By David K. Goodin

Yes, you read that right.  Yes, I am serious. 

Stop laughing. 

Well, let me backtrack my thesis even before it is presented.  The sexual (let us say for the moment) hijinks of this infamous “boner comedy” are beyond the realm of good taste, basic human decency, and even contemporary statutory law.  Yikes—all the yikes.  Let me say that from the onset.  It’s right up there with notorious rape-by-deception that is played for laughs in The Revenge of the Nerds (1984).  Here, in the original, we even have predatory voyeurism distastefully displayed in the movie poster itself!  That’s the selling point, the raison d’être for a franchise that came to epitomise the 1980s teen sex comedy genre: Porky’s (1981), Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983), and Porky’s Revenge! (1985).  The 1981 original was unexpectedly successful, inspiring many knockoffs that aimed for mainstream appeal: Risky Business (1983), Weird Science (1985), and of course the entire Revenge of the Nerds franchise. 

So how is Porky’s “woke”[1] exactly?

Well, I need to further restrict my thesis to the first two films—Porky’s Revenge! betraying all the goodwill earned by its two more worthy predecessors.  Did I really just type that sentence?  Yikes.  Ok, let me get into it before I completely sabotage my thesis where I argue how Porky’s takes down evangelical “book banning” hypocrisy, shows women as real people with depth and empowerment (well, eventually), and takes aim squarely at racism by heralding Jewish and Seminole (Native American) leading men vanquishing bigots with courage and moral clarity.

Porky’s (1981)

Admittedly, the franchise does not begin promisingly.  A group of teen boys want their awkward compatriot, Edward “Pee Wee” Morris (Dan Monahan), to have his first sexual experience before graduation.  But first, they want to humiliate him as much as humanly possible by taking advantage of his utter desperation.  Pee Wee is the OG teen incel.  He’s our protagonist, and not exactly a likeable one: an unlovable loser, crude and pathetic, misogynistic, and angry all the time.  His constant humiliations are played for laughs and, supposedly, that makes him endearing?  Like I said, it does not start promisingly. 

But then it shocked me by becoming progressive in ways that defies its forty-year-old expiration date.  The true heart of the film is a subplot where a new student is bullied for being Jewish (Brian Schwartz portrayed by Scott Colomby).  His antagonist is fellow student Tim Cavanaugh (Cyril O’Reilly), the son of a violent and bigoted ex-con, “Slime” Cavanaugh (Wayne Maunder).  Tim, in an attempt to prove his manhood and earn the respect of his convict father, tries to fight Brian.  He loses badly, since Brian has had to learn self-defence to survive.  “Listen, if you’re Jewish, either you learn to fight or you take a lot of shit,” he says with a wry smile to Billy (Mark Herrier), who is a friend to both.

Later, “Slime” confronts Brian at school.  He’s a 33-year-old violent parolee with nothing to lose, and he’s just a high school kid.  Slime taunts him with Jewish slurs, trying goad him to a fight.  Brian is visibly frightened but does not back down. “You get a kick out of this kind of thing, do you?” he defiantly says back.  Slime threatens him again, again belittling his Jewishness.  “Oh, you got a big Jew mouth as well as a big Jew nose … why don’t you try that [self-defence] on me – Jew-boy?”  Brian steps forward, but suddenly Tim jumps between them.  He is battered with a black-eye, the result of his father’s rage for losing the fight to a Jew. 

Slime tells his son to move out of the way, but Tim stands his ground with a defiant, “No!”  Slime snarls, “Who you taking to, boy?”  Tim responds: “Trash, pure trash.”  Slime strikes him full across the face.  The gathered teens are stunned at the violence of the attack.  Tim, calmly and measuredly says to him, “Be sure you’re finished, ‘cause this is the last time you’ll ever lay a hand on me.”  Slime beats him in a rage; his son attempts no defense.  A teacher tries to intervene, Slime throws him to the ground and continues to beat his son.  A parent finally steps in and knocks Slime to the ground.  He backs down as more teachers arrive.

Tim and Brian later become friends, even joking about past teasing.  Tim says, “If we are going to Porky’s, do me a favor and don’t tell ‘em your name is Schwartz.  Those guys are prejudiced out there!”  Brian smiles at him, and Tim smiles back.

Like I said, a really shockingly touching moment of progressive wokeness overcoming violent bigotry, and in a boner comedy no less.  The sequel will double-down on this wokeness, and it’s where we finally get to see misogyny redressed for a main character.

Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983)

Teen girls and women in the original Porky’s are not presented with any complexity or humanity, being merely defined by appearance, reputation, and sexual proclivities.  This will completely change in Porky’s II: The Next Day, a shocking and welcome change.  The female friend of the teen boy cohort, Wendy Williams (Kaki Hunter), is presented in the original as “easy” (that is, promiscuous).  She will be revealed in the second installment as a victim of “slut shaming” from having witnessed boys “skinny dipping.”  In retaliation, they had accused her of every salacious act imaginable.  Wendy had to “own” the bad reputation to survive the social shunning, even though she never “slept around” as everyone said.  The writers then make her the avenging hero of the film when she takes down a predatory politician who is out to seduce her underage vulnerability.  She instead exposes his vices publicly in an exclusive Miami restaurant, just before his re-election.  It scandalizes the press and the political establishment, forcing him to resign.  Pretty damn empowered for the 1980s I must say!

The next highlight of the film is the confrontation between the school principal and an evangelical “bible thumper” over Shakespeare.  Reverend Bubba Flavel (his name played for laughs when mispronounced as “bubble flavor”) insists that Shakespeare is pure obscenity corrupting young minds, proclaiming that it must be banned to protect the children!  The principal, Mr. Carter (Eric Christmas), counters that the Bible is far more scandalous with its sexual themes!  They have an extended verbal fight, each quoting from the other’s works:

Bubba Flavel (Bill Wiley) begins: “What! With my tongue in your tail?” from The Taming of the Shrew. 

Principal carter counters with a verse from the Song of Solomon, Chapter 5.

Reverend Flavel retorts with Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I.

It goes on, back and forth, each showcasing the sexually explicit material in the Bible and Shakespeare, respectively.  The reverend storms off in huff.  “This means war. Holy war!”  He goes to the same politician mentioned earlier in order to get Shakespeare banned from public schools, promising all his voters if he joins this cause—this being a “family values” politician who tries to seduce an underage teen girl, only to discover she indeed has a sting in her tail![2]  The plan to ban Shakespeare fails, undone by the indecency of those who would outlaw it.

The third progressive moment is a reappearance of the anti-racism theme, now expanded to take on the KKK itself.  The male lead for the school play, a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will be John Henry (Joseph Runningfox), a Seminole.  Talk about progressive diversity in casting!  The Klan learns he will have a romantic scene with Wendy, complete with an interracial kiss.  Enraged, the KKK joins forces with Reverend Flavel, again in the name of protecting children from indecency and cultural degradation.  But when the Klan goes to the reverend’s revival, the teens trick them into entering an auditorium instead.  They are confronted by hundreds of Seminole, unable to escape.  Brian (who is Jewish as will be recalled) emerges and informs them that he will shave each of heir heads with an izmel, traditionally used by a Mohel for circumcisions.  The mock “scalping” comes by way of two of their least favored ethnic groups, much to the delight of John, Brian, the teen boys, and the entire Seminole nation.  Then, at the rival, the reverend is exposed by the boys as a purveyor of “stag films” (pornography), much to the horror of his congregation.  Such wokeness!  Racist southern culture and Christian hypocrisy have been the main targets for lampoon throughout.

Yet there is also a missed opportunity that has to be mentioned.  The writers failed to directly redress one most unfortunately lines of dialogue in the first movie.  It transpired when Slime menacingly tells his son, “I’ll make a man outta you yet.”  Tim responds, “If being a man means being like you, I’d rather be queer.”  It seems the writers regretted the gay slur.  In the sequel they have Anthony “Meat” Tuperello (and, no, you don’t want to know why he is called Meat), the biggest and strongest of the highschoolers, play a crossdressing character in dainty female dress, complete with makeup and flowers in his hair.  The play Director assures him that he is only pretending to be a girl.  The boys make fun of him.  But later he “owns it” on stage, unashamed and relishing his costume, cavorting with abandon, even dancing romantically with another male actor—and none of it done sarcastically.  It is at least a “nod” toward acceptance of queerness.  Yet it is far too restrained in my opinion, detracting from what it could have been a wonderful redemption in this most progressive and woke teen comedies from the 1980s.  All they needed was an openly gay and heroic character in the script.  It would have been amazing.

As such, I give it only three out of five Soy Lattes.

Retrospective

I was tasked by Matthew to come up with something “spooky” for Halloween[3]—and what is spookier than watching 1980s boner comedies when viewed with contemporary eyes!  Or so I thought.  Truly, there is still “all the cringe” as one would expect in forty-year-old cultural attitudes toward sexuality being showcased for laughs.  Yet these films still surprised me, in all the right ways.  Even the villain gym teacher, Ms. Beulah Balbricker (Nancy Parsons), whose name is a play on “ball breaker,” is given a redemption arc in the third film, finding true love thanks to the boys and Wendy reconnecting her to a lost boyfriend, an unexpected act of kindness for their recurring antagonist.  

