Porn Studies

ISSN: 2326-8743 (Print) 2326-8751 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rprn20

El Paso Wrecking Corp. (Joe Gage, 1978)

John Kostka

To cite this article: John Kostka (2017) El Paso Wrecking Corp. (Joe Gage, 1978), Porn Studies,
4:3, 319-324, DOI: 10.1080/23268743.2017.1333024

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1333024

Published online: 18 Sep 2017.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rprn20

Download by: [Australian Catholic University] Date: 18 September 2017, At: 17:40
 PORN STUDIES, 2017
VOL. 4, NO. 3, 319–324
https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2017.1333024

El Paso Wrecking Corp. (Joe Gage, 1978)

John Kostka
Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and School of Theater, Film & Television, University of
California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article examines editorial strategies employed by director Joe Received 27 January 2016
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 17:40 18 September 2017

Gage in his 1978 gay pornographic feature El Paso Wrecking Corp. Accepted 24 October 2016
The author argues that through the use of avant-garde and
KEYWORDS
abstract editorial techniques, Gage reframes male bodies and Gay; pornography; editing;
desire in gay pornographic cinema by disassociating the depiction mise-en-scene; orgasm;
of sexual climax from its traditional status as marking the end of a cumshot; homosexual; Joe
sexual encounter. By reframing orgasm as an autonomous Gage
erotographic unit, Gage articulates a free-flowing and fluid
concept of male-male sexual exchange in line with his film’s
broader project of social and cultural critique.

In a series of films directed between 1976 and 1984, Joe Gage (born Tim Kincaid) achieved
the rare feat of branding his persona as a distinct erotic icon, the name becoming synon-
ymous with a certain kind of gay sexual ideal – the hypermasculine ‘soldier, cop,
[and] construction worker’ quickly coming to embody the new, virile image of the post-
Stonewall homosexual (Escoffier 2009, 150–151). Historian Jeffrey Escoffier has called
Gage ‘the man who bridged the older world of the closeted straight man and the new
gay masculine sexuality’ (2009, 151), while Conrad Brewster has observed that Gage’s
films ‘challeng[ed] rigid sex roles and the oppressive stereotypes of a moralistic, heterosex-
ual society that defined homosexuals as effeminate, perverse, or dangerously deviant’
(2011, 26). In the writing of these and numerous other authors, the social and political
impact of Gage’s early work1 has been rightly and extensively explored; however, few
up to this point have delved much into its unique aesthetic qualities. While authors like
Brewster acknowledge Gage’s use of both ‘cinema verite style’ and ‘complex soundtracks’
to create a feeling of ‘anthropological authenticity’ (2011, 26), the myriad non-realist – and
indeed often experimental – uses of editing and mise-en-scène in his work (most notably its
sexual encounters) have gone largely unremarked. Gage’s 1978 feature El Paso Wrecking
Corp. provides perhaps the foremost example of these strategies in action, illustrating
not only how Gage’s proficiency with the cinematic medium elevates his work stylistically,
but also how this use of editing and mise-en-scène works to de-construct and rebuild on
established pornographic tropes, infusing Gage’s penchant for social critique into the
very body of El Paso’s sexual encounters.

CONTACT John Kostka johnkostka@gmail.com University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 320 J. KOSTKA

Arriving on the heels of 1976’s Kansas City Trucking Co., El Paso Wrecking Corp. forms the
middle chapter in what would come to be known as Gage’s ‘Working Man’ trilogy. In the
first film, series thru-line Hank (Richard Locke), an experienced trucker, serves as an
initiator to a young guy heading out on his first haul (Steve Boyd) into the world of
highway cruising. El Paso finds Hank teamed up with Gene (Fred Halsted), a more experi-
enced driving partner and easily Hank’s sexual match. Travelling from Kansas City to El
Paso in search of work, the two engage in numerous sexual misadventures though their
own relationship remains strictly platonic. The conclusion of the trilogy, 1979’s LA Tool
& Die, finds Hank meeting a third partner, Wylie (Will Seagers), who finally tests his
need for anonymous sex and aversion to deeper commitment.
While less narratively ambitious than its follow-up, El Paso nevertheless represents a
high stylistic watermark for Gage, with particular attention paid to the use of editing
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 17:40 18 September 2017

