Circus of Books was a respite for the LGBTQ community, but it couldn't survive the internet. An intimate Netflix documentary traces its history. (From 2020)
, works best as a love letter to her parents, two surprisingly compassionate figures in the gay community who wouldn’t have been so connected if they weren’t selling porn and sex toys to their clientele. The film is stuffed with many threads, possibly too many considering its brief 92-minute run time. But it starts with the Masons’ introduction to the world of pornography, when Barry started distributing various magazines published by Hustler founder Larry Flynt.
The rise of the Masons’ modest empire coincided with both the burgeoning AIDS crisis and the moral panic against pornography led by Reagan Republicans and the Christian right, which led to Barry Mason being convicted on obscenity charges . The Masons aren’t depicted as First Amendment heroes , but rather as everyday business owners who provided a particularly transgressive inventory.
An inevitable element of the documentary is that the Masons’ Circus of Books ultimately failed—and you don’t have to live in Los Angeles to know why the shop shutters by the end of the documentary. The gay bookstore, as an institution, was threatened by two cultural shifts. One is obvious: the internet.
The other shift is the broader mainstream acceptance of the LGBTQ community, which coincided with the internet’s rise. After marriage equality came in the US in 2015 and the assimilation of queer people began taking place, sexual expression became less taboo. Gay men no longer have to hang around in the alley behind a porn shop to find sexual partners—and not just because of hookup apps like Grindr.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Former circus elephants move to lush new sanctuaryFrom circus, to zoo, to paradise. Pocha and Guillermina traveled by road for six days and arrived at their new home in Brazil.
Read more »
Naperville’s Lucy Westlake climbs into record books as the youngest U.S. female to summit EverestThe 18-year-old Naperville North High School student is youngest U.S. female to summit Everest, reaching the peak at 5:36 a.m. Thursday (Nepal time).
Read more »
Animal power, and how to perpetuate wonder: Books in briefAndrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.
Read more »
Teacher unions, school librarians unite to protect sexually explicit booksTwo dozen teachers unions, librarians associations and publishers have formed a coalition to stop a drive by parents to remove sexually explicit LGBTQ books from K-12 school libraries.
Read more »
Let's See How Many Of These Books You Actually Read In High SchoolI'm pretty sure everyone read The Great Gatsby.
Read more »