UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Obscenity Regulation and Film Exhibition: Policing Gay and Feminist Media Industries in Southern California, 1960 to 1979 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9ws5n61j Author Freibert, Finley Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Obscenity Regulation and Film Exhibition: Policing Gay and Feminist Media Industries in Southern California, 1960 to 1979 DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Visual Studies by Finley Freibert Dissertation Committee: Associate Professor Bliss Cua Lim, Chair Professor Lucas Hilderbrand Associate Professor Victoria E. Johnson 2019 © 2019 Finley Freibert TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv CURRICULUM VITAE vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: Obscenity Law and the California Adult Film Industry: Continental Theaters, 1961-1969 51 CHAPTER 2: Producing Interracial Queer Americana: Audience Stakeholders and Racial-Sexual Contracts in the Production and Exhibition of Song of the Loon 93 CHAPTER 3: Feminist Alchemy: Nancy Lindsey and the Policing of Distribution and Exhibition in Southern California in the 1970s 145 CONCLUSION: Archival Outrage 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY 202 APPENDIX I: FBI FOIA Response from November 29, 2017 233 APPENDIX II: FBI FOIA Response from October 3, 2017 235 APPENDIX III: Document Release in FBI FOIA Response from December 27, 2017 236 ii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: “Bigger Than ‘The Raw Ones,’” Advertisement. 74 Figure 2: Five Continental ads for gay-oriented programming featured in Los Angeles Times. 79 Figure 3: “Open All Night: Gendre Switch,” Advertisement. 82 Figure 4: Park Theatre advertisement for Lizzie and Lezzie in Los Angeles Free Press. 87 Figure 5: Song of the Loon image used in the film’s one-sheet. 119 Figure 6: “Song of the Loon: World Premiere Engagement,” Advertisement. 131 Figure 7: Screenshot from Song of the Loon’s opening credits. 132 Figure 8: Photocopy of police photo of theater façade. 146 Figure 9: Photocopy of second police photo of theater façade. 147 Figure 10: In the Adult Movies/Entertainment section of Los Angeles Times, four Sun Film Group Ads. 163 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to my advisor, Professor Bliss Cua Lim, whose encouragement and enthusiasm for my project knew no bounds. Professor Lim’s generosity with her time and constructive feedback on my work were instrumental in making my dissertation a success. I am also grateful to those who served on my dissertation committee and my earlier dissertation prospectus committee for their suggestions and feedback on this dissertation: Lucas Hilderbrand, Victoria E. Johnson, Kristen Hatch, and Rachel S. O’Toole. While working on this project I was lucky to meet many vibrant, generous, and inspiring researchers. For the conversations and sharing of resources I thank Peter Alilunas, Brandon Arroyo-Vazquez, Heather Berg, José Capino, Lynn Comella, Desirae Embree, Jeffrey Escoffier, Elena Gorfinkel, Laura Helen Marks, Devin McGeehan Muchmore, Ryan Powell, Gayle Rubin, John Paul Stadler, Whitney Strub, and Bryan Wuest. I am especially thankful to Whit Strub for the numerous conversations, and for his consistent encouragement and generosity throughout this research and writing process. I am also particularly grateful to Desirae Embree for the friendship and generosity. Desirae has shared resources and been a really solid friend since we met at the 2018 SCMS in Toronto. Additionally, I am thankful to Chuck Roy, Jack Fritscher, Toby Ross, Tom DeSimone, and Joe Rubin for the generative conversations about my research subjects. I am grateful to UC Humanities Research Institute, which provided me with 2018-19 UCHRI Graduate Student Dissertation Grant, supported in part by the University of California Office of the President MRPI funding MR-15-328710. This project could not have been accomplished without the access and resources of numerous archives and libraries. I thank the numerous archivists and librarians that generously shared their knowledge and resources throughout my dissertation research, inclusive of librarians and archivists at UCI, UCLA, the ONE Archives, the GLBT Historical Society, and the LBJ Presidential Library. I am particularly grateful to Michael Oliveira. For the friendship and comradery in the Visual Studies Program at UCI, I thank Shane Breitenstein, Dan Bustillo, Samantha Carter, Meghan Chandler, Kylie Ching, Marianna Davison, Maggie Dethloff, Graham Eng-Wilmot, Julian Francolino, Kristen Galvin, Racquel M. Gonzales, Anirban Gupta-Nigam, Eric Hahn, Laura Beltz Imaoka, Sharrissa Iqbal, Tavleen Kaur, Matthew Knutson, Benjamin Kruger-Robbins, Mary