CIRCUS OF BOOKS Trailer (2020) Netflix
For over 35 years, the gay porn shop Circus of Books gave Los Angeles’ LGBT+ community a space to socialize and celebrate themselves without judgment. Executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Circus of Books is the debut documentary from artist Rachel Mason, who finally asks the least radical people she knows- her parents- how they became American's biggest distributors of gay porn. Only on Netflix April 22.
Video Transcript
KAREN MASON: I'm Karen.
BARRY MASON: I'm Barry, and we own Circuits of Books.
- I thought it was just a bookstore with a circus theme.
- Circus of Books was the center of the gay universe.
- Just like porn, P-O-R-N.
- If anyone asked us what our parents did--
- These are called cock rings.
- --the official answer was, we own a bookstore.
- Porn has always had a place in the gay community to see men naked and unafraid.
- They're not offended. They're not scandalized. It's their job.
- This guy here, Hand Jobs Magazine. Now he does organic chicken farming. So when I order from him, we catch up on his chickens.
- This is the face of Santa Monica Boulevard.
- In the '80s, if you could sell adult material, you could make a lot of money. We were probably the biggest distributor of hardcore gay films in the United States, but I never felt free to let anybody know what we did.
- Mom was caught between this stuffy conservative synagogue and the business.
- It was like a knife over our heads all the time.
- We just were completely kept in the dark.
- More than 800 cases nationwide, and yet, still, surprisingly few people are familiar with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
- We lost so many of our employees. We would call the parents and say, hey, your son is sick. The parents would just say, I never want to see that guy again. But he's your son.
- They didn't set out to support the gay community, but they were not going to let other forces tell them what to do.
- Circus of Books was my first glimpse into the fact that I wasn't alone as a gay person.
- To be a homo was unspeakable.
- This bookstore, it kept me out of harm's way.
- No one has ever given us anything we haven't had to fight for.
- I think what we did was small human kindnesses in a very small way.
- You guys made all of those?
- Yeah, they'll send you to college.
