Amateur spring-break voyeurism generated a 4.5-million-unit-selling franchise

Evidence

Raunch culture’s grip extended into low culture, as epitomized by the Girls Gone Wild video series. These videotapes and DVDs, sold through late-night infomercials, captured young women at spring break or Mardi Gras flashing the camera or engaging in casual lesbian scenes. Creator Joe Francis, a USC graduate, made a fortune in packaging up this amateur voyeurism. He pocketed at least $10 million from his first project, Banned from Television, which bundled violent and graphic footage deemed too extreme for TV. With Girls Gone Wild, Francis visited the American South to capture fresh material, luring women to “go wild” in exchange for cotton tank tops. By 2001, the franchise had sold 4.5 million units, and Francis lived lavishly, owning private planes, luxury cars, and Andy Warhol lithographs. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 66

Categorization

• SHARE: The ‘cotton tank tops as payment’ detail and 4.5 million units is a good concrete data point.
• QUESTION: The Eminem height-quirk anecdote and MGM film deal are dropped without resolution — worth chasing whether raunch culture had a mainstream-press moment that then collapsed.