Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has emerged as one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the cultural industries, assuming an unprecedented role in the mainstream of our popular culture at the same time that its content has become more extreme and harsh, more overtly sexist and racist. This eye-opening and disturbing film tackles the complexity behind this seeming paradox, placing the voices of critics, producers, and performers alongside the observations of men and women as they candidly discuss the role pornography has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships. Honest and non-judgmental, The Price of Pleasure moves beyond the liberal versus conservative debates so common in the culture to paint a myth-busting and nuanced portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, liberty and responsibility have become intertwined in the most intimate area of our lives. An ideal tool for initiating classroom discussion about this notoriously difficult subject.

DVD contains two versions: an unexpurgated version (including explicit “hardcore” pornographic images) and a special “blurred” version edited for the classroom. DVD extras include an interview with Noam Chomsky about how and why he accepted an interview with Hustler magazine in 2004, and his candid view on pornography.

Sections: Introduction | Porn Stars: Myths & Realities | Just a Fantasy? | Empowered by Porn? | Harder and Harder… | DVD Extra: An interview with Noam Chomsky

Director & Producer: Chyng Sun & Miguel Picker
Editor: Miguel Picker
Written by: Chyng Sun & Robert Wosnitzer
Associate Producer: Robert Wosnitzer
Assistant Editor: Michelle Chang
Post-Production Supervisor: Miguel Picker
Original Music: Miguel Picker
Sound Design: Miguel Picker
Director of Photography: Miguel Picker
Music: Miguel Picker
Motion Graphics: Miguel Picker

CHYNG SUN | Producer, Director & Writer
Dr. Chyng Sun is a filmmaker and a Master Teacher of Media Studies at McGhee Liberal Arts, School of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. Her research interests include media literacy; race, gender and sexuality in media; and audience research/media effects. With Miguel Picker, Sun produced the documentaries Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood and Corporate Power and Beyond Good and Evil: Media, Children and Violent Times (both distributed by the Media Education Foundation). She has been researching the topic of pornography since the summer of 2004. Together with Robert Wosnitzer and two other scholars, Sun designed a large-scale research project on the content of the most-rented pornographic movies of 2005. Her forthcoming book Fantasies Matter (working title) will be published by the Peter Lang Publishing Company in 2010.

MIGUEL PICKER | Producer, Director & Editor
Miguel Picker worked at WGBH-TV in Boston for over 15 years as an editor. His editing credits include La Plaza, Greater Boston Arts, and a 52-part national series titled Destinos. He also has produced and directed programs for WGBH, including Como Hacemos, Duo and The Early Music Workshop. He has produced and directed numerous independent projects as well, such as Francisco Mendez – The Portrayal of a Cuban Painter and A Day in Martha’s Vineyard. Picker is also a musician and composer, and has worked with a wide range of art institutions and public foundations, including PBS, the Boston Ballet and the New England Conservatory. Picker moved to New York City in the summer of 2004, and his recent projects include editing and music composition/production for the award-winning documentary The Borinqueneers (2007), and co-directing and editing Ulises’ Odyssey (2009), a documentary on Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile in 1970’s and its aftermath.

ROBERT WOSNITZER | Co-writer & Associate Producer
Robert Wosnitzer is a doctoral student at New York University’s Department of Media, Culture and Communication, and an adjunct instructor at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He teaches courses in media, business, politics, and globalization. Prior to his academic career, Robert worked in the field of investment banking capital markets, coordinating the trading and placement of debt-related securities for over a decade. In his current research, Robert draws on critical theory to engage the dynamics of cultural and economic globalization. He is doing research on the cultural implications and patterns in relation to microfinance as a circuit of global capital, and its structuring of identity formations. Robert’s research and writing also includes a large-scale content analysis study investigating aggression, authorship, and ideology within popular pornographic videos, co-authored with Drs. Chyng Sun, Erica Scharrer and Ana Bridges; critical analysis of race in the Academy-Award winning film, Crash, co-authored with Dr. Robert Jensen; constructions of race and gender in film texts; and critical media pedagogy.

“When we discuss pornography in my classes, we always begin with what seem to the wrong conversations — the actress’s choices; no harm, no foul; being pro-porn is just being pro-sex; men don’t have to be rapists to like it — always defensive and dishonest. I’ve been waiting for a film that was neither sanctimoniously scolding nor callously celebratory. And finally, there is The Price of Pleasure — a film to help us really “see” what we have been looking at, and to enable us, finally, to talk about how pornography informs our actual lives. It’s powerful, and I will use it immediately in my classes.”
- Michael Kimmel | Professor of Sociology | SUNY Stony Brook

“Deeply disturbing but profoundly important.”
- Jean Kilbourne | Creator, Killing Us Softly 3 | Author, So Sexy So Soon

“An intense, powerful documentary that will open up painful but necessary discussions about pornography’s role in shaping our identities, our relationships, and our culture.”
- Rebecca Whisnant | Associate Professor of Philosophy | Director of Women’s and Gender Studies | University of Dayton

“With original research, footage of popular pornographic films, insights from academic experts, interviews with sex workers and even pornographers, The Price of Pleasure educates viewers about the prevalence and increasingly violent content of contemporary pornography. Advocates of sexual freedom, as well as activists committed to ending sexual exploitation against women, find common cause in Chyng Sun’s compelling argument: contemporary pornographic films illustrate conventional, not deviant, attitudes about women’s sexuality. Viewer alert: gazing through the pornographic worldview will turn your stomach. Eat lightly before you watch this!”
- Bernadette Barton | Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies | Morehead State University | Author of Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers

“On the pro-pornography side, interviewees include entrepreneurs who profit from porn (including co-eds who publish explicit magazines and make hardcore films), lobbyists instrumental in securing legal protection for pornographers, and consumers who freely admit they enjoy porn. On the other side, interviewees include scholars and pop culture critics who talk about porn’s objectification of women, the unsettling fact that violence against women is often employed as a means of arousal, and the observation that some individuals find their ability to develop gratifying relationships in the real world impaired by their addition to porn. Sure to provoke heated discussion…”
- Video Librarian