I can only imagine what actor Laurence Fishburne is thinking about right now.
For the last week the Internet has been buzzing about his 19-year-old “actress” daughter Montana Fishburne who recently announced she will be starring in a Vivid Entertainment-produced porn film due out later this month. She claims that “performing” in such a film will help boost her Hollywood career, and that she is ready for the porn world because she already knows how to “do it well.”
She is not the first adult film star to use their porn prowess to get mainstream fame. Just last week, porn megastar Sasha Grey crossed over to legitimate acting when she made her debut on the HBO hit Entourage and has also starred in a Steven Soderbergh film called The Girlfriend Experience.
Up until recently, women involved in pornography were not only excluded from Hollywood, but were also seen as social pariahs in general. Sex sells, but today, a professionally produced porn film or even an amateur sex tape can be a passport to instant fame and fortune.
Kim Kardashian knows this passport very well. The Los Angeles “socialite,” and is reportedly a role model for the younger Fishburne. “I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape, ” Montana has reportedly said. Kardashian came into her celebrity a couple of years ago when she and her then-boyfriend, singer Ray J, appeared in a sex tape that was allegedly leaked to the media. While many women would cower in shame over having such a video made public, Kardashian has turned her 15 minutes of fame into a full-fledged career.
As a matter of fact, it was recently revealed that the “Kim Kardashian Brand” earns over $5 million a year from jobs ranging from endorsing weight loss drinks to just showing up at nightclubs for a few hours. The Kardashian family also benefits from Kim’s fame through their many reality shows, endorsements and modeling contracts. Kim’s younger half sister Kendall Jenner also made her celebrity debut recently with controversial bikini photos.
You have to wonder what Kardashian’s late father, famed O.J. Simpson “dream team” attorney Robert Kardashian, would have thought of Kim today. This brings me back to Montana Fishburne, who probably would have found her own fame and fortune eventually simply by proxy of her famous father, as well as displaying good acting chops.
I don’t have a problem with consenting adults who do pornography to make a living or for self gratification, but there is something very disturbing about a society in 2010 where women feel it’s required to sell their sexuality just to get a mention on Entertainment Tonight. From Paris Hilton to New Jersey Real Housewife Danielle Staub, sex tapes have become the new norm. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Lindsay Lohan sex tape — fresh out of jail edition — is “leaked” any day now.
Selling sex is also the way to go to help revitalize an acting career, like that of former child actress Jaimee Foxworth, who claims she fell into the porn industry because of the lack of acting roles that came in for her following her abrupt departure on the TV sitcom Family Matters. Foxworth has also had a hard time getting back into mainstream acting, possibly due to the fact that while society has become numb to publicly displayed sexuality, many conservative Hollywood producers still won’t hire adult film stars for legitimate acting roles. On top of that, it is hard enough for mainstream black actors to get work in Hollywood, let alone black actors with porno pasts competing for those same legitimate acting roles.
I hope Montana Fishburne put some thought into all of these things before she embarked on such a path. Maybe her dad or somebody will do an intervention before it’s too late.