Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this is not a mild, PG-13 teen flick. It's a raunchy, bawdy high school comedy about friends who just want to have sex. Like a more graphic American Pie, the film features a great deal of nudity (full frontal in a lengthy shower scene) and explicit sex talk, as the guys look to lose their virginities or just get more notches on their belt. Since it's set in the 1950s, a few hate words referring to African Americans, Jews, and Latinos are said quite openly.
Families can talk about teen sexuality and the legacy of raunchy high school films. The movie was made in the '80s but set in the '50s. What has changed in the way high school students talk about and approach sex? What movies accurately depict teen life today?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Sandie Angulo Chen
In the late '70s and '80s, several influential movies about adolescence were set in the '50s (American Graffiti, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Animal House are among the best) presumably because that's the decade when the filmmakers grew up. PORKY's, the bawdiest of the bunch, has somehow remained one of the most popular, even if its not nearly as funny as it once seemed.
A group of high school guys in fictional Angel Beach, Florida, can think of nothing else but losing their virginity. They sneak peeks at naked girls showering, measure their reproductive organs, and talk endlessly of "doing it" -- favoring strippers and prostitutes once it becomes clear they won't get any action from their female classmates.
The guys are desperate, so they ask the local strip club owner Porky (Chuck Mitchell) to provide professional ladies for all the cash in their pockets. When they get dunked in alligator-infested water instead, the boys go ballistic and plan a vengeful scheme to get back at Porky.
While at school, they ogle the hot phys-ed teacher Miss Honeywell (a startlingly young Kim Cattrall) and hide from the other boxcar-sized gym teacher Ms. Balbricker (character actress Nancy Parsons), who makes it her mission to punish the locker room-spying boys. Occasionally, they deal with the rampant racism and anti-Semitism of the times, as one member of their crew is Jewish.
But Porky's is far from a message movie. Part nostalgia trip, part coming-of-age story, it's ultimately about a group of high school horndogs looking for a good time. And that's a theme that has certainly lasted throughout the decades.
More racy comedies include National Lampoon's Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. For less raunchy high school comedies, there's always the John Hughes hits of the '80s.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentThere's so much, it's hard to know where to start: full-frontal female nudity (the infamous shower scene); men's backsides are visible; one loud sex scene that features partial nudity; half-naked strippers; a prostitute touches and looks over a row of naked guys; many, many conversations referring to virginity and erections, one of which is visible through a man's boxers, and much much more. |
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ViolenceA few hand-to-hand fights and a couple of bar brawls. |
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LanguageLoads and loads of cursing: the "F" word, many variations of the word "d--k," several hate words for African Americans, Jews, and Hispanics, various euphemisms for sex and virginity and the standard obscenities "s--t," "ass," "asshole," "lardass," etc. |
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Social BehaviorThe guys plot revenge against Porky's for denying them with sexual satisfaction via his stripper/prostitutes. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSeveral characters, including the teens, smoke and drink. |
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