| Perversion for Profit | |
|---|---|
 George Putnam in Perversion for Profit | |
| Produced by | Charles Keating |
| Starring | George Putnam |
| Narrated by | George Putnam |
| Distributed by | Citizens for Decent Literature, Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 31 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Perversion for Profit is a 1963[1] Eastmancolor propaganda film financed by Charles Keating through Citizens for Decent Literature and narrated by news reporter George Putnam. The film argues that sexually explicit materials corrupt young viewers and readers, leading to acts of violence and "perverted" attitudes regarding sex—including inclination toward homosexuality. Although Perversion for Profit was serious in its suggestion that pornography could erode the integrity of American culture, Peter L. Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in a 2003 review that it was "shrill and sometimes comical".[2]
Today, Perversion for Profit is in the public domain, and it has become popular on the Prelinger Archives website and on YouTube. As Peter L. Stein observes in an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, however, the film also has considerable historical significance, serving as a sort of time capsule of pornography from the era as well as an example of historical concerns regarding media influence:
... as the parade of girlie magazine covers, men's physique pictorials and campy S&M leaflets continues, the film betrays a kind of prurience the filmmakers could hardly have intended. What results is a remarkable visual record of midcentury underground literature and sexual appetites, and a gloss on the values of the society that condemned them.[2]
At the time the Chronicle article was written, Perversion was the Prelinger Archive's second most popular download, superseded only by the well-known Cold War film Duck and Cover. Like Stein, ephemeral film scholar Rick Prelinger, founder of the Archive, views such films as illuminating historical documents or what he calls "unofficial evidence of everyday life".[2]
- ^ Strub, Whitney (2013). Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Righ. Columbia University Press. p. 80. ISBN 9780231148870. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
- ^ a b c Stein, Peter L. (August 31, 2003). "A Rejected Genre: Those kitschy and cautionary starchy industrial and educational films provide an Illuminating Peek at the Past 75 Years of American Culture". San Francisco Chronicle (August 31, 2003). Retrieved January 30, 2012.
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