What Larry Flynt was really doing the night
of the opening of Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone.
On Friday the 13th in April 2007 The Right To Be Left Alone, the latest documentary on Larry Flynt had its world premiere as the “center frame” film at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, sponsored by Duke University, The New York Times and HBO. Flynt was even invited as an honored guest, however his brother showed up instead, because Flynt said he was ill. At the opening, his brother said the reason Flynt was not present was not because he was sick. Maybe he was too busy satisfying his fetish for bondage pornography and not leaving women alone by violating their privacy in every way imaginable on his blog.
There were over 2,000 films entered in the Full Frame Festival, and apparently the Flynt documentary was among only one of two films that escaped the critical review process in an otherwise scholarly environment. Full Frame appears to have given Larry Flynt special protection where it could be assured that his critics were kept silent in order to protect Flynt from criticism. Free Speech, anyone?
Full Frame’s motto is “How much reality can you handle?”, but the filmmakers have produced a manipulative and superficial examination of Flynt, one that uses propaganda tactics and takes their audience for a ride. It is indeed a very unreal portrayal of Flynt which includes even “very little nudity” and hypocritically did not mention any of the massive amounts of racist, homophobic and misogynist materials he produced.
For decades Hustler, his hate magazine, has been on sale in almost every convenience store in the country. During that time, with each new issue every month he has declared war on women, feminists, people of color, animals, Jews, the disabled, children, and animal rights activists, as well as other groups or individual who disagreed with him. Flynt has aimed hate speech and harassment against every mistreated or oppressed groups you can think of. A full generation of males have now been raised on contempt like his and he loves it.
Dwayne Tinsley, close personal friend to Flynt, and the creator of the Hustler cartoon “Chester the Molester,” which depicted pre-teen girls of all races being molested, was convicted in 1990 of sexually abusing his daughter. When he was released from prison, after serving his time, Flynt hired him back on at Huster. In February 1996, Hustler publisher Joe Theron was arrested in Britain with 400 videos imported from South Africa, many of them depicting child pornography.
For all this Flynt is being promoted as a free speech hero instead of the greedy, exploitive, racist misogynist he really is. The right to be left alone? The right to be left alone? In his whole life Larry Flynt has never left anyone alone. Flynt has aimed hate speech and harassment against every oppressed groups you can think of. Big man. Big hero. Thanks Duke University, HBO, New York Times and Full Frame Documentary Festival!
Most people who have seen the Larry Flynt movie think they know who Larry Flynt is. A leading figure in the struggle for free speech, who published, according to our modern eyes, quite innocent nudie-photos and some jokes against the right wing conservatives and Jerry Falwell. Sounds cool but it’s a lie.
The real Flynt has little in common with the martyr that he finances people to describe him as. According to his own autobiography Flynt’s first sexual experience was raping a chicken. He killed the chicken to “avoid suspicion”. He has also gone to tremendous degrees in his attempts to silence his daughter from talking about how she was raped by him. He has used his power in the media to attempt to instill intimidation in any who spoke out against pornography. He used his magazine to vilify activist Aura Bogado with hateful, violent and threatening cartoons and articles. In his column called “Asshole of the Month” he has included Barack Obama, Diana Russell, Andrea Dworkin, Dorchen Liedholdt, Gloria Allred, Catharine MacKinnon and hundreds of others. In the 1970s he put out “Wanted Posters” for Gloria Steinem and Susan Brownmiller because they were antipornography. He has offered a bounty on feminists who have been critical against him and done whatever he could to silence whoever would be critical against the racist and misogynic material in his magazines.
The only free speech Larry Flynt really wants is his own and what he wants said, which makes him as much of a defender of free speech as say for example Stalin or Hitler.
Manufactured Contempt 
I love how he offered a “bounty” on feminists who are critical of him, as though anyone in the media ever gave feminist criticism the time of day in the first place. It seems like the widest audience feminists ever reach are via Hustler–not that their genuine positions arrive intact, of course.
Before I got better acquainted with the name Andrea Dworkin, I noticed that the men who comfortably threw around the name under the guise of being well-versed in her politics also happened to be misogynists. Now I know where they got their misinformation, and their sexist attitude toward non-activist women is not at all coincidental. Hmmm…mystery solved!
It’s sad that in the “liberal” media, women’s views are generally silenced (as long as there are enough female news anchors though, the illusion of representation seems like it’s there to the masses who don’t analyze anything beyond a superficial level). But when do women protesters ever get airtime, even on networks that are sympathetic to Al Sharpton and racial rights activists’ protests? Women’s points of view are not just marginalized in the media; they’re entirely absent. The main New York news outlet by me did not even report that Mel Gibson spewed overt sexist harassment toward the arresting officer; they only reported on the anti-semitism when he asked the officer if he was a Jew. I was sad when I learned of the whole story through TMZ.com, of all places. When beyond-ridiculous TMZ.com is reporting more balanced information than mainstream television news, I think it’s time for the masses to get their heads out of the sand and confront how this is happening.
Men who think they’re sympathetic to women have to realize that Hustlerphiles aren’t just a marginal group of sleazy men that rove the gutters among one another in their urban decay; the Flynt Effect resonates everywhere, and throughout all forms of media, not just pornography. Male supremacy is pervasive, and though multifactorial in origin, it feeds on– and flourishes from–this commercialized disdain.
You’re doing a superb job with the graphics for this site, Nikki. I would like a way to share them with others, but don’t want to leave them where children can see them.
Is it true Obama is anti-porn? I mean, is it because of male supremecy and racism or because porn is “offensive”? I’d be interested to know….
–Laur