The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography

Undoubtedly, pornography has always made for a good, if not grating and oftentimes grotesque, source for gaining insights from everything from the cultural pathologies of a nation and people to how certain marginal groups fit into certain 'roles' in society as a whole, as well as the number of fetishes that have taken over a people in what amounts to a 'secretly sick' society, and homo-documentarian auteur William E. Jones’ The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998) – a 20-minute documentary analyzing perverse and dehumanizing trends in Eastern European gay porn following the collapse of the Soviet Union – certainly sheds a superlatively sordid light on a shocking trend amongst a sector of formerly proud Slavic men who have become gay-for-pay when their personal circumstances hit an all-time low with the rise of capitalism in the ex-commie Motherland. No stranger to studying the more disturbing, unflattering, and just plain weird aspects of gay subcultures, including the unsanitary bathroom behavior of everyday closet-case homos in the real-life ‘found-footage’ document Tearoom (1962/2007), the obsessive study of the life and death of a gay porn star with artsy fartsy celluloid collage piece Finished (1997), and the seemingly inexplicable proliferation of Mexican Morrissey/The Smiths fans in the documentary Is It Really So Strange? (2004), foremost fag fetish chronicler and abberosexual pseudo-anthropologist auteur William E. Jones (Massillon, All Male Mash Up) deconstructs the disturbing degeneration of Slavic male heterosexuality and how capitalism brought spiritual prostitution to Mother Russia and its neighbors after the fall of communism and with the rise of literal cocksucking capitalism. Taken from Eastern European gay porn films from 1993-1998 that made their way to American shores, including such salaciously and mockingly titled works as The Vampire of Budapest, Russian Hard Work, Red Brigade, Perestroika, Moscow Dream Boys, Men of the Balkans, Czech “In & out”, and Comrades in Arms, The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography is certainly a mesmerizing yet muddling micro-document of the misery and decided dehumanization of young men that have, quite ironically, been warned their entire lives about the evils of capitalism and the wanton West and, indeed, would ultimately experience such monetary motivated melancholy. Not featuring a single throbbing member nor commie cumshot, The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography still manages to be as repulsive as the most grimy of porn flicks in its decisive dissection of macho men in a state of panic who are willing to do anything, even sell and literally swallow their pride for a mere couple shekels for some perverted poofer producer, to survive in these uncertain times.  Indeed, if anything, The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography is irrefutable, if radically unconventional, proof that American 'right-wing' warrior-philosopher Francis Parker Yockey was right when he argued that American 'culture' was more detrimental to the Faustian soul and the Occident than Soviet communism.

 As William E. Jones wrote in his official statement for The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography: “Around the time my first two films were released on video, I noticed the tape Men of the Balkans in my neighborhood video store. It made the intriguing claim of being the first gay porno shot in Bulgaria. The work of Jean-Noël René Clair, a major auteur of contemporary gay porn, Men of the Balkans was part of a flood of porno from former socialist countries that began appearing in U. S. video stores in the early 1990s. I wanted to make a work about this phenomenon, but I could not travel to Eastern Europe. Fortunately the material came to me; there was plenty of it to be found on the shelves of American video stores. I decided to make an “armchair” documentary, a compilation piece composed entirely of scenes from porno tapes, by reediting the material and adding only my commentary.”  Certainly short and bittersweet, The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography may have been thrown together in a couple relaxed evenings, but its genius is 'reading between the flesh lines' and showing that everything has a price in the West, including the mind, body, and soul.

