Taking a page out of the Kinsey Reports and turning it into a documentary, Deborah Anderson musician and photographer, brings Aroused to DVD. The interesting, titillating and somewhat entertaining documentary takes a look up-close at porn stars and their trials and tribulations of their lives in the Biz. Beautifully photographed with clean and clear video, the production gets high marks for cinematography. Content however, really never does more than give a one sided opinion of the world’s oldest profession.
Diving into the looking glass, director Anderson introduces each of the 15 plus porn actresses with ages ranging from 22 to 41. Each has a story to tell about their past, present and future aspirations. While the stories a similar talking about coming from a bad home, no home or dead end jobs a few do admit they got into the business because they were drawn to it. The most common reason involves seeing an ad for a movie role and finding it was a film that involved using her body for sex. Rejected by some on the outset, finding the money exceptionally good and without funds they dabbled in their new found profession finding it to be something that would not only provide a living, but pleasure as well.
Each of the women in the film is real and they give their viewpoints on the business, how they moved up the ladder to star quality and living the lucrative life. “Under all the make-up is a real person” seems to be the tone of the film and to all acting in a pornographic film a profession like any other. Subliminal messages of sex can be heard and seen in magazine ads, television spots and the internet because sex sells, says Anderson. The point I found here is that pornography has become a part of life in America and has moved from a dirty profession to one of providing an outlet for gratification by both men and women.
The film points out the dangers of the profession beyond STDs with hovering possibilities of death from AIDS and even drugs that most all are using. They skirt the aspect of religion in their lives giving views of how it affects them. Some talk about their husbands and children, parental relationships and how they feel they are living ordinary lives.
Anderson claims that her film is not a story about pornography but one of women, their dreams, desires and their lives. But, the underlying factor in all the interviews gave me the impression that like the women in the film, Anderson was using them to feed her own desires of creating a personal picture book while delivering all the glamour to her audience for monetary gain. Am I saying that she’s no different than the ladies who sell their bodies as a profession? Well that’s something you’ll have to conclude for yourself. Maybe she should have gone to the darker side of the business as a comparison because that would have made a better story.
Participating in the film were Misty Stone (25), Ash Hollywood (22), Asphyxia Noir (22), Katuni (32), Alexis Texas (26), Belladonna (30), Brooklyn Lee (22), Francesca Le (41), Teagan Presley (26), Lisa Ann (39), Allie Haze (24), Kayden Koss (26), Tanya Tate (33), Jesse Jane (31) Lexi Belle (24) and April O’Neil (24).
The film has some amazing photography that’s widescreen projected very well on my HD Television. Her close-ups come across very clean and clear with even the make-up at times not being able to cover up the imperfections in the beautiful women. However, if you are a male, you’ll not even notice.
The sound quality using the Dolby Digital 5.1 comes across clear without distortion. All of the dialogue is easy to understand and has been perfectly recorded.
Aroused has not been rated by the MPAA, but does contain nudity, sex and language. In keeping with the documentary style of the film some of the dialogue content may be shocking to some and overly ingratiating to others.
Specifications and additional film information:
- Cast: 16 actresses, make-up artists, one pornographic film producer and Deborah Anderson as interviewer
- Directed by: Deborah Anderson
- MPAA Rating: Unrated
- Genre: Documentary
- Running Time: 1 hr 9 min
- Video Release Date: June 4, 2013
- Original Film Release Date: May 3, 2013
- Language: English
- Format: DVD
- Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Video: Widescreen enhanced for televisions
- Number of Discs: 1 disc
- Distributed by: Ketchup Entertainment
