Larry Flynt

Larry Flynt, an infamous photographer and free-speech activist, has brought

about controversy in the film, “The People v. Larry Flynt”. The movie functions as a

general biography, but it focuses on legal issues to a large degree.

Flynt, the editor of Hustler magazine, publicized pornographic obscenities in

many ways. By doing so, he has challenged the First Amendment and the Charter’s

guarantee of the right to free expression.

Larry at first glance seems like an odd figure for a hero. He is outspoken,

opinionated, and perverted. If there is one word to sum him up it would be, unapologetic.

In “The People v. Larry Flynt”, Flynt stood up for his rights, never quit, and never

apologized for what he did.

Flynt started out as a strip joint owner with his younger brother Jimmy. He was

not making any money, so he decided to advertise his dancers in a pictorial magazine.

Eventually Larry gets an offer to publish nude shots taken of someone famous, Jacqueline

Kennedy Onassis.

He decides that this is his big break and decides to do so. This eventually brings

his magazine into the public eye. Flynt gets arrested for this, because it is an alleged

violation of community standards.

In 1976, Flynt was arrested on charges of obscenity and organized crime. The

disputed notion in the trial became the method by which to judge whether something

is seen as obscene or not. Flynt’s initial loss in which he was given a jail sentence,

suggested that individual communities had the right to define what is obscene and thus be

able to control what is sold in stores.

Larry hires a lawyer when he learns he is being taken to court. He ends up with

Alan Isaacman, a young lawyer who defends him from the beginning to his most famous

case. The primary case involving Reverend Jerry Falwell, who is suing Flynt for

defaming him in one of Hustlers’ ads.

After Flynt was released on bail, he stated “we’re the strongest country in the

world today because we are the freest.” He declared that his way of being free, lays in his

pornographic magazine.

Flynt tries to show a point about the communities’ view of obscenity. “What is

more obscene, sex or war?” In the movie, Flynt explains that murder is illegal, but if

you take pictures of it, you’ll be put in a magazine. However sex is legal and if you take

pictures