MANCHESTER, Ky. – Porn producer Skidley Rott thought he’d stumbled across a gold mine: A fast-growing new porn category with a built-in ceiling on production costs so low, a motivated self-starter like himself couldn’t help but turn a handsome profit simply by carving out market share in the new niche.
“As an entrepreneur, I always have one eye on market trends, because if you can get in on the ground floor of a new niche, there’s big money to be had,” Rott said. “So when I started seeing a bunch of mainstream news headlines about ‘poverty porn,’ a light bulb went on in my brain: Here was the perfect solution to my ongoing budgetary problems.”
Never one to hesitate when opportunity knocks, Rott loaded up his Ford Econoline with camera equipment, convinced his trusty production assistant Scotty “Rugburn” Withers to tag along and headed for the hills of eastern Kentucky. Rott had decided to shoot entirely on-location rather than in a studio, knowing if he wanted to create “something legit” he couldn’t fake poverty. He needed to produce an accurate depiction of the real thing.
Rott said he first became aware of his interpretation error concerning the term “poverty porn” while still on his way to Manchester — the seat of Clay County and one of the poorest regions in the U.S. During an overnight stay at a roadside motel just outside Bowling Green, Withers was doing some online research into the presumably lucrative new niche when he happened across articles about TV shows like “The Briefcase” on CBS.
“I was all like ‘uh-oh, I better show this to Skid,’” Withers said. “Because all of a sudden, it seemed like we were barking up the wrong dark alley.”
“Skid was very open to my suggestions the whole time — including the suggestion that maybe Jacob should take off his NASCAR hat during our sex scene.”
—Abigail Bell Clooney
Although he now admits he was initially dismayed by what Withers showed him, Rott quickly decided to forge ahead with his concept anyway, reasoning it was too late to turn back.
“Hey, filling up the gas tank on the old Econoline isn’t free,” Rott said. “Plus, you know the old cliché: ‘In for a penny, in for a long-ass drive to eastern Kentucky to shoot some porn.’”
Unsure how local officials might respond to the news of a pornographer arriving in the area looking for talent and scouting locations, Rott said he decided not to inquire about the possible need for a permit to film in the area.
“I figured if mining companies don’t need a permit to pump contaminated water into the local water supply, I don’t need a permit to shoot a little porno on the back stoop of a double-wide,” Rott said.
Unfortunately for Rott, this was another miscalculation on his part. While there’s no provision in Clay County requiring filmmakers to obtain permits, there’s also no accommodation for would-be pornographers to “do nothin’ ‘cept turn dey goddam van around and git tha hell on outta hyar,” according to Clay County Sheriff Brady Hudd.
“I dunno whar this Rott fella was thinkin’ he wuz, but hyar in Clay Cownee, we don’ cotton to no Hollywood fornicators,” Hudd said. “No sirree. You can just takes all that mess back ta Californee whar it belongs, or you can spen a few months in my jail, eatin’ dry wheat toast and two-day-old baked beans, I tell you whut.”
Asked whether his policy might be a violation of the First Amendment, Hudd laughed and waved off the notion as “a buncha nonsense Yankee talk.”
“Son, I don’ know whut kinda Bible you been readin’, but in tha real one, tha King James, it don’ say nothin’ ’bout no freedom of speakin’ in the First Commandment,” Hudd said. “And it don’ say ‘I be tha Lord and you can say whatever damn-fool thang you want,’ neither. It says: “I tha Lord, and you best not think of praisin’ another Gawd, son, or I’s gonna tell you whut for.’”
Despite Hudd’s warning, Rott pushed ahead with his production plans, conducting his first shoot in mid-June in an out-of-the way spot, hoping to stay beneath what he called Hudd’s “redneck radar.”
“Clay County, as it turns out, is a pretty small area,” Rott said. “But I quickly discovered there are some driveways around here even the sheriff won’t turn down, mostly because people around here aren’t real hospitable when they’re high as shit on meth and drinking whatever liquid it is they brew in those homemade stills of theirs.”
The star of Rott’s first poverty porn feature — tentatively entitled Destitute Debutantes Vol. 1 — is to be Abigail Bell Clooney, a 21-year-old resident of Goose Rock whose only previous acting experience was in a middle school production of The Boy King.
“In a way, porno is easier than them fancy, proper dramaticals,” Clooney said. “For starters, there be way less talkin’ in porn, which is good, ’cause there be a whole lotta that methane stuff in the air ’round here, and that don’ exactly make it easier to remember your lines.”
Clooney’s male co-star, Jacob McReary, is also a first-timer in porn, making his debut in the role of Cleetus Collins, a fugitive from Kentucky justice who initially woos Clooney’s impoverished waitress character by leaving an exorbitant 17-percent tip on a $5 lunch, then closes the deal by showing her his semi-erect penis right there at the diner’s counter.
“It’s really cool, because this is actually the true story of how I met my last boyfriend, Rob,” Clooney said. “Skid was very open to my suggestions the whole time — including the suggestion that maybe Jacob should take off his NASCAR hat during our sex scene. Jacob refused, but it was still sweet of Skid to ask.”
The tentative street date for Destitute Debutantes Vol. 1 is Aug. 26, but Rott said the date could slip if production is delayed by flooding, landslides or the sudden, unexpected and undercover arrival of Steven Segal.