and direction in the staging of its sexual encounters. Perhaps the foremost example of
this occurs around 20 minutes2 into the film, in a sequence where Gene and Hank stop
at a roadside rest area. Leaving Gene in the truck as he ostensibly uses the washroom,
Hank takes up residence in a stall and begins performing oral sex on a penis emerging
from a nearby glory hole. Undoing his jeans and beginning to masturbate, Hank quickly
reaches climax, with his ejaculation depicted via a pair of alternating angles, one in real
time and the second in slow-motion.
While most directors might conclude their sequence here, however, Gage proves to be
just getting started. Following a cutaway to Gene back in the truck, the film returns to Hank
as he leans to the other side of the stall and begins ministering to two more erections
emerging from the opposite wall. As Hank begins sucking, a low, tight angle reveals
another erection emerging through a hole and climaxing across a bearded chin. The con-
striction of this shot, as well as the presumption of the beard belonging to Hank, creates a
moment of cognitive disjunction, as the previous set-up already depicted Hank fellating a
penis at one of the two new glory holes. The lack of visual and temporal context in this
transition makes it unclear whether Hank is returning to the first penis (which he has
yet to bring to climax), or whether this is yet another, perhaps being ministered to by
an as-yet-unidentified man.
Outside, Gene becomes bored and enters the restroom, where he takes a place outside
the stall and watches Hank through the door. From this point, the film begins intercutting
between the previous shots of the single and double glory holes, as well as returning
occasionally to the low angle on the single hole, where Hank’s mouth enters and
begins sucking the penis previously shown ejaculating (but which, in these current
shots, does not appear to have yet ejaculated). At the double holes, one of the penises
retracts and is replaced, leaving it unclear whether we are now seeing the same or a
different erection. A return to the low angle shows a(nother?) penis ejaculating around
Hank’s mouth, with copious amounts of semen dripping down and splattering the
camera lens.
Back at the double glory holes, Hank licks at both erections before another close-up
shows him climaxing again, this time as he masturbates over a penis sticking out of yet
another of the holes. Returning to the double-hole shot, both penises begin ejaculating
in near unison, with the cut back to the low angle panning to reveal a second ejaculating
erection further down the wall, at last making it clear that this is the low-angle analogue to
the previous head-on two shot. A final return to the forward double view of the holes and
 PORN STUDIES 321

the conclusion of the near-simultaneous ejaculations finishes the scene, with Gene wryly
observing from the sidelines ‘So that’s what them things are for.’ A cut back to Hank, seen
suddenly and discontinuously lapping at a finger sticking out of the original glory hole,
shows him turning back and smiling, the disjunct rendering unclear the extent to which
the previous scene, beyond the action depicted at the first hole, was merely a product
of one (or both) men’s imaginations.
In order to understand what is so unusual about this sequence, we must begin by exam-
ining the dominant modes other adult films employ in narrativizing desire and sexuality. In
her seminal Hard Core, Linda Williams begins such an inquiry with an examination of the
‘money shot’, a now-ubiquitous pornographic device that Williams asserts serves ‘[the] nar-
rative function of signaling the climax of a genital event’ (1989, 93). In contrast to the ‘non-
linear moments of genital show’ that populated stag films (1989, 93) – generally crude
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 17:40 18 September 2017

