"founder of gonzo is John "Buttman" Stagliano. His wife Tricia Devereaux was kind enough to give us THE definition: Gonzo can take on several different forms. It can vary from the cameraman (in adult, very often the director) interviewing the actors, or participating in the scene with dialogue and/or sex. It can also mean that the actors are simply acknowledging the fact that there is a camera shooting what they are doing. So, although in adult gonzo, the cameraman is usually somehow visible or audible, simply the actors playing to the camera constitutes a gonzo scene. " But what would you reply to someone who came up to you asks:"Hey, you are porn expert. What is gonzo?"
p.s. right forum? A poll? It says: "dive into general porn discussion"
Basically, if "mainstream" porn tries to emulate Hollywood movies with the added attraction of sex, then "gonzo" is meant to emulate documentaries. It's effectively a take on "reality" sex. Originally, when John Stagliano (and soon after Seymore Butts who begat Shane, Rodney Moore who begat all the POV Blowjob movies, Ed Powers and Jamie Gillis, who begat all the pro-am "video virgin/new girl" movies, and so on ...) shot his first Buttman movies, they created the impression that the girls were really just hanging out, and let themselves be talked into a sexual adventure, shot either as a POV (or point of view) scene -- the guy getting his dick sucked is also the cameraman -- or as a regular scene with a male actor (like Rocco Siffredi) acting as a kind of surrogate for the filmmaker (who sometimes would get in on the action as well, narrating, participating, strolling around with the camera on his shoulder). Well, actually, the girls are all porn pros -- 95 % of the time -- and everything is carefully set up to create the illusion of spontaneity.
Gonzo was the name Hunter S. Thompson gave for all his wild scribblings and crazy twisted sagas of drugged out excess. So, in a way, the best gonzo aims to be a little crazy. But has become a kind of generic term for any type of porno that isn't strictly a feature (bigger budget productions) and has wall-to-wall sex. A true gonzo idea would be the midnight prowl website, where porn girls are paid to have sex with total strangers in a sex video store. (Originally, this was a Jamie Gillis thing in the early '90s called "On the Prowl.") "Shanes World: Campus Invasion" series actually DOES verge into real life because they'll get real college kids to have sex on camera (much to their parents' horror, and their later regret when the dean kicks them out of the dorm -- ha ha!!)
I wonder where HST got the word. The dictionary gives this: [Perhaps Italian, simpleton (perhaps short for Borgonzone Burgundian), or Spanish ganso, dullard, goose (of Germanic origin. See ghans- in Indo-European Roots).]
yeah - basically what skronker described. Hunter S. Thompson is the accepted originator of gonzo everything. It's participatory journalism or film making where the writer or filmmaker is an active participant in whatever he is writing about or shooting. Buttman is real gonzo - most of the porn you see shot by gonzo studios is not really gonzo - it's just porn shot without any storyline or written dialogue. Actually remembering some Buttman's it was kinda fake at times. Ed Powers though he didn't shoot POV was maybe more gonzo than Buttman, Ed was alwasy upfront about exactly what he was doing, these were girls who were coming by his place to have sex for the first time in front of a camera, he was a pornographer.
The realest gonzo was a guy in NYC in the 70's named Ugly George who just cruised the streets with a video camera looking for women to screw in alleyways or what have you. It wasn't faked as Buttman is, he wasn't interviewing models beforehand or using a talent agency and then recreating the scene - supposedly what you saw was exactly what happened.
If Bangbus had been real it would have been great gonzo. But they'd probably have to shoot all crack whores. You really aren't going to get many cute girls to get in a van and fuck somebody.
IAFD, supporters of beastiality. Just say no. 7564 Posts 11/02
Posted - Apr 11 2004 : 7:40PM
Question before the house: What has the 'participatory' nature of gonzo to do with its 'documentary' character, with it being fake or not, with it having a narrative structure or not. I don't see any connection between these two claims at all. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place?
ObiBong said: "You get what you pay for, I guess, especially when you pay nothing for web space."
I'm not sure what you're asking there, Walter. To me, it's just the idea of a guy with a camera walking around prompting "strangers" to engage in sex. It's a sexual spoof of cinema verite/DA Pennebaker, and the participatory part is whatever the filmmaker puts of him/herself as a character in the filmed events. Did you see Ross McElwee's "Sherman's March," that's like a Buttman movie without the sex (but plenty of real girls and a goofy, lonely, nerdy guy who narrates, often late at night, filming himself in low light (just like Buttman in the first Buttman movie).
I'm sure I failed to answer you question, but if so maybe you can elaborate?
I saw Sherman's March a long time ago (at least 10 years), about the filmmaker who was trying to revisit all the places that Gen. Sherman went on his march through the South. The funny thing to me was the filmmaker kept being attracted to women who looked alike - slim with long brown hair, all who resembled an old girlfriend of his. He didn't seem to notice this himself. He definitely included himself and his foibles in the movie.
There's some of this playfulness in behind-the-scenes footage in gonzo films, but actual sex scenes can seem quite staged, especially when you see the male performer telling the actress that it's time for ATM, now it's time for anal RCG, etc. Even the pre-sex interviews can be rather formulaic. If porn performers and directors were better actors, I might not notice this so much.
