El Paso Wrecking Corp. (Joe Gage, 1978)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines editorial strategies employed by director Joe Gage in his 1978 gay pornographic feature El Paso Wrecking Corp. The author argues that through the use of avant-garde and abstract editorial techniques, Gage reframes male bodies and desire in gay pornographic cinema by disassociating the depiction of sexual climax from its traditional status as marking the end of a sexual encounter. By reframing orgasm as an autonomous erotographic unit, Gage articulates a free-flowing and fluid concept of male-male sexual exchange in line with his film's broader project of social and cultural critique.