Larry Flynt
By: Jessica • Essay • 654 Words • November 18, 2009 • 1,137 Views
Essay title: 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