Guilty Pleasure No. 93: Porky’s (dir. by Bob Clark)

Posted on December 13, 2025 by Arleigh

Porky’s is one of those movies that plays very differently depending on when you first see it. On the surface, it is a loud, lewd early‑’80s teen sex comedy about a bunch of high‑school boys in 1950s Florida trying to get laid and get even, but underneath the pranks and bare flesh there are streaks of surprisingly serious material about prejudice, masculinity, and power. That mix of dopey laughs and darker undercurrents is exactly what makes the film interesting to talk about, and also what makes it so divisive today.

Set in the 1950s and released in 1981, Porky’s follows a tight‑knit group of teenage boys whose main goals in life are sex, sports, and practical jokes. Their adventures eventually take them to Porky’s, a sleazy backwater strip club run by the hulking, corrupt Porky, who humiliates them and sets up the revenge plot that drives the back half of the film. Around that spine, the story wanders through locker‑room banter, elaborate pranks, and various attempts to sneak into the girls’ showers or otherwise spy on naked bodies. It is very much a “horny boys on the prowl” narrative, and the film never pretends to be anything else.

What keeps it from being just another disposable sex comedy is the way some of those side stories hit harder than expected. One of the kids is brutally abused by his father, and the film doesn’t treat it like a throwaway detail; those scenes have a rawness and anger that clash with the goofy tone elsewhere. There is also a thread about anti‑Semitism and racism in their community, with one character confronting his own bigoted upbringing as he befriends a Jewish classmate and pushes back against the prejudice around him. That material is handled in a pretty straightforward, earnest way, which is jarring given how crude the surrounding humor can be, but it does show that writer‑director Bob Clark had more on his mind than dirty jokes.

The humor, for better or worse, is what most people remember. Porky’s leans heavily on slapstick and sex‑obsessed gag setups: peeping through holes in shower walls, mistaken identities during sex, ridiculous anatomical bragging, prank phone calls, and elaborate schemes that escalate into full‑on chaos. Some of the set pieces are staged with real comic timing, and if you’re on its wavelength, these sequences can still land as big, cathartic laughs. Others feel juvenile in the worst way, stretching one joke way past its breaking point, or punching down at easy targets rather than punching up at the hypocritical adults the boys are constantly butting up against.

Viewed from today’s lens, a big chunk of that humor is undeniably uncomfortable. The movie is saturated with sexist, homophobic, and racist language, and a few of the “pranks” involving the girls are essentially sexual harassment played for laughs. At the time, it was sold as a gleefully politically incorrect romp; now, those same scenes read as mean‑spirited or creepy in a way that undercuts the supposed lighthearted tone. The film occasionally tries to complicate this by giving some of the female characters sharper edges or letting them turn the tables, but it never fully escapes the fact that the camera is mostly aligned with the boys and their fantasies.

That said, Porky’s is not entirely dismissive of its women. There are moments where adult women, in particular, are allowed to call out the boys’ behavior or assert their own sexuality in ways that undercut the usual “conquest” narrative. The movie also makes a point of ridiculing hypocritical authority figures—teachers, coaches, cops, and parents—whose prudish public morals don’t match their private behavior. When Porky’s is skewering bigotry, religious hypocrisy, and small‑town moral panics, it feels sharper and more progressive than its reputation as a dumb “tits‑and‑ass” comedy suggests. Those flashes of insight are part of why some viewers argue that, beneath the sleaze, the film is quietly critical of the very attitudes it seems to indulge.

Performance‑wise, the cast is made up largely of unknowns who sell the illusion that this is a real, scrappy group of friends rather than polished Hollywood teens. The camaraderie feels genuine; their constant ribbing, in‑jokes, and shifting alliances are believable enough that you can see why the movie became a touchstone for a certain generation of viewers. Bob Clark’s direction is surprisingly controlled for such an anarchic script. He keeps the story moving, balances multiple subplots, and stages the bigger comic payoffs in a way that feels almost like a live‑action cartoon. The downside is that this slickness can make the nastier gags pop more, for better and worse.

On a technical level, Porky’s is very much a product of its time, but not a cheap one. The period detail—cars, music, clothing, diners, and dingy roadside bars—helps sell the 1950s setting, giving the film a nostalgic sheen that softens some of its rougher edges. The soundtrack leans on era‑appropriate rock and roll, which adds energy to the locker‑room and party scenes. The film also doesn’t shy away from male nudity, which was less common in comedies of the time and adds to its reputation as equal‑opportunity when it comes to what it exposes, even if the gaze is still clearly tilted toward ogling women.

Where Porky’s can stumble is in tone. The shifts between broad farce and serious drama can be abrupt. One minute you are watching a drawn‑out gag about a teacher trying to identify a student by his anatomy; the next, you are plunged into a grim confrontation with an abusive parent. That whiplash can pull you out of the movie, because the emotional weight of the dramatic scenes doesn’t always get enough breathing room before the script lurches back to naughty antics. As a result, some viewers feel the darker elements trivialize real issues, while others think those same scenes give the film more substance than its imitators.

Even if someone has never seen Porky’s, they have probably felt its influence. The film was a massive box‑office hit relative to its budget and paved the way for a wave of raunchy teen comedies through the ’80s and ’90s, eventually echoing into movies like American Pie and beyond. Its success made it clear that there was a huge audience for R‑rated, adolescent sex comedies that mixed crude jokes with a veneer of coming‑of‑age sentiment. You can see its blueprint in later films: packs of horny friends, elaborate revenge schemes, school authority figures as comic foils, and a big, raucous set piece as the payoff.