assemblages of filmed sex and nudity with little narrative pretext which constituted
feature-length pornography’s immediate forebear – the adoption of narrative linearity, Wil-
liams suggests, came to necessitate this type of terminal signifier to demarcate the con-
clusion of sex as a discrete section within the context of a film’s broader narrative (1989, 121).
Building off this work on the ‘money shot’, Sanjay Hukku has recently extended this
analysis to the sex act writ large, positing that the vast majority of pornographic sequences
not only mark their conclusions with shots of genital climax, but indeed observe a largely
universal structuralist succession of events roughly corresponding to the arc of a basic
dramatic narrative. According to Hukku (2014, 173), this arc follows a standard progression
from fellatio (foreplay) to cunnilingus or analingus (rising action), culminating in vaginal
and/or anal penetration (climax), with ejaculation – as specified in Williams – serving as
final proof of the fulfilment of the sex act.3 By extending Williams’ structuralist analysis,
Hukku finds an interesting way of exploring the limitation of on-screen sexual expression
in this type of narrative coding, a form of circumscription that frequently comes to render
these forms of sex predictable, mundane, and mechanical.
What is distinctive about El Paso (and much of Gage’s other mid-1970s-to-1980s work) is
the manner in which its strategy of montage seems to actively resist these generic and
structuralist conventions. In the earlier rest-stop sequence, for example, we see that,
when viewed continuously and without recourse to rewind or pause,4 the segment’s tem-
poral and spatial discontinuity, coupled with its many similar camera set-ups, combine to
achieve a disorienting and fantastical effect. In contrast to a traditionally articulated sexual
encounter, which might depict Hank masturbating and performing fellatio before both he
and all other parties achieve orgasm near-simultaneously, Gage’s use of disorientingly
similar shots and a-chronological montage allows him to build, from an assemblage of
four men, two cameras, and five ejaculations, the illusion of seemingly endless phallic
and erotic plenitude. Further, the fact that the sequence contains no anal penetration sub-
verts the sexual roadmap outlined by Hukku, even while its use of increasingly rapid
montage (as well as increasingly frequent shots of ejaculation) manages to achieve a
similar sense of narrative erotic progression. This substitution of impressionistic, almost
Eisensteinian montage for the more literal narrative structure of (male) orgasm-as-
climax points towards the unique way in which Gage uses editing to frame and present
sexuality, less as a limited and circumscribed act than as a site of boundless fantastical
and escapist potential.
 322 J. KOSTKA

The extent and variety of ways in which El Paso uses editing to bolster this sense of
sexual escapism is worth exploring further, and is perhaps best done through an in-
depth analysis of the film’s two-person numbers,5 which by their nature would seem
most prone to reflect the social circumscription inherent in Hukku’s structuralist outline.
Taking the more traditional of these two sequences first, we turn to a segment approxi-
mately 48 minutes into the film, which depicts a courtyard rendezvous between a
Latino gardener and a white house cleaner. One of the film’s picaresque digressions
from its main plotline, this sequence commences from the perspective of Hank and
Gene, who are just entering El Paso at the end of their road trip. As the two pass
through a heavily Latin neighbourhood, a Latino gardener, Diego, catches Hank’s eye,
and the film’s gaze switches to follow him back to his truck and eventually to work.
When a handsome white cleaner accidentally splashes Diego with water as the two
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 17:40 18 September 2017

