Porky's

Porky'sⁱ is yet another coming-of-age film "of highschool life" bla bla bla. I can't imagine why they keep making these, except perhaps because they keep trying to convince themselves of nonsense ; there's nothing much to see here to recommend this failed attempt at flattening the cowlick over all the others in overabundant supply, except for a coupla circumstantial items.

First off, the hottie head cheerleader / junior cheerleader trainer / whatever the hell she is, losing her mind (well, losing her momind anyway ; finding her whore mind, more properly speaking) upon sniffing used jockstraps (literally) and turning out to be... quite the little screamer. As circumstances dictate she makes room for the junior coach inside herself right behind the thin separator wall (and neatly within earshot) of a gymfull of young colts an' heifies. The adolescents, mostly virgins, thoroughly sexually frustrated, suspended in the irreality of a purely absurdist situation called "P.E.", get to confront the facts of the matter, and of life generally.

There, under her suddenly unbridled wails of unadulterated joy, a bunch of teens stuck in ridiculous outfits (as "proper" for the time and place), short pants and tight blouses supposedly "with no sexual undertones whatsoever", engaged in a purely "non-sexual" activity (as fucking if) get to perceive first hand the utterly pointless nature of the santa fantasy. Because no, there can't be such a thing as sexual clothing. Absolutely not, out of the question, sex is a human behaviour, not a textile property. Human sexuality is the product of the workings of the human mind, not a byproduct of mordants and wheft ; and therefore there can't be such a wonder as non-sexual outfits, positions, circumstances or activities either. Because how the fuck would that go ?! D'oh ?

And so these kids get (and at school of all places, improbabilia improbabilis!) the most useful of all life lessions lessons : they discover firsthand the bullshit doesn't matter. They're too chickenshit to actually turn the supposed "P.E. class" into an out-and-out orgy, as it self-evidently was meant to be, and as better young men and especially young women would've ; but also they can't unsee their own inadequacy to their own lives driven by their own buying into bullshit. Whether this actually does anything is, of course, up to them ; and, just as of course, up to you.

The other circumstantial item of note is the young women in the nude. The particular mix of pretended "fear" and genuine curiosity, the yelling and the excitement, the very natural if very obstinately disavowed interaction between the wet maidens and the penis... it's well done, really. I can't readily recall to mind another instance of this particular anthropometric measure so correctly rendered on celluloid, making this film immortal from that certain perspective.

And so it goes...

1. 1981, by Bob Clark, with a (nude) Kim Cattrall (the chick pretending to whoredom three decades later with horseface & co) debutante and some other (just as nude) random girlies. [↩]