I'm having mixed feelings about promoting this new documentary film Island by 25-year-old filmmaker Ryan Sullivan (pictured below right). It started as a documentary about the notorious San Francisco porn studio, Treasure Island Media, but as I looked at the clips from it, there is a lot more to this film than meets the eye. (By being "more than meets the eye", does that alone qualify it as art? I dunno, read on.) The press release and promotional bullshit is below, but I need to make a disclaimer first.
As many people know, Treasure Island Media made waves as the first break-out gay studio to market "bareback" videos as a niche unto itself. Other gay porn studios reluctantly went all condom in the early 1990's either by personal guilt or by political pressure. As bareback movies gained in popularity, due in part to Treasure Island Media's promotion of the naughtiest of taboos, the old guard couldn't (or wouldn't) backtrack on their no-condom stance without major egg on their face. In an industry made up of rebels, misfits, and outcasts, it's hard to market a video with rubbers as "raunchy" when a disturbingly raunchy video without rubbers is on the next shelf.
Since I haven't been active on the production side lately, I've been spending my time promoting products and websites from other companies. I made the decision years ago to not promote bareback products and I've stuck to it. A few years ago I got on my soap box at adult industry conventions and pushed for more harm reduction in porn. It stirred a lot of people up, and I'm glad I did it, but in retrospect, I have to concede that the war against bareback porn has been lost.
So now comes this fascinating movie about an outlaw porn studio. I would like to like this movie, but I am having trouble with it. Well before young Ryan Sullivan stumbled upon Treasure Island Media, the studio had the slogan, "More of a cult than a porn studio." The disturbing part of the documentary is that in the subtext of the movie, that slogan seems to ring true.
I haven't seen the whole finished film, but I spent a good deal of time watching clips on the website RyanSullivanIsland.com. I must admit the talent of the filmmaker in story telling and imagery is unquestionable, but is it still a "documentary" if the filmmaker has fallen head first into the cult?
In 2001, Ryan Sullivan's older brother John was kicked out of the house for being gay, and they were estranged for years afterward. While going through his brother's stuff, Ryan found a DVD from Treasure Island Media, which began the young film maker's quest to learn more about cult leader Paul Morris. He put himself on a bus from Nebraska to San Francisco to create the definitive exposé of the notorious porn studio.
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