Schmitt, KT Wong, and Jessica Ziegenfuss. I’m particularly grateful to Ben Kruger-Robbins, KT Wong, Kristen Galvin, Maggie Dethloff, and Jessica Ziegenfuss. Ben Kruger-Robbins has been a supportive and encouraging friend throughout our time at UCI, and provided constructive feedback and conversation on numerous drafts of this dissertation. Kristen Galvin took me to the ONE Archives for my first visit and also has shared resources with me since I started this program in 2014. KT Wong and I have several shared interests, and KT has been an inspiration through our many generative conversations about research and navigating graduate school life. Maggie Dethloff and Jessica Ziegenfuss have iv been longtime friends in the program and were instrumental in my success by providing feedback, support, and mentorship throughout the years. Finally, I could not have completed this project without the friendship and love of the following people: Patrick C., Louise S., Charlie, Molly, Diana, Mark, Susan, Noel, Lauren, and Leslie. v CURRICULUM VITAE Finley Freibert DEGREES 2006 B.A. in Mathematics, Cum Laude, DePauw University 2008 M.A. in Mathematics, University of Louisville 2012 Ph.D. in Applied & Industrial Mathematics, with Distinction (Dean’s Citation), University of Louisville 2016 M.A. in Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine 2019 Ph.D. in Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine FIELDS OF STUDY Media Industry Studies and Histories, Censorship and Regulation, Distribution and Exhibition, Queer Film History, Critical Legal Studies, Archival Historiography, Bisexual Cultural History SELECTED PUBLICATIONS “From AIDS-Era Queer Icon to Sanitized Nostalgic Property: The Cultural Histories of Bettie Page Merchandise Circulation.” Film Criticism 42, no. 2 (November 2018). “Scream Queens and Queer Dreams: The Politics of Monotony and Zoning Out in Jesús Franco’s Direct-to-Video Productions.” In The Films of Jess Franco, edited by Antonio Lázaro-Reboll and Ian Olney, 211–41. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2018. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Obscenity Regulation and Film Exhibition: Policing Gay and Feminist Media Industries in Southern California, 1960 to 1979 By Finley Freibert Doctor of Philosophy in Visual Studies University of California, Irvine, 2019 Associate Professor Bliss Cua Lim, Chair In the 1960s and 1970s California was simultaneously at the forefront of the American adult film industry and a central stage for queer organizing and struggle. However, the links between queer history and adult film history extend beyond geographic proximity. In this period, the adult film industry embraced lucrative, but sexually illicit content that positioned it and its films as “deviant” from the postwar norms of heterosexual consumer culture. Queer “deviance” formed the connective tissue between this industry and its perceived obscenity both because sex in public was an illicit matter and because queer audiences, spaces, and content contributed significantly to the economic viability of the adult film industry in these decades. Despite adult- oriented motion pictures’ origins in the profit motives of exploitation cinema, queer-oriented industry practices, whether intentionally or not, facilitated forms of public queer visibility. Moving beyond representational approaches to adult film, this study’s examination of production, distribution, and exhibition foregrounds modes of censorship that range from business restrictions on market availability to law enforcement’s stringent policing of exhibition spaces under legal regimes such as obscenity. A heteronormative lens of legal rhetoric and vii enforcement sutured a perceived triad of obscenity, queerness, and contaminated public space onto the adult film industry and its patrons. Ultimately, the regulation and policing of California’s adult media industries in the 1960s and 1970s negatively impacted the niche media, spaces, and consumption sites that had energized the formation of marginal, queer audiences in this crucial period of film history. viii INTRODUCTION An independently produced noir-thriller starring Hollywood heartthrob Sal Mineo, Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) narrativizes mid-20th century social anxieties concerning the noxious effects of “obscene” media consumption in general, and the exhibition spaces and audiences of exploitation films in particular. After meandering through the bustling nighttime streets of early 1960s Times Square, a troubled and reserved young adult, Lawrence Sherman, becomes entranced by myriad sexually suggestive commodities and forms of adult entertainment beckoning from the window displays of business establishments. Sherman, played