The Girl Next Door: Can a DP Lead to Happiness?
Dateline: 4/14/00
How
sexy is intercourse pool side? Under lights, surrounded by a team of camera
men and cigar smoking producers? What if you throw in some ants, a swarm of
red, biting ants. In the documentary The
Girl Next Door, adult entertainment star Stacy Valentine, naked,
mid penetration, stops shooting in to disrupt a colony of ants. Naked, while
the men watch, Valentine sweeps away the ants. Production starts. It's not sexy.
It's not glamorous. It's sort of funny. Sort of sad. Mainly, it's sad.
Director Christine Fugate spent two years following the career of Stacy Baker, a housewife from Oklahoma who left her domineering husband and dull suburban life to become Stacy Valentine, one of the biggest adult entertainment stars in the business. A day in the life of Stacy Valentine will take you to the movie set for a DP (double penetration), to the tanning salon, the plastic surgeon for numerous unncessary improvements, and the hypnotherapist.
Fugate's documentary style is intimate and unnerving, following Valentine to the plastic surgeon, filming first the removal of a breast implant, later a liposuction, and then finally, an injection of collagen into Valentine's lips. The camera lingers on the magic markers, razor blades, and needles that recreate Valentine's skin. Valentine goes through drastic measures to maintain the body of a porn star. She puts herself at constant risk and the result is a woman who hardly seems real. Valentine appears as a living Barbie doll, blond, big chested, an all American fantasy.
But she is also nearing thirty, aging, sagging, and trying to keep up. In one scene, she is put into a pig suit and asked to strip. In another scene, she is dressed up as Marilyn Monroe. "Looking good, Tracy," the photographer calls out as she poses. "It's Stacy," Stacy answers.
You also see Stacy at home, with her cats and with her new boyfriend, a beefy porn actor who occasionally stars in movies with her. You also see Stacy driving, Stacy in a session with her counselor trying to maintain positive energy. You see Stacy with her mother, who is bewildered but supportive of her daughter's career. A porn star, just like every one else, has a day-to-day to existence. You cannot leave this film without being aware of Valentine as a person, and the marked separation of the woman on camera and the woman at home.
The Girl Next Door misses in certain scenes. Fugate is so intent on revealing Valentine's humanity that she sometimes lets the camera linger too long. The long shot of Valentine after she doesn't win Performer of the Year at the Adult Video Awards in Las Vegas feels staged. Fugate follows Valentine out of the theater, into her limo, into the hotel, and ends the shot with Valentine alone in the bed. Fugate should have trusted her audience to understand and analyze Valentine's disappointment.
But the end result is honest, daring and full of contradictions. Valentine is a woman who chooses to support herself in the erotic business. She has achieved a wealth and independence that would have been impossible to the midwestern housewife, and for this she deserves respect. She has her cats, a web site, legions of admirers, and until her looks fade, something like happiness.
Production Notes:
Director: Christine Fugate
Producer: Adam Berns, Christine Fugate, Eren McGinnis
Starring: Stacy Valentine
Running Time: 122 minutes
A Cafe Sisters Production
"The Girl Next Door" opens in New York at the
Screening Room on April 14th. It will be released in Lost Angeles on April 21.
Photo courtesy of Indican Pictures.
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