Boselli 1

John Boselli

Dr. Cooper

English 339

7 May 2013

The meat shot that closes Boogie Nights offers the audience no orgasmic release; it owes its
stimulating potential to the stag film tradition. Throughout the film, the supporting characters marveling at
his penis creates a sense of jealousy within the audience, quite similar to the hype of the split beaver shot in a
hard-core pornographic narrative. Once it is finally revealed, it lacks a money shot which, while an obvious
necessity on director Paul Thomas Andersons part in order to secure a widespread theatrical release, casts a
sad shadow on Digglers persona and renders him as more feminine than male. Of the pornographic shots that
typically objectify women, the two dominant approaches are the striptease the savor of gradual feminine
submission and the split beaver shot the genital event and grand reveal and Wahlbergs unfurling of
his prosthetic member.
Unlike Deep Throat, where Lovelaces sexual awakening comes at the expense of her own
gagging, potential self-degradation, Boogie Nights features one phallus insistence (not all, as in Throat),
where Eddie Adams/Dirk Digglers liberation comes through his own penis exceptionalism. The final lines
of the film may as well be spoken by his endowment, about which the shot is centered: I'm a star, I'm a star,
I'm a star. I'm a star. I'm a star, I'm a big bright shining star. However, a male porn actor is the sum of his
inches and the how far his money shot flies, not his personality. Therefore, the image of his semi-erect penis
does not convince us of his virility. A womans faking of her orgasm is simple; it is a predominantly auditory
phenomenon. However, a male cannot feign an ejaculation without producing material evidence, which would
require ejaculation. Digglers talents come off as hollow. The split beaver-like shot we are given does not
bring us into the circle of knowledge of which the other characters are members. Rather, we feel cheated,
unconvinced, deprived of the mysteries the shot normally illustrates.