erotica and exploitation sinema, has a film blurred the line between pornography and “art.” I wouldn’t exactly call Ken Park art, but it is certainly worth recognition. The reality is Larry Clark has captured a world of sexual perversity as the norm. So called “sexual liberation” has resulted in a world of “everything goes” where everyone is looking for the next big kick. The last sex scene in Ken Park features a sensual threesome amongst three teenagers. To Larry Clark, teenage sex is the most aesthetically appealing situation to be caught on film.

-Ty E