September 15, 2011 | Arts / Entertainment

Film will follow a 90's teen's quest for porn

Remember porn magazines like Inches, Playguy and Honcho? From the 1970s, when US censorship laws were liberalized, to the mid-nineties they were one of the major porn delivery systems, and even got along in a cross-promotional way with porn on videocassette and DVD. Then the Web had its transformative effect, offering unlimited sexy pics as well as privacy. As Web porn proliferated, those monthly portfolios of still images on paper just couldn't compete.

In "the time before" teen boys sought out porn magazines. And if you were gay you were more likely to pilfer smut mags from the corner store, since walking up to a clerk with evidence of your proclivities in hand was unthinkable. This verbotten collection would be stashed away where no one else would ever find it; the danger of being caught injected an extra thrill in paging through the pictures of fantasy lovers. 

Sound like the seed for a gay movie? Film maker  Adam Baran thinks so. He's working on Jackpot, a film set in 1994, about a 14-year-old boy who goes on a quest to find a stash of gay porn and get it home before anyone finds out. When he runs into bullies, he's forced to rely on the help of one of the coverboys from the porn stash who materializes into a guiding spirit and helps him fight back.

Right now Baran is looking for help in getting a short made. From there he hopes to find investors to make a full-length feature. He's set up a page on the fund raising website Kick Starter and here's his pitch.