|
Third Generation Pornographer Oren Cohen Oren did a long interview with AVN that was published Dec. 11: "[T]he psychological imagery that we’re peddling has lost its charge. I just don’t think that sex is special anymore. And that differs from even five years ago." I talk to Oren (born in 1978) Dec. 28, 2006. "What's your auto-asphyxiation movie?" Oren: "We have a new solo line called So-Low. I wanted to do something different. Nobody has shot a movie where girls masturbate and strangle themselves at the same time. We did it in a non-demeaning, non-misogynistic way. It's really beautiful. These girls are really getting off. I cast girls who really enjoy this. It's good tv." Luke: Your Israeli series? Oren: "It's got this light-hearted, sensual and honest quality to it that I haven't seen in movies since the 1970s, back when porn felt special and dirty. It captures the spirit of the country that it is coming from." "Half of my family (dad's side) is from Morocco and they imigrated to Israel. I read it, write it, speak it. We're going to use the slogan for the movies, 'The only porn made by Israelis that will cost you more than a dollar.' "If you're wearing a big red shiny button on your chest, you want to push it..." Luke: "The DVD industry seems to be in a slump." Oren: "A slump infers that it is going to rebound. I think the boat's got holes in it and it is going down. We're shoving 20 times the product through the same fledgling pipe." "We're not going to make bad VOD deals with your stuff available everywhere on 8c a minute revenue share." "My grandfather (on my mother's side) is Al Tapper, founder of CPLC (California Publishers Liquidation Corporation). He [entered porn in the early 1970s and] died in 1984. "My father started a magazine distribution company in Van Nuys called Lucky Distributors. We worked together for a while. I started Lucky Media about five years ago. I took out some student loans and learned to encode DVDs." Luke: "How did have your parents in the industry affect you?" Oren: "I ended up with a healthy attitude towards sex because I could distinguish between what was real and what was s---. The stuff that was s--- didn't impact my psyche. I have kids. I'm not going to hide anything from them." Luke: "From what age did you know your parents were in porn?" Oren: "From the start. I was running through the aisles swordfighting with dildos in my hand. I remember going on a business trip to Hong Kong with my grandfather when I was four and going to a toy factory where the guy made legitimate toys and then the guy opened up a curtain and there were the blow-up dolls and the Adult toys. It was just a part of life." "I'm domesticated. I'm married with kids. For me it's just a good way to make a living, though now it's a grind. If I can find ways to put myself into my product and be creative..." "Before I dropped out of highschool, I wanted to continue highschool in Israel. I love it over there. It's my turf. When I get off the plane and I'm in Israel, I feel this weird calm resonance like I'm home." "There is no formalized form of pornography there. There isn't a talent pool to draw from. The director not only had to wrangle people to do porn but he had to teach them how to perform on camera. There's a light-hearted laissez-faire attitude to sex there. People have imminent doom hanging over their heads and there's a let's live today attitude that prevails. "I used to be looked at as strange in Israel because I have lots of tattoos. Now there are tattoo shops in Israel and they get all the good drugs from Amsterdam." "The context that my parents were involved in the industry was so benign that I almost wished that they were more deeply entrenched in the business. Distributing old magazines didn't seem too exciting to me. I was almost regretful that I didn't have a better story to tell people." "I dropped out of highschool when I was 15, moved to San Francisco, went to culinary school, worked in restaurants. While I was a chef, I started a small distribution business out of my apartment selling magazines and videos to liquor stores in L.A. It snowballed and before I knew it, I wasn't cooking. "I love music, art. I love anything that allows me to be creative." "I remember having a bodyguard with us for one week when I was a little kid. I wondered why the dude was there. It was because the Mexican Mob shot up my grandparents house. I guess there was a hit and it got called off." "The character and quality of human being that is in this business has degraded. You had better people who cared about other people before. A handshake used to mean something. Despite the shady and colorful characters that the Mob brought to it, there was more of a sense of respect and decency. There were standards and there was money to be made as a result of that. We've pissed that ideal away." Luke: "What do you love and hate about being a part of porn?" Oren: "I love sexuality. I love women. I love humanity. I love having a commodity that I can put myself into... "What do I hate about it? That list is long. I hate the lack of standards. I hate the over-proliferation of sexual content. I hate the negative jaded attitude that most distributors have towards product. I hate the bad decisions we've made to piss away this "found" revenue stream that is now our only revenue stream -- internet and VOD. We did the same thing that the music industry did. When iTunes came around, they said, 'This is additional money on top of our CD revenue.' They agreed to give Apple 65c out of 95c for a download. "I come from a publishing background. I see so many lessons we could've learned from the magazine system, where there are rules and standards and hierarchy. Markdowns and margins are set." |