tend the grounds of an El Paso villa, the two quickly become embroiled in a bout of fre-
netic copulation, which starts with the cleaner orally servicing Diego before masturbating
to climax on his chest. From here, the cleaner moves to bottoming, and Diego concludes
the scene by ejaculating onto his back.
While this sequence hews the closest of any in El Paso to Hukku’s oral–genital → oral–
anal → genital–anal gay sexual narrative, it nevertheless continues to circumvent conven-
tion in a manner similar to the earlier rest-stop scene. In that sequence, we have already
discussed the seemingly anomalous – and quite unorthodox – placement of Hank’s initial
climax early into the action, and here again we see the unusual placement of one partner’s
ejaculation barely further than mid-way through the scene – and, notably, before any anal
penetration has taken place. Much as in the rest-stop sequence, the film thus seems to be
performing a meditated disassociation between orgasm and the provision of sexual plea-
sure. While the traditional roadmap of most porn films, according to Williams (1989, 101),
ties orgasm to sexual service by depicting it, through its near-simultaneous achievement
with the climax of the ‘top’ partner, as akin to a form of reward, El Paso in both instances
separates the two, according receptive (in this instance anal, although we could just as
easily argue oral in the rest-stop encounter) coitus the status of being pleasurable in its
own right – less a mediated act of social subservience than one more form of erotic
enjoyment.
Even more interesting is Gage’s use of editing to address some of this scene’s implicit
racial dynamics, or what Christopher Ortiz has termed the ‘stereotype in gay pornography
[of] the […] Black or Chicano/Latino stud who does not reciprocate’ (1994, quoted at
https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC39folder/gayLatinoPorn.html [accessed
August 25, 2017]). Initially this scene does seem to play into these notions of its subject’s
otherness, presenting Diego both as non-Anglophone and the type of sexual aggressor
described by Ortiz. However, the way in which Gage chooses to bookend the scene – recal-
ling the disjunctive edit at the end of the rest-stop fantasy – produces a degree of fasci-
nating complication. As Gene and Hank head into town, Hank initially remarks: ‘You
sure this is El Paso? Looks to me like we crossed the border.’ ‘I like this side of town’,
Gene replies softly, as the camera’s gaze spies Diego and begins following him. After a
few moments, the audio switches from the diegetic sound of Latin music playing on
the truck radio to a different, non-diegetic Latin number that takes over as the film’s
focus shifts to Diego. While subtle, this change nevertheless seems to signal a transition
from vérité to a more mediated register, reflective at least of the audience’s (potential)
 PORN STUDIES 323

fantasy, if not also Gene’s. This semi-exoticist tone pervades until the scene’s comic payoff,
where Diego unexpectedly responds to one of the gardener’s comments (‘That was fuckin’
okay, man. You’re all right’) in English, rupturing the essentializing subtext of the encoun-
ter with a more realistic depiction of its subject – a disjunctive ‘jump’ not dissimilar to the
jarring cut at the end of the rest-stop encounter to Gene licking a single sperm-covered
hand. While not fully ameliorating the tropes inherent in such erotically idealized represen-
tations of minority figures, Gage’s framing of this type of fantasy at least acknowledges
and subverts them, presenting the scene’s figures as ultimately united by their status as
members of the working class, who are briefly liberated from their similar socio-economic
roles by their engagement in a scenario of fantastical sexual play.
Providing sharp contrast to the rather traditional sexual mechanics of this garden ren-
dezvous, El Paso’s other two-person encounter interestingly depicts the polar opposite: a
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 17:40 18 September 2017

completely unorthodox pair of side-by-side climaxes where the participants express no

