Major Bummer
By James Reade
Editor's Note: Looking for a new niche to help you make your mark on the industry? Norman Cousins once said, "History is a vast early warning system." Taking the time to learn more about the industry before just leaping headfirst toward something totally new can spare you from experiencing the same problems and pitfalls as those who have gone before you. The Bumfights.com videos are an excellent example... while they were a huge success crossing adult/mainstream barriers, they also became yet another negative example of Internet porn "gone bad"...
Don't Try This At Home, Kiddies: Ray Laticia and Ty Beeson's (not their real names) first release was ballyhooed on Howard Stern's show- may have made e-commerce history and turned them into millionaires. The Las Vegas-based co-producers reportedly e-sold 250,000 copies of their $19.95 video/DVD Bumfights, Volume I: A Cause for Concern at their www.bumfights.com site, in the first six weeks following its April debut, and subsequently e-sold another 50,000 copies. But the estimated $6 million jackpot has come at a steep price for the twenty-somethings, who've been denounced on the floor of Congress, by homeless advocates, sued, and arrested.
In Bumfights' bloody opening scene, homeless men fight in a public toilet. A man - his butt crack showing for good measure - beats a woman senseless. A street woman calls 911 on a pay phone, reporting, "He's inciting a riot between two homeless people!"
The disturbing sequence sets the tone for this Mondo Cane shockumentary, which is somewhat deceptively titled: While the eponymous bum fights are intercut throughout, every scene doesn't show the homeless. Savage male teens participate in smackdowns, at schoolyards and elsewhere. Thereare girl street fights, with the overalls of one combatant titillatingly falling down. Black drug dealer/addict Bling Bling's crack smoking adventures include setting his hair afire. Street person Hank Van Snaggletusk removes his tooth with pliers. Other scenes include: homeless puking, urinating, streetside excretion, maggots devouring carcasses, plus a dead animal with a cigarette in its mouth as if it's smoking. And for what the Bumfights.com site smarmily calls "token T&A," throughout the schlock video, lingerie-clad model Angela Taylor appears and reappears.
This Citizen Kane of low production values and lower taste offers other ultimate stupid-human tricks: "Bum Hunter Steve Urban and His Mute Sidekick, Pepe" parody Animal Planet's Crocodile Hunter, with crocs replaced by homeless humans. In a downtown location stalking prey, Bum Hunter slaps plastic cuffs on a man sleeping in a parking lot, binds his feet, and duck tapes the 'terrified' street person's mouth. The abductors laugh as he struggles and pull their captive into a van. Bum Hunter tags "specimens" with magic markers for "future study" (in an especially chilling sequence, an African American's accosted by non-black stalkers - crikey!).
Speaking of hunters, in-between performing dangerous stunts, Rufus the Stunt Bum has "BUMFIGHTS" tattooed on his knuckles like Night of the Hunter's psycho preacher Robert Mitchum, who tattooed "love" and "hate" on his fingers as he hunted two children.
Predictably, this shock video that makes Jackass look like Masterpiece Theatre stirred a hornet's nest. Homeless champions such as Matthew Olufemi, Director of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee Homeless Access Center, aren't laughing. "It's deplorable, terrible, these people take advantage of homeless who have nobody to advocate for them," laments Olufemi, head of an L.A. city government-funded organization that helps down-and-outers find shelter. He adds using the word "bum" is "low, hitting below the belt."
In his defense, Laticia says some homeless men are paid "indirectly... outside, independent, and separate from the video... out of our own pockets for the sake of these people... $100... $20, put them up in a hotel, clean them up, give them new clothes... Rufus, an ex-Hollywood stuntman, gets a piece of the T-shirt action [e-sold online with his image], and a portion of the proceeds of the videotape go right back to the homeless." Last summer, Laticia claimed he and Beeson would "donate to people directly involved with the videos individually," and are considering contributing "10% of net profits...to one or two homeless charities." However, as of December, Beeson said they had not donated 10%, although they provided Thanksgiving dinners to 200 homeless.
But Olufemi fumes, "The money they're paying isn't coming to the real homeless, sleeping on the streets, nowhere to go. They're just taking advantage of these people... It's exploitation in the extreme." Laticia denies he exploits participants, insisting, "To assume they're incapable of making an informed decision is insulting. It's more stereotypical of homeless people than showcasing them in our video." However, substance abuse and mental illness is reportedly epidemic among the homeless. Indeed, in one Bumfights vignette, a tattooed street person with an illustrated penis declares: "I'm mentally disturbed... a crackhead." And one can't help but wonder about the makers of this video.
