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The Fluffer
Written by Wash Westmoreland
Directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer
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Everyone loves porn movies, even as they say that they're not very well made. But like with jockstraps and mayonnaise, some are made better then others. And while the ultimate requirement for a porn film is that it gets us hard­ and keeps us hard-enough to get off, movies about porn are a different matter.

One reason there are few films about the porn industry is that it's difficult for a straight (so to speak) narrative film to match itself up with the potential of a porn movie. The idea of a porn film is exciting­ so exciting that it makes the idea of a film about porn unexciting. Sure, there've been a couple of not-bad documentaries­ Sex: The Annabel Chong Story and Shooting Porn. And then there was Boogie Nights, with Mark Whalberg and his John Holmes-like appendage. But Boogie Nights was more about the economic excesses of the 1970s than the porn biz. Now The Fluffer­ written by Wash Westmoreland and directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer­ tackles not only the basic in-and-outs of creating porn (finding considerable humor in the tensions around making your privates public) but also the intrinsic fantasies that fuel both audience and performers. Porn is probably the one type of art in which you might think that the suspension of disbelief is not a problem: after all­ the point of porn is that it's really sex. Yet the fantasies that porn generates rely as much on disbelief as any other narrative form.

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The Fluffer tells the story of Sean McGinnis (Michael Cunio), a film student, who becomes obsessed with porn star Johnny Rebel (Scott Gurney) after he accidently sees him in Citizen Come (Sean thinks he is renting Citizen Kane.) Sean is so smitten that he gets a job at Janus studios so he can be close­ and get closer­ to Johnny. Hired as a gofer and a cameraman he also­ when it's necessary­ becomes Johnny's fluffer, which simply adds fuel to his already raging obsession. Sean wants to be "friends" with Johnny, but that seems unlikely­ not only is Johnny straight (and dating the now-pregnant stripper Babylon (Roxanne Day), but more to the point, he's a self-obsessed, narcissistic speed-freak who mostly means not to hurt people, but can't seem to avoid it much.

There are some exceedingly well-played smaller parts­ Adina Porter is terrific as Silver, a black lesbian who works in the industry. Ruben Madera is great as Hector, the former fluffer. Debbie Harry shines as Marcella, who runs a strip joint. Still, The Fluffer works best when we are just able to savor Sean's emotional and sexual angst. It would have been easy for the film to become cliched or overly sentimental. Cunio's Sean might have been simply pathetic, or (even worse) self-righteous, and Gurney's Johnny might have been a simply lout or (worse) a noble poseur. But Westmorland's script avoids these pitfalls and is driven by a deeply empathetic understanding of the joint hungers of sex and longing. Of course Johnny likes getting "fluffed" by Sean­ admiration is his lifeblood, and we can easily see why Babylon wants to keep her man (and baby), because under the self-admiration and the speed Johnny isn't such a bad guy.

But it's Michael Cunio's portrayal as Sean that makes the film. We can feel not only his sexual desire, but his need to be validated by someone whom he considers more beautiful, more masculine. While he and Babylon might have become mix-matched bookends to Johnny Rebel's stunning body and large ego, the film is careful to let each relationship evolve and mature on its own terms.

Westmorland (who has written and starred in porn films himself) is never dismissive of his characters' sexual desires or emotional needs. When Sean begins to date a nice-enough guy, we feel for him, not because he has a chance at having a relationship, but because we know that his reality can never match his fantasy.

The same is true for Babylon as she tries­ yet again­ to make her relationship work with Johnny even though, being around the block a few times herself, she knows that speed-freaks make very unreliable husbands and fathers.

The Fluffer is a small movie that completely understands its terms­ when it does go a little wrong (as with the last shot: an overwrought homage to that of Truffaut's The 400 Blows) it is easy to forgive, because its writer and director is so forgiving of his characters and their failings.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com