overt mutual interest whatsoever. This scene, which finds two (straight-coded) men mas-
turbating in a car after failing to pick up women at a local bar, interestingly features no
contact between its participants, with all insinuations of lust or mutual sexual synergy
achieved solely through montage and mise-en-scène. The sequence begins with the two
bodies visually separated, with each man’s masturbation depicted in separate close-up.
As the scene progresses, these close-ups begin alternating with more fluid pans from
one body to the next, while still keeping only one man on-screen at any time. Only as
the first begins to climax does the film switch to a two shot, depicting both penises
being stroked in unison even as only the first begins to ejaculate, a clear evocation of
the moment’s shared erotic unity despite its lack of physical contact. The second ejacula-
tion, while presented as a close-up, is nevertheless bookended by the same shot of the two
men stroking in unison, suggesting the act remains a part of both men’s erotic commu-
nion. Following this second climax, a sudden downpour serves not only as an obvious
visual metaphor for unleashed sexual energy (and fluids), but also as a narrative means
of uniting the two more closely in the confined space of the car, which has suddenly
become a site of warmth and shelter from the deluge.
Despite this sequence’s lack of direct sexual contact, which steers it about as far as poss-
ible from Hukku’s structuralist porno narrative, Gage’s direction nevertheless manages to
weave a subtle web of suggestive sexual linkage. In evoking the all-too-common experi-
ence of male homosocial bonding through shared (hetero)sexual fantasy, the film slyly
harnesses the unique thrill homophilic young men experience participating in such
forms of homosocial erotic ritual (Waugh 2004, 131). Regardless of whether the sexualized
undertones of this sequence reflect any of its participants’ desires or merely serve as a pro-
jection of the audience’s (particularly the classic gay fantasy of straight ‘conversion’), Gage
again creates, through an evocative use of editing and direction, a site of non-normative,
non-circumscribed desire, where sexual escapism serves as a counter to the drudgery of
reality and pushes back once more against the escapist limitations imposed by traditional
pornographic sexual encounters.
This quality of allowing both its characters and audience to locate their own erotic place
within a scene, to embrace the full fantastical potential of the pornographic sex act as a
means of escaping the drudgery of reality, is perhaps the most interesting aspect of El
Paso Wrecking Corp. By both reflecting and idealizing such encounters’ opportunities for
sexual freedom and fluidity, the film creates a site of fantasy removed from most
 324 J. KOSTKA

pornographic films’ narrative and structural delimitations. While El Paso’s vérité segments
do acknowledge the issues of class and race that the film has long been lauded for addres-
sing, its sex scenes at the same time provide a fascinating counter-environment of fantas-
tical respite, with their sense of erotic communion and unity embellished by a distinctive
use of non-narrative and abstract montage. With the original negative recently rediscov-
ered and in the possession of cult film distributor Vinegar Syndrome, the time is right for a
wider reappraisal not just of El Paso’s artistic merits, but also of their unique relation to its
larger project of social and cultural critique.

Notes
1. Gage has resurfaced post 2000 as the director of a new string of critically lauded – although
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 17:40 18 September 2017

less artistically daring – gay pornographic videos.

2. All times given in this piece are taken from an uncut version of the film, presently only avail-
able via original VHS and Betamax copies from HIS Video/VCA Pictures. All subsequent ver-
sions – including the currently available DVD – remove more than 20 minutes of narrative
and sexual content.
3. The absence of a clear terminal signifier for female–female encounters in male-directed het-
erosexual pornography certainly speaks to the entrenched phallocentric perspective of the
genre, although unfortunately a sufficient address of this topic falls outside the scope of
this piece.
4. A close analysis on video makes it easier to parse the internal mechanics of the scene.
5. I discount a mid-film sequence intercutting between two couples, because its cross-cutting
serves the film’s general aim of editorially uniting various characters’ autonomous erotic
experiences.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

References
Brewster, Conrad. 2011. ‘Joe Gage put the Art Into “Art Film”.’ The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide
18 (4): 26–27.
Escoffier, Jeffrey. 2009. Bigger Than Life: the History of Gay Porn Cinema From Beefcake to Hardcore.
Philadelphia: Running Press.
Gage, Joe, dir. 1976. Kansas City Trucking Co. USA.
Gage, Joe, dir. 1978. El Paso Wrecking Corp. USA.
Gage, Joe, dir. 1979. L.A. Tool & Die. USA.
Hukku, Sanjay P. 2014. ‘Plotting Sex: Pornography’s Performatistic Screen.’ PhD diss., University of
California, Berkeley.
Ortiz, Christopher. 1994. ‘Hot and Spicy: Representation of Chicano/Latino Men in gay Pornography.’
Jump Cut 39: 83–90.
Waugh, Thomas. 2004. ‘Homosociality in the Classical American Stag Film: off-Screen, On-Screen.’ In
Porn Studies, edited by Linda Williams, 127–141. Durham: Duke University Press.
Williams, Linda. 1989. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’. Berkeley: University of
California Press.