Bang Bus
Encyclopedia
Reality porn
Reality pornography is a genre of pornography where staged scenes, usually shot in cinéma vérité fashion, set up and precede sexual encounters. These scenes may either have the cameraman directly engaging in sex or merely filming others having sex. The genre presents itself as "real couples having...
website that is part of the Bang Bros
Bang Bros
Bang Bros is a production company of internet based pornography operating out of Miami, Florida, founded in 2000. Although the company is headquartered in Miami, some scenes are filmed in Los Angeles. The network includes a total of thirty two websites; only eighteen of them are active as of June...
network run by Kristopher Hinson and Penn Davis's company, Ox Ideas. The two are friends who attended school together. Greg Entner (known as "Sanchez" or "Dirty Sanchez") worked for the company as a scene director and camera operator
Camera operator
A camera operator or cameraman is a professional operator of a film or video camera. In filmmaking, the leading cameraman is usually called a cinematographer, while a cameraman in a video production may be known as a television camera operator, video camera operator, or videographer, depending on...
and has appeared in most Bang Bus episodes. The videos, mostly 24–40 minutes long, are shot by Entner in Gonzo pornography
Gonzo pornography
Gonzo pornography is a style of pornographic film that attempts to place the viewer directly into the scene. The name is a reference to gonzo journalism, in which the reporter is part of the event taking place...
style and are also known for their humorous approach.
The business is based on an insight forged in the 1990s explosion in amateur porn: the viewing demographic strongly prefers material that effectively establishes plausible circumstances wherein otherwise far-fetched sexual adventures could happen to the viewer himself. Combining the mid-1990s growth areas of internet commerce and amateur pornography, an affiliate program (OxCash) and a gonzo cinematographic style were developed concurrently and combined with production values often missing in amateur porn of the time: professional-grade talent (attractive women, preternaturally-endowed men), proper lighting (originally confined to outdoor daylight shoots), and plausible storyline (as discussed above). Their success in combining those three Ps of porn production while maintaining an amateur feel was largely unprecedented.
The increased accessibility delivered by this novel combination has spawned a pornographic empire of sorts. In 2007, the Bang Bros. Network generated a sales total of 1.9 million dollars. Despite a declining traffic trend since 2008, its continuing popularity is attested to by a number of imitators.
Concept
Each video consists of a typical everywoman who is "picked up on the street," and is then persuaded to engage in sexual intercourseSexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
with men in the back of a van
Van
A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people.In British English usage, it can be either specially designed or based on a saloon or sedan car, the latter type often including derivatives with open backs...
(usually while it's driving) - the titular Bang Bus. Each storyline usually ends with the woman being dropped off unpaid and in the wrong location, shouting at the men as they drive off laughing. The series is shot primarily in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
.
The Bang Bus usually contains three men: the driver (known as Ugly in early episodes), the camera man (Greg Entner aka "Dirty Sanchez"), and an actor who plays a "random" guy who gets to engage in sexual intercourse with the woman picked off the street. Sometimes the driver and camera man will randomly pick up a man first then pick up a woman and persuade the two to have sex. In most cases, the woman is convinced to get into the van under the guise that they are making a documentary about people in the area. They offer money, usually around a couple of hundred dollars, just to answer questions about their life. After some "interviewing", they usually offer more money to disrobe, and then additional money to have sex. The woman usually is persuaded to enter the van in less than 5 minutes, then persuaded to strip in 20–50 minutes and is dropped off in a random location after the completion of the sex act, ostensibly without being paid. Currently, Bang Bus features over 230 episodes.
Although the theme of the site is the ease with which supposedly unknown women can be persuaded to engage in hardcore
Hardcore pornography
Hardcore pornography is a form of pornography that features explicit sexual acts. The term was coined in the second half of the 20th century to distinguish it from softcore pornography. It usually takes the form of photographs, often displayed in magazines or on the Internet, or films. It can also...
sexual acts, the videos are in fact staged and all the women shown are paid actresses. Some have gone on to work in other pornographic productions or even became regular performers (e.g. Annie Cruz
Annie Cruz
Annie Cruz is the stage name of Filipino American pornographic actress and nude model.-Early life:Cruz was born in Stockton, California, to Filipino immigrant parents. She graduated from Brookside Christian High School in Stockton, where she was a cheerleader, and claims to have graduated in the...
appeared as "Kyra" in 2004). Despite this, Bang Bus is regarded as a highly controversial website, in part due to its popularity and Entner's ostensibly misogynistic behavior. For these reasons, it has appeared in multiple news stories, particularly in the Miami area, where the site has earned a certain degree of infamy
Infamy
Infamy, in common usage, is notoriety gained from a negative incident or reputation . The word stems from the Latin infamia, antonym of fama ....
.
Controversy
On October 14, 2004, Miami New TimesMiami New Times
The Miami New Times is a free weekly newspaper published in Miami and distributed every Thursday. It primarily serves the Miami area and is headquartered near Miami's Design District.-Overview:...
published an investigation of the site based primarily on interviews with a woman who performed for the site to pay for an abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
. She claimed that her ex-boyfriend, the father of the child, kept all of the payment.
On November 18, 2004, the South Florida news station and website WPLG
WPLG
WPLG, channel 10, is an ABC network affiliated television station located in Miami, Florida. WPLG is owned and operated by Post-Newsweek Stations, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. The station's studios are located in Pembroke Park, and its transmitter is located at the massive broadcast...
ran a video segment and article revealing the staged nature of the videos, as admitted by a Bang Bus videographer. They also ran a follow-up in which they asked police whether the activities depicted on the Bang Bus site are illegal. The police responded that they were not, because the van's windows are tinted to avoid violation of indecent exposure
Indecent exposure
Indecent exposure is the deliberate exposure in public or in view of the general public by a person of a portion or portions of his or her body, in circumstances where the exposure is contrary to local moral or other standards of appropriate behavior. Indecent exposure laws vary in different...
laws and because the women consented.
In June 2005, BangBros., Inc., was sued by the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
for violations of the CAN-SPAM Act
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 , signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the United States' first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission to enforce its provisions...
, under which e-mailers must include the warning "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in the subject lines of all pornographic solicitations. It was reported that BangBros. settled the lawsuit for $650,000, having been found liable despite having hired third parties to perform such promotional activities. The company allowed its operations to be monitored to ensure compliance with this provision; four other companies were similarly fined in the action for a total of $1.6 million.
As of summer 2007, Entner no longer appears in the Bangbus updates.