No matter what your opinions is of Only Fans and similar web sites, it’s been very good to some people. One of them is Andy Lee, a straight performer who made his name performing for a gay audience and ranks in the top (0.1%) among OnlyFans creators (that’s the top one-tenth of one-percent for the math-challenged). Lee says the web site allowed him to make millions and took him far from his rough upbringing as the child of drug abusers in Dublin, and now he’s on to his next thing: teaching others to do likewise. Remarkably, he doesn’t charge his students, saying he’s already well off and wants to help others succeed as well.
P$rn Star University, written, directed and produced by Charlie Davis, has its tongue firmly in cheek, beginning with the voiceover that mimics promos for a conventional university. The spine of the film follows the journey of two incoming students, Parker Grey and Calvin Steel, as they venture into the world of online pornography creation. Central casting couldn’t have chosen better: Grey is dreadlocked, confident, and projects an urban vibe, while Steel is pasty white, bespectacled, and could be in the dictionary under “light academia” with this conservative, cream-toned wardrobe.
Lee is an engaging on-camera presence and sells his own story well: unemployed and depressed during the Covid pandemic, he got his life together after a friend suggested he start creating OnlyFans content, which required him to get off the couch and onto the treadmill. The internet, which is often accused of making people lonelier, became instead his lifeline, as he and his clients shared experiences. To facilitate production, he renovated a property and created many different implied locations, including grubby toilets, a construction site, a prison cell, a bondage dungeon, and a classroom. The analogy with the movie studios of classic Hollywood, with their many standing sets that could be restyled for different films, is both obvious and meaningful: like classic Hollywood, Lee and his peers are in the business of creating fantasies that will be legible to their audiences.
Everyone seen on camera seems to be extraordinarily nice, down-to-earth, and unstinting in their praise of Lee. including current creators Troy White, Jak White, Ginger Gav, Big Rob, and Big Stacks. Maybe working in online porn, where you interact with your fans, both selects for and develops a kind of self-knowledge that short-circuits the more negative messages about masculinity present in our social environment. Much of what Lee and the other porn stars have to say is expressed in the language of empowerment (living your dream, getting the life you want) mixed with artistic advice about finding your niche and building your brand and nuts-and-bolts advice about consent forms, STI checks, and dealing with negative comments.
The overall vibe of P$rn Star University is similar to the current version of the Queer Eye franchise—uniformly positive, accepting, and helpful in terms of advice tailored to each individual and their situation. A little voice in the back of my head says “they might be having you on” but I’m not complaining: if this film is an elaborate hoax, that doesn’t invalidate the virtues of what it claims to be.
Just a note for those concerned with body parts on screen—most of the film is G-rated with a few shots of front and back bottom that would make it whatever is the equivalent of X is today. That P$rn Star University incorporates frank nudity in a film that could otherwise could be shown to a Sunday School class is the perfect example of how it challenges boundaries. | Sarah Boslaugh
P$rn Star University will screen on June 20 at 9 pm as part of QFest St. Louis at the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis 63117; 314-644-1100). Individual tickets are $15, or $12 for students and Cinema St.Louis members. More information about QFest is available from the festival web site.