 Starting with an image of a seemingly dignified Nordic-like comrade-in-cocksucking-arms symbolically standing under a portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev – the last leader of the Soviet Communist Party and the man largely responsible for dissolving the Soviet Union – and in a post-Soviet Russian army uniform, The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography soon cuts to the same man in a strikingly fallen state, engaging in some sort of lurid gay sex scenario with an expression of seeming abject disgust on his face. The viewer is also exposed to close-up face shots of various other Marxist-bred men in mid-sex scenarios with the majority of which seeming totally humiliated and decidedly degraded, with one young man looking like he is on the verge of tears and a total mental breakdown, which says a lot considering he ‘came’-of-age in a totalitarian commie state where the individual is nothing. As for the appeal of such sickening debauchery, director William E. Jones narrates, “Spectators see “unspoiled” beauty when they look into the eyes of these young men,” which is indubitably a pleasure fit for a sodomite sadist. According to Jones, these petrified post-perestroika performers only make 1/10 the cash that their American counterparts make, which is no small amount to pay for what probably amounts to only a couple loafs of bread and a bottle of generic vodka. As Jones accurately states, “The West’s image of communism in Eastern Europe was hardly one of sexiness and glamour…now the East is the scene of a thriving sex industry and many adult video companies have setup shop there,” with the three central Slavic cities for gay pornography being Prague, Budapest, and Moscow. As Polish auteur Wiktor Grodecki (Inferno, Nienasycenie) revealed with his two documentaries on Czech hustlers, Not Angels But Angels (1994) and Body Without Soul (1996), and his almost pornographically stylized feature film Mandragora (1997), debauched Americans, Brits, and Germans come to the Czech republic to cum and have sex with everything from prepubescent boys to violent, drug-addicted teenagers. Although not discussed in The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography, many of the gay porn stars, especially in regard to Czech porn, are merely hustlers looking to earn a quick wad of cash via busting their wads and these fine fellows even see starring in blue movies as highly preferable to going on a 'date' with some dirty old man. 

 The Second half of The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography features a debauched old Brit interviewing rather reluctant Russian ‘performers’ in a startlingly sinister fashion, as if he derives the greatest pleasure from debasing young heterosexual men with his own sexual depravity.  Proving the complete and utter desperation of the Slavic world, one young gentleman admits his mother is well aware of his pornographic pursuits and sees no need to stop him. Another young blond fellow admits he likes to fuck and get sucked by young women, but the dirty olde Brit tries to bastardize his words and make it seems like he likes get blowjobs from young boys as well. When the jaded Brit seems offended by the fact that one of the men says he does not like old farts watching him fuck and questions how he is able to perform for him by the camera, he states “I take it as work.” And, indeed, with no more communist factories to work in and produce worthless junk, these men of steel are now precarious performers in a foul international flesh factory where their honor and heterosexuality goes to the lowest bidder and work involves such "jobs" as blow, hand, and rim. To top off the curious creepiness that is The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography, the British bone-stroker of a pornographer (whose face is thankfully never shown) puts his hands on the meaty merchandise, thus ushering in the end of what is the most subversive document on how the former communist world has turned into a compliant cuckold of Western capitalism. 

 As someone who has worked with and lives in an area populated with Slavs from the former Soviet Union and its satellite states, I have personally witnessed the sort of highly detrimental degeneracy that capitalism has caused to these former collectivists turned capitalist 'individualists.' Sadly, despite many of them claiming to be the ‘cream of the crop’ of their respective nations, most of these Slavs (the word “slave” itself is derived from Slav) are quite happy performing unskilled labor and blowing their cash on beat up old cars (which they 'supe up' like American wiggers and other rabble), fancy new cellphones, Chinese food, and alcohol. Undoubtedly, the insights I gathered from my experience with Americanized Slavs and what I learned from The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography are not all that different, but, of course, William E. Jones’ petite 'anti-porn' doc makes for a much quicker and more enthralling excursion in ‘Slavic post-Soviet serfdom 101’ than having to hear an Americanized Ukrainian girl discuss how glorious the Ukraine is while bitching out her American 'husband' every ten minutes on her cellphone and flirting with every red-blooded American male that passes her semi-Asiatic gaze. Needless to say, I am not surprised that Russia now has the largest ‘neo-nazi’ population in the world as I am sure there are still some stoic Slavs out there that rather accept death than to star in a gay porn film directed by some sleazy American and/or Israeli. Indeed, it is an irony of fate that after destroying the Third Reich and literally raping millions of German woman, rampantly heterosexual Russians are sucking dicks for pennies on the dollar just to survive. 

-Ty E