Porno Moms and the Sexual Healing of Family in ‘Boogie Nights’

This guest post by Rebecca Willoughby appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.

In Brian McNair’s recent book, Porno? Chic!: How Pornography Changed the World and Made it a Better Place (Routledge), he notes that navigating what he calls the “pornosphere” of contemporary culture is made more difficult by the fact that porn is still, in spite of all kinds of liberating cultural changes, a bit of a taboo.  One of McNair’s laments is that we can’t all just admit that porn exists, that we might have even seen or used it in our own lives/sex lives, and why we can’t talk openly about it as we would any other cultural issue.  Boogie Nights (1997)  pushes at the boundaries of this taboo by exposing the lives of sex workers—they refer to themselves as actors—within the porno-film industry in the late 1970s and early 80s.  It does so, at least on the surface, without making many judgments about the characters, lending the narrative a layer of realism that helps to dispel any ideas of glamour we might have about being “porn-stars,” and attempting to depict the “real life” of these sex workers in their natural habitat.

While the main body of the narrative is primarily concerned with the story of Eddie Adams, a.k.a. Dirk Diggler (come up with your own porno name here), there’s another story being told here: that of motherhood and family functioning within the context of the porn industry.  Our perception of sex workers is typically fraught with concerns about the circumstances that bring about sex work: is this work voluntary?  Is it fair? Safe? But add to those concerns the idea of mothers, parents, and children in sex work, and a whole different set of concerns surface.  Parent-child relationships in Boogie Nights are varied, but none of them initially seem to be entirely positive or negative.  Just what is this film attempting to say about family, and, about families that work in sex?

Our first encounter with the sex-worker family is a Goodfellas  or Fight Club-esque shot that follows porno film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and his… co-worker? live-in? girlfriend? Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) as they navigate through a nightclub. It might be worth noting that these other films also depict non-traditional, somewhat subversive, somewhat familial groups: the mob, and an underground boxing ring, respectively.  It might also be worth noting that both of these groups are almost entirely comprised of men, while the underground or subversive element in Boogie Nights contains men and women, and some variety in sexual orientation as well.  The nature of Jack and Amber’s relationship is foggy: she lives in his sprawling house, he calls her “honey tits,” and she is the star of most of his films, but we never see much more intimacy between them than a peck on the cheek.  We get a much clearer view of Amber and Jack’s archetypal roles once Eddie (Mark Wahlberg) enters the “scene.”

Eddie is an economically disadvantaged sort, not too bright, and suffering in a home life that features a submissive father and an alcoholic mother.  In one of the film’s most painful scenes, Eddie’s mom (Joanna Gleason) tells him he’s stupid, that his girlfriend is a slut, and that he’ll never amount to anything—all in a hyper-aggressive, booze-filled rage when he comes home late one night.  Clearly this is not stellar parenting, but it’s also Eddie’s mother viewers are encouraged to dislike, whereas Dad gets our sympathy.  Eddie’s is very clearly a broken family.  His mom ignores and even vehemently derides his vague ambition to be “a bright, shining star,” effectively driving him from his home and into Jack’s palatial porn-estate, where he is valued—albeit at least partially for the material gain he will bring to Jack’s films. Whether Eddie’s mom’s anger at her son is fueled by her drinking, or by his seemingly casual disregard for advancing himself in some traditional way (such as education rather than low-wage employment in his two jobs) is unclear.

What Eddie’s mother doesn’t know, however, is that his sex work is far more lucrative than his traditional work, even at the early stages of the film: he’s likely earning more each night in various sexual postures (“if you want to see me jack off, it’s ten [dollars], but if you just want to look at it, it’s five,” he tells Jack on their first meeting) than he is from his dishwasher or car-wash gig.  He’s ostensibly taken a job far from his home in order to make this extra money in a more metropolitan place where he is not as well-known, rather than in his hometown.  This means Eddie is already participating in the obfuscation of his sex work, acting as if it is something to be ashamed of.  He’s already been conditioned by cultural mores, in spite of his assertion to his girlfriend that “everyone is given one special thing,” and he knows his “special thing” to be his large penis and his skill at sex.  Jack tells Eddie that there is “gold” in Eddie’s jeans, and this jives with Eddie’s view of himself, a dynamic which casts Jack as the supportive and strong father that has been missing from Eddie’s life thus far.

