from www.dailycal.org – With the advent of parody adult films, and this past week’s porn release of Hustler’s “Untrue Hollywood Stories: Lindsay Goes to Jail,” it seems that the sexual (video) revolution is finding itself in a less compromising position.

Niche? Cult? More like edging on mainstream, comedic XXX renditions of celebrated television shows and films – and apparently, current events – are joining the ranks of other fetish pornography while claiming widespread appeal.

Hailing from Los Angeles, the mecca of porn production, companies such as New Sensations and Hustler are at the forefront of this new approach to adult films, notable not only for its often high quality, but also lofty artistic endeavors. Digital Playground and North Carolina-based Adam & Eve’s “Pirates,” released in 2005, became widely popular because of its unusually high production value, containing over 300 special effects shots and an original musical score. With a budget of over one million dollars, the film has won a bevy of AVN Awards, aka the Oscars of porn.

Expanding from James Gunn’s branch of non-nudity PG Porn – “for people who like everything about porn … except the sex” – these adult parodies are rooted in two camps: Those, like “Pirates,” which riff liberally off of the original work’s main premise, and those that are exceedingly faithful to its plot, style and tone.

New Sensations’ “The Big Lebowski: A XXX Parody” [Tom Byron pictured as The Dude] was lauded for maintaining an aesthetic surprisingly similar to that of the original, with an attention to detail prototypical of a new brand of “art porn.”

Lee Roy Myers’ film is one that values quality acting among other production elements, and features a Peter – ho-ho – O’Tool, whose Walter is eerily identical to John Goodman’s.

Admittedly, there are a host of unnecessary puns – much of which give punch with diminishing returns – that depict the senior Mr. Lebowski’s main handicap as erectile dysfunction, and insert the terms “cock,” “johnson” and a variety of other expressions that imply that The Dude has one big Lebowski. (And it’s true: He really does.)

Aside from the gape-factor that such descriptions are prone to elicit, why merge parody with porn at all? As Myers writes in an email, “It is rare to find many (adult films) that have as much entertainment value as they do masturbation value. My philosophy is that a movie can do both if it is done right. I’d like my movies to entertain and turn on an audience at the same time.”

Axel Braun, director of the award-winning “Batman XXX,” holds a similar view: “With the porn parodies we are selling the fantasy of seeing our favorite TV characters come to life and interact in sexual situations. Suddenly porn is not only a masturbatory tool anymore, but an excuse to have fun.”

But who the hell is watching this stuff? And of those that watch, does anyone take the material seriously? Porn parodies are part of a medium that insists on “evolving with the times,” says Myers.

“Piracy via illegal downloading and tube sites are killing off a good chunk of Adult businesses … (Porn parody) opens up the Adult market to demographics of people that porn isn’t typically aimed at: women, couples, first time or seldom buyers, and people like college students who are looking for a more sexual style of comedy.”

With plummeting DVD sales, porn parodies may very well be the saving grace of the adult film industry, providing customers more entertainment bang for their buck. “The Adult industry needed to give consumers a reason to go and buy product instead of downloading free content on the Internet,” says Axel Braun. “(They’re) literally keeping the industry alive.”

While the average porn film from a top studio may sell about 2,000 DVDs in its first month, a quality parody can sell up to 10,000 in the same amount of time. Braun’s “Batman XXX” sold 250,000 DVDs in only its first three weeks, earning the title of the most financially successful porn parody ever made.

The adult film business and the very material it chooses to spoof – look for New Sensations’ June release of “The Golden Girls: A XXX MILF Parody” – are reflective of an industry that is both knowingly sardonic and in tune with its irony-loving, hard-to-impress audience. It’s not as limited in its scope as other porn phenomenons, such as Japan’s fascination with elder porn and yaoi, guy-on-guy romance marketed for girls. Instead, it appeals to a larger and more varied demographic that apparently can’t get enough of watching its favorite films revisited O-ver and O-ver again, at least in the bedroom.