Whether Porky’s “holds up” is going to depend a lot on your tolerance for outdated attitudes and offensive language. If you go in expecting a cozy nostalgia trip, you may be surprised by how sour some jokes taste now, and how casually the film treats behavior that would be framed very differently in a modern story. If you approach it as both a time capsule and the prototype of a genre, it becomes easier to see its strengths—the lively ensemble, the willingness to poke at racism and hypocrisy, the low‑budget ingenuity in its set pieces—alongside its very real flaws.

Porky’s is neither the hidden gem some defenders make it out to be nor the irredeemable trash its harshest critics describe. It is a messy, uneven, often funny, often cringeworthy movie that captures a particular moment in pop culture, both in what it laughs at and what it takes for granted. If you are curious about the roots of modern raunchy teen comedies and prepared for the rough, politically incorrect ride, it is still worth a look as a piece of film history and as an example of how comedy ages—for better and for worse.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Porky’s (1981, directed by Bob Clark)

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Porky’s.

On the one hand, it’s a crude, juvenile, and raunchy sex comedy where a bunch of teenagers in 1960s Florida think that it’s a hoot and not at all problematic to spy on the girls shower and to hire a black man to scare all of their (white) friends.

On the other hand, it’s a heartfelt plea for tolerance where Tim (Cyril O’Reilly) finally stands up to his abusive father (Wayne Maunder) and makes friends with Brian Schwartz (Scott Colomby), who is apparently the only Jewish person living in Angel Beach, Florida.

What’s strange about Porky’s is that everyone knows it for being the template for almost every bad high school film that followed, with tons of nudity, jokes about sex, and characters with names like Pee Wee, Miss Honeywell, Cherry Forever, and Porky. But, when you sit down and watch the movie, you discover that, for all the raunchiness, it actually devotes even more time to Brian Schwartz dealing with the local bigots than it does to any of the things that it’s known for. Everyone remembers the shower scene but it’s obvious the film’s heart is with Brian and his attempts to make the world a better place. Porky’s is a sex comedy with a conscience.

Porky’s is an episodic film about a group of teenage boys trying to get laid and also trying to get revenge on the owner of the local brothel. There’s a lot of characters but I’d dare anyone to tell me the difference between Billy, Tommy, and Mickey. I went through the entire movie thinking that Billy was Mickey until I turned on the subtitles and discovered who was who. Porky’s has a reputation for being a terrible movie but it’s actually a pretty accurate depiction of the way that most men like to imagine how their high school years went. It captures the atmosphere of good-spirited teenage hijinks if not the reality.

One of the interesting things about Porky’s is that Bob Clark went from directing this to directing A Christmas Story. The innocence of A Christmas Story might seem like it has nothing in common with raunchiness of Porky’s but, actually, they’re both nostalgic films that are set in an idealized past. (If you still think A Christmas Story has nothing in common with Porky’s, just remember that Ralphie didn’t actually say “fudge.”) Of course, A Christmas Story struggled at the box office and only became a hit when it was released on video while Porky’s is still the most successful Canadian film to ever be released in the U.S. Sex sells. As cool as it was to see Brian Schwartz stand up for himself, I doubt the people who made Porky’s a monster hit were buying their tickets because they had heard the film struck a blow against anti-Semitism. They were going because they knew there was a shower scene.

Porky’s deserves its reputation for being a not-so great movie but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t laugh more than once while watching it. (Of course, I still didn’t laugh as much as the characters in the films laughed. I’ve never seen a cast that was as apparently amused with themselves as the cast of Porky’s.) There’s a lot of bad moments but it’s hard not to crack a smile when Miss Honeywell demonstrates why she’s known as Lassie or when one of the coaches suggests that wanted posters can be hung around the school to help catch the shower voyeur. Plus, everyone learns an important lesson about tolerance and how to destroy a brothel. As bad as it is, it’s hard to really dislike Porky’s.

Quickie Review: Hot Tub Time Machine (dir. by Steve Pink)

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Arleigh

I was a child of the 80’s. I can’t escape that particular information about my past, but unlike some of those of my generation I wholeheartedly embrace the 80’s both the good and the bad and the oh-so-awful. This is why after watching Hot Tub Time Machine (directed by Steve Pink…quite an 80’s name if there ever was one) I have a much deeper appreciation for the things I went through growing up as a teen during the mid-80’s. Rap was just starting to get real popular. Hairstyles, fashion and pop culture was dictated by the emerging juggernaut that was MTV (when they actually played music videos). This raunchy (and it is pretty raunchy) comedy starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke definitely spoke to my inner 80’s teen self.

The film’s premise could’ve been taken straight out of any 80’s direct-to-video knock-off of Back to the Future meets Porky’s. I mean the title itself pretty much explains the premise of the film. A literal hot tub acts as a time machine which whisks the four actors mentioned above to 1986 where they get to re-live a specific night they all spent together in 1986 (well, except Duke’s character who wasn’t born yet). Talk about space-time continuum and butterfly effect gets bandied about, but in the end the whole film was just trying to insert as much 80’s pop culture references as possible within 90 and plus minutes.

The film definitely got the 80’s vibe by liberally putting in boobs and naked chicks. 80’s icons Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover and William Zabka make appearances and John Hughes moments get replicated. I mean shot literally like it was Sixteen Candles all over again. The performances by everyone involved was great and it seemed like everyone were enjoying themselves. Craig Robinson as Nick had me laughing out loud every time he said something.

One thing good I can say about Hot Tub Time Machine that encompasses everything good about it is that it played like the anti-Judd Apatow comedy. While Apatow laughers I enjoy they’ve gotten to the point that everyone tries to make their comedies sound like his. Plus, any comedy that can have Sixteen Candles and Red Dawn references in the same 30-minute span has to be awesome….Oh yeah, it also used Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” power ballad over and over.