RSRecommends: 'Circus of Books' reminds us why adult bookstores mattered
Mason basically has three documentaries on her hands — a gay-liberation history, a tale of civil-liberty battles, and an exploration of family dynamics — and the narratives have been stitched into one charming, if uneven, package. It kicks off by quickly sharing the story of the LAPD raid at Silver Lake’s Black Cat Tavern in 1967, and the protests it sparked, and then explains how AIDS decimated the community just as many were creating public lives for themselves.
Her parents — Karen and Barry Mason — didn’t intend to get into porn in the early 1980s, and Rachel connects the dots of how they met Larry Flynt and then took over the shop when the previous owners couldn’t pay their bills. They battle right-wing attacks and anti-pornography and obscenity laws during the Reagan and Bush administrations and through the conservative culture wars.
First and foremost, don’t get it twisted: Karen Mason is not a sweet old Jewish lady. But then again you don’t run a gay porn shop for nearly 40 years by being “nice.” She had a tight grip on the store and her employees, and instilled a Mafia-like secrecy in her children about the true nature of their family’s hardcore business.
In more adept hands, we may have gotten a deeper sociological exploration of what the store meant to those in the gay community. As it stands, through her intimate access, Rachel was able to offer a close-up look at the duplicity, complicity, and audacity of her parents, and the impact it had on her family as well as a larger community.
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