There Are No Good Girls Gone Wrong, Just Bad Girls Found Out

By Ted Boynton | Guides | May 15, 2009 |

By Ted Boynton | Guides | May 15, 2009 |

Most readers will disagree vehemently, but I can’t help feeling a grudging respect for Joe Francis, the creator of the “Girls Gone Wild” softcore porn franchise. Specifically, I admire Francis’s perseverance against wave after wave of litigation and backlash, similar to how one might admire the single-minded determination of the android in The Terminator, no matter how much they both deserve to be shot repeatedly, burned to the skeleton, whacked with a pipe, and crushed to death. It actually makes Francis more sympathetic that the justice system, not to mention the media, has plainly singled him out because of the manner in which he earns his living. Unlike CEOs in the tobacco and insurance industries, Francis doesn’t profit from deaths or cheat grandmothers out of chemotherapy, yet he is one of the most widely reviled people in the United States, to the point that his 2004 kidnapping and torture by a burglar was applauded as “justice” by throngs of self-described feminists.

Given that background, I remain perplexed over what fuels Francis’s success. To some extent, of course, there’s just no such thing as bad publicity. Francis is a trash-culture icon, an established member of the glitterati black sheep with buddies like Tara Reid and Kid Rock. The media love to proclaim their disdain for Francis, ironically providing millions of dollars worth of free advertising. At the same time, there must be a market for the product, and how different could one GGW video possibly be from the next? Who the hell is buying all these videos? Once you’ve seen it, isn’t that … it?

Ever your intrepid servant, I ventured to find out with GGW’s most recent release, “Girls Gone Wild: Wildest College Coeds.”

As an initial matter, let me add another charge against Joe Francis: false advertising. At no point during the 52 minutes of “Wildest College Coeds” was there any indication that any of the girls depicted is enrolled at an institution of higher learning, though most of them are clearly destined to graduate cum laude from the school of hard knocks. In fairness, however, they did seem somewhat wild, if by “wild” one means “prepared to disrobe for a hat and a tee shirt.”

Enough about that; what does one see in GGW? You have questions, I have answers.

First, the mechanics: “Wildest College Coeds,” which appears typical of these videos based on the ubiquitous late night commercials, shows girls undressing and fooling around while an off-camera GGW guy talks to them. This spokes-jackass interviews the young honeys in the backroom of a bar wherever the GGW tour bus happens to stop. While GGW rolls tape, the girls pull off their clothes and engage in ersatz sexy talk with the GGW guy. Then they rub their tits or their clits or each other’s tits or clits. Free-range knockers feature prominently in every scene. Sometimes, but not always, the camera shows some cooch. There is no penetration. At no point do any men physically participate. By my count, nine girls participated in six scenes — some singles, some in pairs. In two-girl scenes, there are usually makeout sessions of varying intensity, from the good, clean fun of deep-kissing, to the sorority house hijinks of bare booby massage, to the Jesus-weeping-blood carnage of young girls performing hilariously inept cunnilingus.

And that’s the show. Seriously. There are jump-cut montages separating the individual scenes, but they’re just filler, 20 or 30 seconds of crowded bars with young people rubbing against each other like horny, itchy bears. “Wildest College Coeds” essentially consists of the paragraph above, repeating for 52 minutes.

But Ted, one might object, barely legal girls a-grindin’ their hooby-snatchers must be enticing to many men. There are plenty of Australopithecus wannabes who would masturbate like a bonobo on meth if they even saw a Girl Scout nip slip; surely those people would love this ineffectual, limp-dick softcore like a dog loves its own vomit. Right?

Maybe. Plainly, someone buys giant piles of this stuff, but I cannot begin to describe how awkward and unsexy it is. I like to get my schwerve on as much as any other guy in possession of a hand and a dick and a carrot and some twine, but GGW is the suspiciously damp cotton candy of porn: queasy fluff that leaves you nauseous and unsatisfied. It’s the worst of both worlds: There’s no real sex, but you sure wouldn’t want your mom, wife, or girlfriend to find it in your sock drawer. Even if you’re into softcore lesbian action — and what socialist Muslim president isn’t? — there’s just nothing exciting about it. The single greatest image from the video epitomizes its content perfectly: a shot of a girl dancing on a bar, the cash register display visible between her legs and clearly reading “No Sale.” That pretty much sums up GGW, figuratively though not literally.

As porn, GGW is so mind-numbingly boring, laugh-inducingly inept, and soul-crushingly dispiriting that it’s hard to know where to begin. If you can imagine two clueless straight girls awkwardly tongue kissing like a large-mouth bass attacking a pool drain, while aimlessly groping each other in a way that resembles me patting myself down for car keys, you begin to understand the grim, erection-baffling tone of the enterprise.

In theory, if they weren’t allowed to talk, you might still have something — it’s tough to go wrong with nubile titties — but GGW is all about the talking. That’s a serious downer, because the girls are invariably dumb as dirt, and not in a good way, with an interviewer ahead of them by only a fraction of an IQ point. As a result, the viewer gets a series of skull-impaling responses to GGW’s ur-tard commentary, the equivalent of Paris Hilton robotically disrobing and mumbling random monosyllables while a brain-damaged adolescent with noticeable body odor and an embarrassing stiffie reads Maxim out loud. Here’s an actual representative exchange:

GGW: Can you, um, get on that thing? [points at pillow on sofa]

Girl Who Has Gone At Least Partially Wild: This thing? [points at pillow on sofa]

GGW: Yeah. Get on that.