To further facilitate Eddie’s transition into the world of adult film, the mother who will accept Eddie/Dirk as a whole person appears in Amber Waves.  Even early on, the camera singles out Amber as she gazes on Dirk, a replacement (we later learn) for her own lost son, whom viewers never see.  This original son is lost seemingly because of Amber’s “choice” to work in pornographic films, though viewers are never privy to her reasons for choosing this profession (or whether it was a choice at all).  Her husband’s refusal to allow her to see her son because of the “environment” he might be exposed to is emblematic of the broad cultural attitudes toward Amber’s work.  Amber’s strong maternal drive is therefore shifted from her own child, taken from her, to the younger actors in her company: Dirk and Rollergirl (Heather Graham).  Later in the film, Rollergirl begs Amber in a cocaine-induced frenzy: “say you’ll be my mom.”  She, too, is a lost child.  Amber is portrayed as a sort of lost mother, and she willingly pledges to act as Rollergirl’s surrogate parent.  But oh yeah… all these parents and children and subsequent by-proxy siblings have sex with each other while “father-figure” Jack runs the cameras.  Not your typical family, for sure.

Language in consumer reviews of the film graphically illustrate the mainstream response to Amber’s work and lifestyle, calling her (among other things) a “coked-up porn queen.” Such labels fail to take into account that drug use is perhaps not expressly part of the work but rather an occupational hazard linked to the porno subculture depicted in the film.  These epithets also function to support the normative view of sex work as either forced labor or poor decision-making, perhaps the result of impaired judgment.  What is erased in these generalizations is that Amber’s career is just that: a career.  She makes money, as does Dirk and pretty much everyone depicted living and working in the porno world.  Sex is their job, and if viewers are to draw any conclusions from what they see, they are successful.  They may not make the best decisions about what to do with that success (a lot of it goes up their noses), but the film also shows us that characters who DO try to make good decisions are stymied by a culture that vilifies their work.  Buck, another actor in Jack’s pornographic films, is denied a loan he clearly qualifies for, intended to help him to open his own business and leave the porno life to build a more traditional life with his more traditional family.  The reason for this denial is identified as Buck’s status (according to the bank officials) as a “pornographer.” So while Amber, Dirk, and other characters move freely within the world of adult film, Boogie Nights makes it clear that mainstream society has passed judgment.

Perhaps to their credit, Jack and Dirk never attempt to be anything other than a porno director and a porno actor.  Both men are good at their jobs, so why try to change? The film shows Dirk traversing the difficult landscape of addiction and emerging on the other side to return to sex work; the work he’s found success in.  Jack supports not only actors by continuing his business, but also a cache of film crew folks.  It’s not immediately evident how many families his work provides for. More significantly, the end of the film finds Amber continuing to act as mother to Dirk and Rollergirl, thereby embodying BOTH the sex worker role that brings her material success, as well as satisfying her maternal instincts. In spite of how mainstream culture may view sex work, Amber is treated fairly, and her physical AND emotional needs are being met.  Her family—this group of people not directly related to her, but who care about her and support her goals—has sustained her.

The grace of Boogie Nights is that it allows viewers to be aware of the tribulations of sex work as WORK—these workers navigate particular pitfalls of their employment and industry, just as other workers do.  The film illustrates the hazards of working in porn, just as another narrative might illustrate the hazards of working in management or finance or data entry (see, perhaps, Office Space (1999)? Doing a job well does not always guarantee happiness.  Life does not always treat workers fairly.  Even with success, people want things that they can’t have.  But in Boogie Nights, sex workers are shown to have their own community, as flawed as that family structure might be.  The vision of Eddie/Dirk’s home life at the beginning of the film shows us that no family is without its failures, and that true family and community bolsters individuals while forgiving and healing these flaws.  The film is progressive in its inclusivity (of male, female, and queer characters), and specifically in its treatment of Amber as she constructs her own version of motherhood and family, for better or worse.  Boogie Nights ends with another tracking shot to bookend the first, this time following Jack through his house as he interacts with his “family”: bantering with Maurice, a club owner, who is cooking in the kitchen; telling Rollergirl to clean her room; visiting with former porn actor Jessie and her baby, who are poolside.  It’s difficult to ignore the domesticity in this sequence.  This family has supported each other through some very tough times over the course of the film.  Whether viewers accept or reject working in pornography as a career in Boogie Nights seems beside the point—these characters are on a journey, and they are surrounded by the ones they love.

Rebecca Willoughby holds a Ph.D. in English and Film Studies from Lehigh University.  She writes most frequently on horror films and melodrama, and is currently a lecturer in Film/Media Studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.