I hear it all the time. “I want to be the next Jenna Jameson!”
Let’s start closer to the beginning though. They say that luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. Porn was on a huge upswing and Jenna was an unlikely little girl in the right place at the right time.
The right place was, of course Wicked Pictures, whose media savvy PR guru Joy King took advantage of an opportunity and parlayed a cute, all American blonde into Jenna Jameson. The rest as they say, is history.
But that brings us to today. Will there be another Jenna? My guess is yes and no. No because that train left the station, the public was ready for a Jenna and one was created.
The next one will be a lot different. It’s going to require more than just looks and a willingness to fuck on camera. It will require a lot of media savvy. Pornstars aren’t as interesting as they once were, so opportunities will have to be created.
Take Stormy Daniels running for Senate, for example. Stormy is smart, very smart, she has a quick wit and can hold her own in any situation and she never comes across as a bimbo. Stormy could arguably eclipse Jenna, particularly if she were to get elected.
The odds on favorite though is going to have to be Sasha Grey. I always kinda figured she would just be a flash in the pan, but she consistently capitalizes on opportunities that present themselves, and she knows when to steer clear as well. Launched into national attention by being cast in a Steven Soderburg indy film that would otherwise never have seen an audience Sasha found herself a media darling, and things keep coming her way, A Layout in “Playboy” and another in GQ are edging her closer an closer to superstardom.
Sasha presents herself as smart, and while I have joked about it in the past she is actually wise beyond her years, or she is smart enough to listen to whomever is advising her. She certainly knew what most porn chicks don’t get and she told Howard Stern to “fuck off”, refusing to do his show. This got her more attention than doing the show would have while at the same time showing her to be way wiser than the average pornchick.
If you look at trends particularly in web traffic its easy to see who is on the rise, who has seen their best years and who doesnt have a chance.
Sasha leads the pack with a consistent trend upwards throughout the year, I would have have expected a spike as a result of the press surround “The Girlfriend Experience” but she has been able to maintain that exposure and maximize it.
Stormy Daniels trends upwards as well and a serious bid for the senate in 2010 could push her well over the top, a self proclaimed Libertarian she could well be a spoiler in that race.
Another sleeper is Eva Angelina. Eva doesn’t out pull Stormy and comes nowhere near Sasha but she out pulls what many would consider to be bigger names, like Kayden and Bree Olson.
Kayden has the looks and potentially the smarts but much as I love her she suffers a serious problem with her media skills. But don’t count her out, should she sign with Digital Playground, as is rumored they have the best PR people in all of porn.
Tera Patrick has done well for herself but her star is dimming,as is Jesse Jane, nobody stays on top forever, not even Jenna.
Bree and the other Adam and Eve girls don’t have a chance, Adam and Eve is not known for their ability to PR their girls and seem to have lost direction of late in terms of company image.
If you look at the big picture it’s all going to come down to how well they take advantages of the opportunities they are given and how wisely they use their power of choice.
17 Responses
i thought stoya could be a huge crossover star but she’s too busy with that manson guy.
[New Post] The Next Jenna Jameson – via @twitoaster http://www.mikesouth.com/jesse-jane/the-…
Mike, I don’t think you give Jenna enough credit either for having invented herself, or the influence she/her product have had on the industry.
“Flashpoint” was on bestselling lists for an eternity. Jenna totally dominated the industry for more years than anyone before or since. Jenna launched and took her successful company to heights not matched by others (Tera, Sunny, Savanna, Briana and all the others fall far short of the Club Jenna financial success… with the sale to Playboy for an inflated price, just before the porn biz crashed, being another sign of business smarts. And, finally, the mere fact that almost every pornstar since Jenna wants to me “the Next Jenna.” Total domination!
So I agree with you that because of the changing times in porn, there never will be another Jenna Jameson.
As for Sasha Grey, there are two problems: one business-wise, the other personal. On the business front, Sasha in spite of all her mainstream press still “talks” like a $40 hooker. She, like the majority of porn girls, says “fuck” every other word. I don’t rush to use the word “Classy” when describing Sasha.
On a personal level, I’ve watched many sex scenes with Sasha–and she fails to get my dick hard. There’s something about her that’s just not “sexy.” Graphic…yes; Young…yes; Sexy…no!
Not a good thing for a pornstar.
ya i’ve always felt the same way about sasha.
Nice analysis as to what it takes to be a “standout” performer in today’s (and tomorrow’s) adult industry.
I agree Stoya was poised to hit it big…but her choice has led her in a different direction.
I’m one of the guys that doesn’t get the Sasha Grey thing either but there’s no denying the success she has seen, and is still seeing.
Sasha Grey is the Barack Obama of porn.
You want to know why capitalism is dying Mike? Why being a libetarian like yourself is becoming more and more difficult and dangerous every day? It’s not because the liberals are better at what they do, it’s that their opposition doesn’t know how to strike at the heart of what they do. The reason? Because the opposition shares the same heart.
When you have a person, such as yourself, (rightly so) who does his fair share of bitching and moaning about the encroachments by government on our personal and economic freedoms, but then, when analyzing the same tactics being used in his own stock and trade, he sounds like a power-impressed media sychophant who thinks Obama must be good simply because he’s the most unflinching, we are able to understand why the anti-reason, anti-individualism charlatans are batting .1000
Dude that is a seriously good point. I especially like the Sasha/Obama analogy.
But getting to the porn thing, I can’t think of much of anything in porn that actually impresses me. Even or shining examples of accomplishment (tongue firmly in cheek) the FSC and AIM have huge cracks that let the light in.
But that doesn’t negate the fact that many girls in porn are trying to be the next Jenna, some intentionally others maybe not.
And that said one can’t overlook the fact that Sasha is in the catbirds seat right now.
And even at that what exactly has been Jenna’s contribution to the world? It isn’t like she is a regular at the TED Conference, she hasn’t done anything special…she fucks on camera. In the grand scheme of things she is right up there with my bukkake site in terms of contributions to the world. So am I impressed by any of them…not really no.
You can send your life savings to: Goodwill, POB 1234567, Goodwillville, Goodwillland, USA
In exchange for your honesty, whenever I need a first-person testimony about the porn world or a fishing guide, you’ll be at the top of my list.
All 20 dollars of it?
LOL
Well, if you have to divest assets, that’s fine too.
I think the days of the big porn star are coming to a close.
Why does porn need another Jenna? i.e., why should there only be one Jenna-esque star? Hollywood doesn’t have (or hasn’t had) one solitary star who reigns supreme, trumps all others, and who others hope to become? Why should it be that way in porn? There’s not enough room for more than one porn mega-star?
I think your “who will be the next Jenna?” concept puts limitations on the industry and those who inhabit it. Personally, I don’t think an heir apparent exits in the biz nor will one materialize. In fact, I don’t think we need one.
What we need are solutions to the economic problems that plague us, not another Jenna Jameson.
The only thing that set Jenna apart, really, was that she became the female face of porn (Ron Jeremy being the male) to the mainstream world. Why does the mainstream world need a face with which to think of an entire phenomenon?
The same reason why dictatorships put huge portraits of their leaders in very public places. Or why Big Brother in 1984 was an omnipresent face. In order for people to cope with (not necesarily be happy with, but at least suffer through without caving in nor revolting totally) broad, complex social phenomena that don’t fully engage the logical mind, they find it easier to think that it’s just one person who’s responsible for it.
Instead of accepting their own, and their neighbor’s, and their relative’s, and their coworker’s, and their milk man’s culpability for whatever negative cultural or political practice is causing the overall, long term quality of their life to decline, they prefer to think of it as the will of one particular (and almost supernatural) consciousness.
Jenna Jameson didn’t become “queen” for any of the reasons Mike listed. As I said in a previous comment, Mike doesn’t allow himself to think about the porn industry with the same epistemology he brings to other fields (mainly politics), and so of course he would “strike at the branch” of the issue and produce such a list. But the fact remains: the ultimate reason why Jenna became the poster girl of porn is simply because a poster person of every genre of senseless behavior is necesssary.
Obama is it in politics. Jenna is/was it in porn. Osama is it in war (which is why victory in that fiasco is determined by whether or not we’ve killed him). Let’s see… Timothy Leary was it for the birth popular drug use, Elvis for the first salvo in the destruction of rhythm, purpose, and reverence for human emotion in music… etc, etc, etc.
I know ALL you guys are big Oprah fans, but just in case you missed it, Jenna will be on tomorrow’s show;).
jenna was okay. i wouldn’t necessarily call her the complete package simply for some things she chose not to do in porn. but i can’t bring myself to look at her face today though. she doesn’t seem to be aging gracefully in my view.
there won’t be another jenna the same way there won’t ever be a michael jordan. i assume what girls really want is nothing more than money, fame and some kind of acceptance from the public. kobe bryant and lebron james carved out their niche from the NBA without having to *become the next Michael*
I don’t know why this is so hard to spot for people that watch a lot of porn, but the one characteristic that defines the best of the best porn stars (at least in the context of being or being the next Jenna Jameson) is a combination of fear and confidence. When you think about the upper echelon of famous porn stars that were also GOOD porn stars, they could turn from scared innocence to sultry vixen to wanton whore on a dime. Asa Akira, Tori Black, Lexi Belle, they had and kept that range, and its kind of that being all-things-to-all-men actress thing. If the girl doesn’t have a lot of that naturally then she won’t have it. Bree Olson seemed to have it, but a lot of it came off as a performance. Kayden Kross wasn’t far off, but she was contracted to early to establish authenticity before DP polished her performance up. A good portion of it has to be there naturally, or performed effortlessly