scene title: parent-teacher trap
performers: alexis fawx, mackenzie moss, kendra james
site: lesbian revenge ◅ pure taboo (gamma)
production credits: whitney wright (dir., scr.), matt holder (d.p.), clit eastwood (ed.)
release date: july 2, 2019 | trailer
every pure taboo scene has to have at least one of the following: an explicit statement that everyone involved is of legal age; an explicit statement that no one involved is related to one another by blood; an explicit statement that everyone involved is free to walk away at any time. but those asses being covered, (almost) anything else goes.
this scene has all three.
when whitney wright took to social media to promote the first installment in a projected six-episode series that she is writing and directing under the pure taboo umbrella, and which represent the brand's first girl/girl efforts in almost three years of production, she ended her tweet by darkly promising "there are no love stories here."
pure taboo, of course, famously doesn't do love stories: the signature inky shadows of the site's cinematography reflect the cartoonishly misanthropic tone of its storytelling, in which bad people do bad things to each other because in real life people are awful and sex is as often mixed up with power dynamics as it is with romantic feelings. it rubs viewers' faces in the psychological horror of the pseudo-incest, barely-legal and not-quite-rape fantasies that the rest of porn tends to treat with a broader, even sitcommy touch, and an audience that prefers to take its entertainment as dark as they can get it has eagerly responded.
as you might be able to tell from the tone of the above paragraph, i am not part of that audience: not only am i a girl/girl-only consumer, but i quite enjoy comedy in my porn (so long as it's actually funny, of course, which includes being able to surprise me) and cordially dislike pretty much any entertainment that people who gleefully describe their taste as being "dark" or "edgy" enjoy. so i was looking forward to lesbian revenge not because i was eager to marinate in the atmosphere of ominous dread and delicious cruelty that it promised, but because i wanted to see the next project from whitney (who wrote and directed my favorite scene of april) and because i wouldn't mind experiencing a change of pace from gamma's usual girl/girl fare: girlsway has become ever more cutesy and predictable over the past several years as if needing to be the yang to pure taboo's yin.
it's certainly not a girlsway scene: not even their features, which allowed for a broader tonal range than their regular weekly updates, were ever this bitterly nasty. it's a bit of an achievement, in fact, on whitney's part to have made porn with such a ridiculous premise that doesn't turn campy: it's played entirely straight, and is uncomfortable throughout because of it.
kendra james is the focal point of the scene: as a malicious teacher who uses student mackenzie moss's cheating on a final paper as an excuse to sexually humiliate her and her stepmother alexis fawx, she is superb. a primarily fetish performer who only occasionally dips into standard girl/girl, kendra is one of the great dommes in a corner of the industry that has little use for dommes, because girl/girl audiences are so squeamish about anything that isn't two pretty, ultrafeminine girls being pretty and ultrafeminine together. her steely authoritativeness, totally free from campy preening, sells each step along the way convincingly even as her demands get more ludicrous.
i couldn't help laughing every time she ratcheted up the tension, which i'm not sure was the intended response, but kendra's baleful basilisk rigidity, mackenzie's impatient, fine-whatever attitude, and alexis' flustered-to-horrified self-loathing were so perfectly played that laughter seemed the best form of appreciation i could give. whitney wright's script, in typical pure taboo fashion, took its time moving the chess pieces into place, and if she wasn't able to get me to buy the real nail-in-the-coffin moment, when alexis threatens to go to the principal about kendra's sexual misconduct and kendra defeats her by threatening to tell the principal about alexis having offered a bribe to pass mackenzie (there's no moral universe in which bribery is a worse sin than sexual harassment), the subtlety of the interplay between the three women made the scene work emotionally if not intellectually.
coercion isn't my kink, so the sex was relatively tedious: extremely well performed and shot, but not particularly engaging. when kendra sends alexis to go wait in the car so that she can have mackenzie to herself, alexis's numb, humiliated obedience was exceptional, and mackenzie's performance shifting from eye-rolling disdain to revulsion and hatred over the course of the hour was remarkable; for such a new performer she's developed into one of the best actors in the gamma stable. (having spiegler sister whitney wright, no mean actor herself, on set probably helped a lot.)
the filmmaking was great: pure taboo's signature mobile cameras, dramatic, crisply washed-out colors, and well-composed, frequently foreshortened shots with extreme depth of focus, made this one of the best-looking scenes in recent memory, even in a classroom set that every porn producer has used countless times. whitney got an all-star cinematography team for her first outing (apparently bree mills was on set as a producer to ensure continuity with the pure taboo brand before she leaves the rest of the series to whitney alone), with gamma regulars craven moorehead, matt holder and curious judas giving the visuals an unusual polish.
mackenzie's final spiteful outburst at kendra makes me think there's more coming to this story; and whitney has dropped hints on social media and in comment sections that the six-episode season might be more narratively interconnected than is typical for porn. she's specifically drawn attention to the switchblade kendra uses to peel the apple she villainously chomps on throughout the scene: weapons are apparently going to be a recurrent theme, even though they can't be used narratively (for the same reason that alexis is mackenzie's stepmother and mackenzie is playing eighteen). i'm certainly intrigued, and although lesbian revenge will probably never be my favorite porn series (i'm too much of a softie to do more than respect the craftmanship and admire the performances), i'll certainly keep tuning in.