Last June, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) told Congress: "I've been appalled at people who... exploit the homeless, and the worst example I've seen is ...Bumfights, [which] films abuse and violence against the homeless... They say it's voluntary, since they reward the men with food, clothing, shelter and small change. I charge them [with] preying on the despair of those without basic necessities... Who...would willingly be filmed extracting one's teeth with... pliers?... This... is about our basic humanity. If we cannot act to protect our most vulnerable, what does this say about us all? We need to fix this problem.
"I've started with inquiries to the heads of the Las Vegas Federal investigative offices of the FBI, Customs and U.S. Postal Service... I believe this is already criminal conduct... the filmmakers admit they're paying homeless actors to commit crimes such as assault and kidnap. They are, therefore, accessories or aiders and abettors. This activity is not protected by the first amendment anymore than the so-called 'snuff flick' might be protected pornography. All three of the Federal agencies investigate pornography, and know the difference. The FBI should have jurisdiction because of the interstate nature of the business and the possible conspiracy to violate State laws. Customs should have jurisdiction because the material is being distributed internationally, and the postal service should have jurisdiction because the mails are being used...
"If these agencies claim they do not have the resources, then perhaps Congress should act to earmark funds, because this is a serious public safety issue. If these agencies ... claim there's no specific law authorizing them to investigate... perhaps we should enact one.
"A Congress that will push the constitutional limits on fighting pornography and will appropriately outlaw crush videos that depict the torture of animals should do no less for our fellow human beings. This violence against the homeless is not just a crime against them. It's an assault against us all. We should do all we can to stop this outrage and punish those who'd torture, degrade and exploit some of our most vulnerable citizens," Congressman Blumenauer declared.
According to a Reuters report datelined September 25, SAN DIEGO: "Two men who allegedly paid street people to fight... as part of... Bumfights have been arrested in San Diego, police say. The arrests... followed a three-month probe by La Mesa Police Department... Lt. Raul Garcia said... Police say... producers persuaded street people to fight for the camera in exchange for cash payments, food, liquor, and hotel rooms but warned the participants not to tell authorities about the remuneration. One person broke his leg during a taping session in La Mesa, and producers threatened another witness in the case, police said. [Producers] were charged with conspiracy, solicitation of a felony crime and illegally paying people to fight." Two others were subsequently arrested: the four charged were Ryan Edward McPherson, 19, Zachary Bubeck, 24, Daniel Jamon Tanner, 21, and Michael Joseph Slyman, 21.
According to an Associated Press report datelined October 2, S A N D I E G O: "Two homeless men who say they were paid to hurt themselves and beat each other for a video sold on the Internet filed suit Wednesday against the filmmakers... Donald Brennan and Rufus Hannah say the [film]makers... took advantage of their alcoholism to persuade them to ram their heads into steel doors and signs and get 'Bumfights' tattoos in bold letters across their hands and foreheads.
"'When you're drinking for 20 years... [and] don't have a beer in your hand, you would do anything to get one," said Brennan... "Who in their right minds is going to run their heads into a sign?" The men seek unspecified punitive damages for assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil rights violations and other allegations."
In December, Beeson told Klixxx the felony and civil cases are pending. Calling the felony case "bogus," Beeson declared: "I don't think the charges will stick." Beeson insisted attorneys eyeing Bumfights profits put Brennan and Hannah up to the lawsuit. The producer said the plaintiffs seek a settlement. A message at bumfights.com declared: "The video is still for sale... As long as there's a First Amendment in this country, it's gonna take a helluva lot more... to shut us down." Beeson said a sequel will be out by early 2003.
Free expression may likewise be invoked by extreme elements on the adult Internet. But industry attorneys such as Paul Cambria, whose clients have included Larry Flynt, warn Webmasters against pushing the envelope with content that's illegal and/or raises red flags, such as kiddie porn, bestiality, defecation, urination, fisting, rape, and so on. Adult Webmasters should note Rep. Blumenauer's repeated references to 'pornography' during his Congressional speech, and heed the bumfighters' lessons: short term financial gain can result in long term legal pain.
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