Animal Farm (video)
Encyclopedia
Animal Farm is the street name given to an infamous underground
pornographic
film containing scenes of explicit bestiality
that was smuggled
into Great Britain
in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Most of the films starred the Danish
Bodil Joensen
.
boom, a videocassette of indeterminate origin began to circulate in underground circles that became known simply as Animal Farm. It contained a plotless series of extremely graphic scenes of zoophilia, including acts of intercourse and fellatio performed with pig
s, horse
s and even chicken
s ("avisodomy"), as well as a scene in which a woman inserts live eel
s into her vagina
. To this day, Animal Farm remains one of the most notorious and controversial videotapes ever to find its way to British shores.
The material that constitutes the Animal Farm bootleg was apparently smuggled through British Customs in the Spring of 1981 by a tourist. It eventually found its way under the counters of various Soho stockists and was eventually prosecuted following a series of police raids — but not before countless bootleg
s had gone into circulation. It was discovered that the video actually comprised several short XXX-rated films from the Danish company Color Climax, which had been producing a steady stream of extreme pornography since the Danish government made all pornography
legal in 1969. To keep up with the growing demand for video titles, Color Climax had taken to transferring their stocks of 8 mm and 16 mm animal films onto cassette, and it was these films — mostly starring Bodil Joensen
— that composed the Animal Farm video, hence its generic title (which at no point appears on the screen) and shadowy origins. It is possible that some of the material was taken from Alex de Renzy
's 1971 cash-in feature Animal Lover, which actually managed a brief cinema run in the liberal atmosphere of San Francisco, and whose entire second half consists of the "distinctively amateurish, shaky, clumsily-shot lurid colour footage" familiar to anyone who has seen the Animal Farm bootleg.
, The Real Animal Farm, as part of their Dark Side of Porn season. Several interviewees, including David Kerekes (co-author of Killing For Culture and See No Evil), author Phil Tonge, feminist writer Germaine Greer
and British pornographer Ben Dover
, all confessed to having seen bootlegs of Animal Farm in the 1980s, but were apparently unaware that there was no such film - the entity referred to as such was merely a number of existing zoophilia shorts tacked together. Tonge described the owner of the copy he saw as an "evil, evil scumbag" and recalled how several "hard lads" either "left the room" or "vomited", Dover remarked that owning the bootleg was a useful aid to games of one-upmanship, since nothing could top the on-screen depravity of Joensen and her co-stars, and the normally easy-going Kerekes was moved to remark that "you can only wallow in filth for so long, and Animal Farm represents the very bottom of the barrel". Its impact on viewers was compared to that of hearing for the first time about the Kennedy assassination.
The documentary also told the story of Bodil Joensen
, a psychologically traumatized
young woman whose brief notoriety as the 'Queen of Bestiality' was followed by a downward spiral of alcohol abuse
and prostitution
before her death of cirrhosis
of the liver
at the age of forty, and featured an interview with the Danish pornographer Ole Ege. The 1970 documentary, A Summer's Day, apparently formed at least some of the content of the Animal Farm bootleg, having been shown at the "Wet Dreams" pornography film festival beforehand.
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...
pornographic
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
film containing scenes of explicit bestiality
Zoophilia
Zoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
that was smuggled
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
into Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Most of the films starred the Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
Bodil Joensen
Bodil Joensen
Bodil Joensen or Bodil Jørgensen was a Danish pornographic actress born in the village Hundige, near Copenhagen...
.
History
In the early 1980s, during the British home videoHome video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
boom, a videocassette of indeterminate origin began to circulate in underground circles that became known simply as Animal Farm. It contained a plotless series of extremely graphic scenes of zoophilia, including acts of intercourse and fellatio performed with pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
s, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s and even chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
s ("avisodomy"), as well as a scene in which a woman inserts live eel
Eel
Eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 20 families, 111 genera and approximately 800 species. Most eels are predators...
s into her vagina
Vagina
The vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
. To this day, Animal Farm remains one of the most notorious and controversial videotapes ever to find its way to British shores.
The material that constitutes the Animal Farm bootleg was apparently smuggled through British Customs in the Spring of 1981 by a tourist. It eventually found its way under the counters of various Soho stockists and was eventually prosecuted following a series of police raids — but not before countless bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
s had gone into circulation. It was discovered that the video actually comprised several short XXX-rated films from the Danish company Color Climax, which had been producing a steady stream of extreme pornography since the Danish government made all pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
legal in 1969. To keep up with the growing demand for video titles, Color Climax had taken to transferring their stocks of 8 mm and 16 mm animal films onto cassette, and it was these films — mostly starring Bodil Joensen
Bodil Joensen
Bodil Joensen or Bodil Jørgensen was a Danish pornographic actress born in the village Hundige, near Copenhagen...
— that composed the Animal Farm video, hence its generic title (which at no point appears on the screen) and shadowy origins. It is possible that some of the material was taken from Alex de Renzy
Alex de Renzy
Alexander de Renzy was an American director and producer of pornographic movies.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Alex de Renzy served in the United States Air Force, serving as a Survival Instructor. Back in the United States, he began making documentary films in San Francisco...
's 1971 cash-in feature Animal Lover, which actually managed a brief cinema run in the liberal atmosphere of San Francisco, and whose entire second half consists of the "distinctively amateurish, shaky, clumsily-shot lurid colour footage" familiar to anyone who has seen the Animal Farm bootleg.
TV documentary
In April 2006, the UK station Channel Four Television screened a fifty-minute documentaryDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, The Real Animal Farm, as part of their Dark Side of Porn season. Several interviewees, including David Kerekes (co-author of Killing For Culture and See No Evil), author Phil Tonge, feminist writer Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
and British pornographer Ben Dover
Ben Dover
Ben Dover is an English pornographic actor and director/producer of pornographic movies.-Beginnings in the adult film industry:...
, all confessed to having seen bootlegs of Animal Farm in the 1980s, but were apparently unaware that there was no such film - the entity referred to as such was merely a number of existing zoophilia shorts tacked together. Tonge described the owner of the copy he saw as an "evil, evil scumbag" and recalled how several "hard lads" either "left the room" or "vomited", Dover remarked that owning the bootleg was a useful aid to games of one-upmanship, since nothing could top the on-screen depravity of Joensen and her co-stars, and the normally easy-going Kerekes was moved to remark that "you can only wallow in filth for so long, and Animal Farm represents the very bottom of the barrel". Its impact on viewers was compared to that of hearing for the first time about the Kennedy assassination.
The documentary also told the story of Bodil Joensen
Bodil Joensen
Bodil Joensen or Bodil Jørgensen was a Danish pornographic actress born in the village Hundige, near Copenhagen...
, a psychologically traumatized
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
young woman whose brief notoriety as the 'Queen of Bestiality' was followed by a downward spiral of alcohol abuse
Alcohol abuse
Alcohol abuse, as described in the DSM-IV, is a psychiatric diagnosis describing the recurring use of alcoholic beverages despite negative consequences. Alcohol abuse eventually progresses to alcoholism, a condition in which an individual becomes dependent on alcoholic beverages in order to avoid...
and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
before her death of cirrhosis
Cirrhosis
Cirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of liver tissue by fibrosis, scar tissue and regenerative nodules , leading to loss of liver function...
of the liver
Liver
The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals. It has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
at the age of forty, and featured an interview with the Danish pornographer Ole Ege. The 1970 documentary, A Summer's Day, apparently formed at least some of the content of the Animal Farm bootleg, having been shown at the "Wet Dreams" pornography film festival beforehand.