Today we hear Conservative condemn Hollywood for forcing a woke agenda upon audiences in films like Barbie (2023).  This is nothing new.  Art has always been a mirror for society to confront its evils and shortcomings, and used to promote tolerance and inclusiveness.  When done well, the audience never notices the progressive messages in the midst of fun, the laughter distracting from internal barriers subtly coming down.  Porky’s – I dare say – helped bring about the woke revolution in some very small, but significant ways.  It deserves credit for that at least.  And while conservatives claim liberalism is ruining entertainment with politics, forcing an agenda upon us when we just want to laugh for 90 minutes or so, what is really happening is that they “doth protest too much, methinks” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2).

Postscript

But that is not the whole story.  There is a creative divide between authorial intent and audience perception, between what is said and what is heard.  Nowhere is this more clear than in “The Archie Bunker” effect.  All in the Family was a sitcom that aired from 1971-1979, and was the #1 most watched TV program for five of those years.  This was a time when viewing audiences had no cable, satellite TV, internet, VCRs, or any other entertainment options.  Put simply, this show dominated American attention like no other show before or since.  What show creator Norman Lear intended was to ridicule the ignorant bigotry of the older generation, personified in Archie Bunker, who would be set against his liberal son-in-law, Michael Stivic, who is college educated and of Eastern European ancestry (Polish).  Michael was set-up to be the hero of the story, and Archie the horrible, bigoted, xenophobic, misogynistic, and verbally abusive villain.  But that is not how the majority of viewers saw it.

As Lisa Swain (2020) points out, “In 1974, two social psychologists, Neal Vidmar and Milton Rokeach, performed a study of American and Canadian [viewers] … [and] found that 60% of participants saw Archie as the hero rather than Mike and 40% believed Archie consistently won the arguments.”  The conclusion was clear, that rather than deconstructing bigotry through ridicule, what for many happened instead was that it “emboldened their hatred with a bully that championed their concerns.”  The problem, I suggest, is that the sitcom laugh-track enabled the bigots to laugh with Archie Bunker, not at him.  There is not this ambiguity in the Porky’s films.  The bigots are clearly the objects of derisive laughter.

Still, despite its liberal agenda, the Porky’s films are remembered by many, then and today, as a politically incorrect “boys will be boys” glorification of predatory misogyny.  Yet I feel my thesis still holds true despite it all.  These films did deconstruct through sharp ridicule both racism and evangelical bigotry, helping to marginalize such abhorrent beliefs outside the mainstream.  It even, perhaps, shined a light on the pain of “slut shamming” through the empowered personhood and agency of the character Wendy, the hero of the second film.  A meagre beginning, but a beginning nonetheless.

Yet, even so, the not-quite-redeeming qualities of these films were only meant by me to highlight the true point of this little essay.  It was not to defend the Porky’s franchise.  It was to ridicule those who claim that Hollywood is forcing a new “woke” agenda on an unsuspecting audience, indoctrinating them away from the clutches of conservatives and evangelicals.  A secondary aim was to showcase why empowering portrayals of women in film are so necessary today, in part to undo the damage done by the Porky’s franchise, and in part to carry forward its meagre beginnings into the real world – which just so happened to be the plot of Barbie (2023), where the protagonist struggles to be recognized as a real person with depth and agency in a domineering patriarchal culture.

Creatives may not always be able to control the selective reception by the audience, but the laughter they evoke through these cultural comedies does signal a subtle deconstruction of even the worst biases – a death knell for conservative bigots who, clearly, are not Ken-enough to handle Barbie.  But maybe they can muster the courage to take a second look at what is really being said in the Porky’s franchise, if they dare.

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Work Cited

Swain, Lisa. 2020. “The Trap of Liberal Humor: What Makes Us Feel Good May Not Persuade.” Medium, Jan 21.  Available at: https://medium.com/@dissentingpilgrim/remember-when-bigots-were-loveable-thosewerethedays-dce335e685fe

David K. Goodin is Professeur Associé at the Université Laval, and a frequent author and editor for the Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture Series. 

Endnotes

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[1] The word “woke” used in a derogatory sense by Conservatives is a recent phenomenon, resulting from its association with the Black Lives Matter movement (see https://time.com/4830959/oxford-english-dictionary-woke/).

[2] Kathrina: “If I be waspish, best beware of my sting” (Act II, Scene 1, The Taming of the Shrew). 

[3] This blog was a wee bit delayed in publication!  Please consider it for your romantic Valentines Day reading pleasure, lol, and celebrate your love with that special someone with Porky’s this year!