Adam Brody on porn: “It’s probably perpetrated more good than bad; I mean it’s probably pacified us”

We are living in an absolute maelstrom of OC-related content as we pass the tenth anniversary (August 5th) of the best teen soap ever, but off to a different angle, here’s an interview at Salon with Adam Brody about his role playing porn star Harry Reems in the soon-to-be-released movie Lovelace.

He gets very Seth Cohen-y when asked about the sex-positivity of the movie — “First of all, everyone has sex, we’re all the product — the result — of sex, so that’s not going anywhere. I think pornography as a whole has probably perpetrated more good than bad; I mean it’s probably pacified us. If you think about these devoutly religious, strict cultures, there’s a lot of violence in those cultures” — and tangles himself up even more from there:

What do you think about “Deep Throat”? Do you think it’s funny, do you think it’s sexy?

Are you talking about the sexual act?

I’m talking about the film. You can tell me what you think about the sexual acts.

Um, um. The movie, do I think it’s sexy? I don’t think it’s sexy. It’s incredibly goofy, it’s very raunchy, I mean, as porn is, as you would expect it to be, but raunchy in another way too — in a goofy-raunchy way where they’re smoking and eating while they’re having sex. It’s like they’re filming a sitcom, and I know porn’s like that now, too, but I don’t know … it’s also very hairy. It’s incredibly hairy….

Do you watch porn outside of preparing for “Lovelace”?

Uh, I won’t get into too many specifics of my personal habits, but, yes, I’m familiar with pornography.

Tell me a little bit about whether this movie … we talked about sex positivity, but do you think it’s feminist to portray Amanda Seyfried as a little bit sexy, but also kind of violated? Do you think it’s not feminist? Do you think it’s neutral?

I think it definitely has a feminist side more than — I mean, some might argue the validity of her story, but this is her story, and if she is to be believed that she was abused, and this is a person from somewhat of a broken home, or at least she did not have support there at all, and was a young girl, and then married very young to an incredibly manipulative, abusive guy, and it’s hard to not see that person as a victim… I think the thing about this movie that’s so nice is, you’d be hard-pressed to see it and leave going, “Oh yeah, she’s just a sexual one-trick pony.” And that’s feminist in the sense, from a male point of view, or at least: On one hand you just objectify the woman and the act — it’s sex and it’s this — and then you see the movie and it’s a lot harder to be aroused. You leave caring about this individual… from that respect, I do think it’s got a feminist angle, certainly.

[Salon]