GWHGALPW: [stares at sofa cushion for ten seconds] Okay.

GGW: Yeah. Now rock back and forth.

GWHGALPW: Like this? [awkwardly humps sofa cushion]

GGW: Yeah, faster. Those aren’t fake are they?

GWHGALPW: [looks at chest, straining to remember] Uhhh, no.

GGW: Awesome! Now tell it, “How do you like my real boobs?”

GWHGALPW: [puzzled head swivel toward camera] Talk to it?

GGW: Yeah. “How do you like my real boobs?”

GWHGALPW: [flat voice, to sofa cushion] How do. You like my. Real boobs.

And that’s the smart one. Consider this exchange involving Lauren, whose panties had “je t’aime” embroidered on them, and Brittany, whose brain was busy composting in a tomato patch somewhere:

GGW: What do your panties say?

Lauren: [giggling, pointing at her crotch] Look at my panties.

Brittany: [squinting] They say … “J” … “T” … uhhhh.

Lauren: It means “I like” or something.

GGW: Slap that ass!

I wish I were embellishing. No matter how much I try, I will fail to convey the felony boner murder committed whenever someone engages the girls with words. Imagine Sarah Palin answering questions in a no-holds-barred press conference with Jim Lehrer, Helen Thomas, and Bill Maher, none of whom has been fed for three days; that’s the level of articulation you get from a typical Girl Gone Wild, except that, instead of “What’s your economic plan?” and “Why did you call the nation of Iraq a ‘faggot’?”, the insurmountable queries are ‘How hot are you?” and “Are those real?” One might posit that it’s unfair to criticize the chickens for not dazzling the farmer with conversation, but the brain-dead talking, ohmygodthefuckingtalking, burns like chemical castration, pretty much defeating the apparent purpose.

In fact, there’s virtually no criticism of these girls that would be unfair, considering how they got here. You see, the one pertinent nugget gleaned from The Chlamydia Dialogues is that the girls all showed up because they knew GGW would be there, donning their best streetwalker regalia and venturing out into the night with the specific intent to compete with other halfwits for the privilege of stripping on camera. One of the primary criticisms of Joe Francis and GGW is that they “trick” young girls into disrobing or pick drunk girls who will more readily take their clothes off. The theory, I guess, is that an inebriated 18-year-old girl is less responsible for her actions than an inebriated 18-year-old boy who joins the Army and gets his ass shot off or impregnates a girl and ends up with a kid regardless of his opinion on the wisdom of an abortion.

That’s a pretty big bullshit pill to swallow — and sexist in its own right — especially considering the clichéd parade of tat-and-piercing stereotypes who line up solely for their shot at the GGW camera. Oh mercy me, the girl with the whale tail, tramp stamp and pierced labia showed up topless in a video. Who could have seen that coming? Whatever disappointment her parents might feel, it almost certainly won’t be the first or last time they feel it. “Gosh, dear, I was sure the spiral anus tattoo saying ‘stick it in here’ was the last trouble we’d have out of her.”

In fairness, I have no idea how GGW recruited girls when it started in the 90s. If Joe Francis filmed an underage girl or didn’t get the necessary consent forms, then jack up the jail and throw him under it. These particular girls, however, had a burning desire for the same thing I suspect all the prior girls wanted: to display their wares for a lot of attention, a modicum of white-trash glory, and a little GGW swag. As one scene starts, GGW can barely get in a question before the two girls are pulling off their shirts and smashing their faces together like a couple of sexually confused Shetland rams who can’t wait to get these scratchy wool sweaters off. The one thing they do pause for? To bray, “Where are our Girls Gone Wild tank tops?”

And that’s when I figured it out, the explanation for why people buy this dreck. It’s damn sure not because it’s whack fodder. Instead, the attraction is a variant of “The World’s Funniest Home Videos,” but dialed down to “zero” on the shame-ometer and served with a heaping helping of titty-lation. The combination of witless, misogynistic humiliation and strip club objectification must appeal mightily to every trailer park he-man and date raping frat douche who ever got shot down by a tipsy wild honey in a halter top and short shorts. “See, now you know what fucking sluts girls really are. All they want is to pull off their clothes.”

Most people like to watch other people do stupid shit — see, e.g., the inexplicably popular and cruel “American Idol” casting outtakes. It follows, then, that mean, stupid people like to watch really, really stupid people do really, really stupid shit. Like take their clothes off on camera in exchange for a $2 shirt that a Hooters girl would find too demeaning.

The sad part of this is not that GGW exists; in one form or another, GGW has always existed, and until the dipshit gene is purged from our chromosomes, some form of GGW will always be there. No, the sad part is that by the time GGW gets to these 18-year-old girls, they’re already vacant-eyed dolts without the slightest hint of self-respect, so empty behind the forehead and in the soul that a pair of GGW bootie shorts represents the pinnacle of their aspirations. GGW is merely a symptom of shitty parenting and a society that values “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” over “Arrested Development.” GGW is the hyena in this little drama of natural selection, bringing down the dumbest of the dumb and not minding that the meat from the kill has Valtrex and shit smeared all over it.

It’s the oldest story in the world, really, and it’s yours to enjoy for the low, low price of $14.99.

Ted Boynton is a dedicated sot who plans to leave his barstool to stalk Whit Stillman, now that someone has found Whit Stillman. Ted also manages to hold down a job and a wife, three hours each per day, whether they need it or not. Readers may scold, hector, admonish or taunt Ted by e-mailing him at [email protected].