performances: 30
cinematography: 24
editing: 20
script: 13
sjw points: 2
total score:
performers: alexis fawx, mackenzie moss, kendra james
site: lesbian revenge ◅ pure taboo (gamma)
production credits: whitney wright (dir., scr.), matt holder (d.p.), clit eastwood (ed.)
release date: july 2, 2019 | trailer
 |
| l: alexis fawx, c: kendra james, r: mackenzie moss |
every pure taboo scene has to have at least one of the following: an explicit statement that everyone involved is of legal age; an explicit statement that no one involved is related to one another by blood; an explicit statement that everyone involved is free to walk away at any time. but those asses being covered, (almost) anything else goes.
this scene has all three.
when whitney wright took to social media to promote the first installment in a projected six-episode series that she is writing and directing under the pure taboo umbrella, and which represent the brand's first girl/girl efforts in almost three years of production, she ended her tweet by darkly promising "there are no love stories here."
pure taboo, of course, famously doesn't do love stories: the signature inky shadows of the site's cinematography reflect the cartoonishly misanthropic tone of its storytelling, in which bad people do bad things to each other because in real life people are awful and sex is as often mixed up with power dynamics as it is with romantic feelings. it rubs viewers' faces in the psychological horror of the pseudo-incest, barely-legal and not-quite-rape fantasies that the rest of porn tends to treat with a broader, even sitcommy touch, and an audience that prefers to take its entertainment as dark as they can get it has eagerly responded.
as you might be able to tell from the tone of the above paragraph, i am not part of that audience: not only am i a girl/girl-only consumer, but i quite enjoy comedy in my porn (so long as it's actually funny, of course, which includes being able to surprise me) and cordially dislike pretty much any entertainment that people who gleefully describe their taste as being "dark" or "edgy" enjoy. so i was looking forward to lesbian revenge not because i was eager to marinate in the atmosphere of ominous dread and delicious cruelty that it promised, but because i wanted to see the next project from whitney (who wrote and directed my favorite scene of april) and because i wouldn't mind experiencing a change of pace from gamma's usual girl/girl fare: girlsway has become ever more cutesy and predictable over the past several years as if needing to be the yang to pure taboo's yin.
it's certainly not a girlsway scene: not even their features, which allowed for a broader tonal range than their regular weekly updates, were ever this bitterly nasty. it's a bit of an achievement, in fact, on whitney's part to have made porn with such a ridiculous premise that doesn't turn campy: it's played entirely straight, and is uncomfortable throughout because of it.
kendra james is the focal point of the scene: as a malicious teacher who uses student mackenzie moss's cheating on a final paper as an excuse to sexually humiliate her and her stepmother alexis fawx, she is superb. a primarily fetish performer who only occasionally dips into standard girl/girl, kendra is one of the great dommes in a corner of the industry that has little use for dommes, because girl/girl audiences are so squeamish about anything that isn't two pretty, ultrafeminine girls being pretty and ultrafeminine together. her steely authoritativeness, totally free from campy preening, sells each step along the way convincingly even as her demands get more ludicrous.
i couldn't help laughing every time she ratcheted up the tension, which i'm not sure was the intended response, but kendra's baleful basilisk rigidity, mackenzie's impatient, fine-whatever attitude, and alexis' flustered-to-horrified self-loathing were so perfectly played that laughter seemed the best form of appreciation i could give. whitney wright's script, in typical pure taboo fashion, took its time moving the chess pieces into place, and if she wasn't able to get me to buy the real nail-in-the-coffin moment, when alexis threatens to go to the principal about kendra's sexual misconduct and kendra defeats her by threatening to tell the principal about alexis having offered a bribe to pass mackenzie (there's no moral universe in which bribery is a worse sin than sexual harassment), the subtlety of the interplay between the three women made the scene work emotionally if not intellectually.
coercion isn't my kink, so the sex was relatively tedious: extremely well performed and shot, but not particularly engaging. when kendra sends alexis to go wait in the car so that she can have mackenzie to herself, alexis's numb, humiliated obedience was exceptional, and mackenzie's performance shifting from eye-rolling disdain to revulsion and hatred over the course of the hour was remarkable; for such a new performer she's developed into one of the best actors in the gamma stable. (having spiegler sister whitney wright, no mean actor herself, on set probably helped a lot.)
the filmmaking was great: pure taboo's signature mobile cameras, dramatic, crisply washed-out colors, and well-composed, frequently foreshortened shots with extreme depth of focus, made this one of the best-looking scenes in recent memory, even in a classroom set that every porn producer has used countless times. whitney got an all-star cinematography team for her first outing (apparently bree mills was on set as a producer to ensure continuity with the pure taboo brand before she leaves the rest of the series to whitney alone), with gamma regulars craven moorehead, matt holder and curious judas giving the visuals an unusual polish.
mackenzie's final spiteful outburst at kendra makes me think there's more coming to this story; and whitney has dropped hints on social media and in comment sections that the six-episode season might be more narratively interconnected than is typical for porn. she's specifically drawn attention to the switchblade kendra uses to peel the apple she villainously chomps on throughout the scene: weapons are apparently going to be a recurrent theme, even though they can't be used narratively (for the same reason that alexis is mackenzie's stepmother and mackenzie is playing eighteen). i'm certainly intrigued, and although lesbian revenge will probably never be my favorite porn series (i'm too much of a softie to do more than respect the craftmanship and admire the performances), i'll certainly keep tuning in.
performances: 30
cinematography: 24
editing: 20
script: 13
sjw points: 2
total score: