Historically, animals have been used for both food and entertainment with little thought given to how they felt about it. The concept of cruelty to animals is relatively new, so what used to be considered a good time, modern society may now call shocking. Even in modern times, though, there are those who find amusement in animals being harmed.

Top 10 Human Sideshow Freaks

10 Cat Burning

The people of medieval Europe associated cats with all kinds of wickedness. Burning “witches” was acceptable, and burning cats, which were associated with them, actually became a tradition in some areas. In Paris, a pyre was erected on the eve of Saint John’s day for the purpose of burning dozens of cats alive (and occasionally a fox, depending on the mood.) The king would be in attendance, and would even hold a feast after the cats were incinerated.^[1]

Many cats met their ends during festivals in France, but while cat-burning ceremonies were less common in England, there were still occasions to light up a feline. During a festival for the 119th anniversary of Elizabeth the First’s coronation, an effigy of Pope Innocent XI was paraded through the streets of London with live cats caged inside its stomach. When the effigy was lit on fire, the screeching cats were said to represent the language of the Devil whispering in his ears.^[2]

9 The Cave of Dogs

The Phlegraean Fields in Italy were once the site of a strange “experiment” for tourists. The Cave of Dogs, near Lake Agnano, opens into a slope that ends in a fumarole emitting carbon dioxide due to the volcanic nature of the area. The carbon dioxide settles on the bottom of the lowest reaches of the cave, which makes it impossible for short animals to breath. Tourists had been visiting the cave for centuries, as attested by records written by Pliny the Elder, but more modern visitors like Mark Twain began writing about the “dog experiment” that tourists carried out to make a spectacle of the carbon dioxide layer.

Basically, the “experiment” consisted of forcing a dog’s head into the carbon dioxide long enough for it to suffocate. The idea was that the dog would fall unconscious, then the tourist would go throw it into the cold lake waters to wake it back up. Twain, being Mark Twain, stated he intended to go a step further and hold the dog by his hind legs until it suffocated, revive it in the waters, and then just kill it in the carbon dioxide for good measure. Fortunately for any nearby canines, it was merely a bit of Twain’s sarcastic humor. After he stated his intention of killing a dog, he made light of the whole thing by mentioning that he had forgotten to bring one.^[3]

8 Cock-throwing

The English had a custom called “cock-throwing” in which a chicken was tied to a pillar (or any high structure) so participants could hurl specially made sticks at it. The spectacle was usually held on Shrove Tuesday, a time in which the social restrictions on positions such as apprentices and other laborers were loosened enough for them to engage in somewhat less than high-brow fun.

Sometimes cock-throwing was held for fun, but other times it involved a bit of gambling. Participants had to pay a fee to throw sticks at the chicken. If they hit it with a killing blow, they got to keep the carcass for cooking. If they broke its legs or otherwise made it unable to stand, the chicken would be strung up to a pole that would hold it up so the contest could continue. If someone simply knocked the chicken off whatever it was roped to, depending on the rules, it became a game of who could catch it the quickest. The winner would keep the cock.^[4]

7 The Bear Gardens

In Shakespeare’s time, one of the main competitors of his theater was the Bear Gardens. It was an area dedicated to animal baiting, which was essentially putting an animal like a bear in a pit, then setting other animals, usually dogs, loose on it. The ensuing battle was a widely popular bloodsport at the time, frequented even by Elizabeth I. King James I used animals like lions and polar bears from the crown’s private collection for private animal baiting events.

Bears were tied to a pole in a pit. Dogs were set upon them, and the bear had to first fight its way free from the rope, and then defeat the dogs. Since bears were expensive to obtain and transport to the gardens, the fights were usually stopped after enough dogs died. The bear would then live to fight another day, as it were, and some even became minor celebrities.

Other animals were used in the baiting games, including a chimpanzee riding a horse that spectators loved to see cry out whenever it was attacked. People were likewise fond of sicking dogs on bulls, since the bull would hurl them into the air with its horns, much to the delight of the crowd.^[5]

6 Goose Pulling

Goose pulling was a European bloodsport carried out as early as the 17th century. A goose was strung up by its legs, and then riders on horseback would take turns racing beneath it and attempting to pull its head off. Oil was slathered over the goose’s neck to make it more difficult to grab onto. The goose was also alive, so it would be struggling to get free, which also made pulling its head off more difficult.^[6]

Even during the time period when goose pulling was popular, it was criticized as barbaric. Even after it later made its way across the Atlantic ocean to the US, it was still frowned upon and eventually died out in most areas. Today there are modified versions of goose pulling held throughout Europe using dead geese that were humanely killed by a veterinarian, although animal rights activists still take issue with the competitions.^[7]

10 Debated Acts of Animal Cruelty

5 Geek Show

The modern usage of the word “geek” is a large change from its original meaning of, roughly, “fool.”^[8] Geek shows were a carnival act from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s where a “geek,” the central performer, would act like a wild man (or woman) and chase animals around a stage to bite their heads off. The act was extremely degrading to the performer, who was usually an alcoholic or drug abuser paid with alcohol or narcotics.

Some famous geeks incorporated additional aspects into their act, or played up their “wildness” for the crowds. Eeka, a famous female geek, was also a snake charmer and “wild girl.” The geek show eventually fell out of fashion as interest in animal rights grew, and biting off animal heads became more horrifying than entertaining.^[9]

4 Cannibal Holocaust

One of the most controversial movies of all time, Cannibal Holocaust got its director brought up on charges of animal cruelty and murder. The murder chargers didn’t stick, as the newspaper that reported the on-screen deaths as real turned out to be spreading false information. The director disproved the charges by bringing one of the supposed “victims” to the trial. But the animal cruelty charges got him fined when the onscreen animal deaths proved to be real.^[10]

A large turtle was killed for the movie, and a monkey’s brutal death was filmed twice. (Meaning two monkeys were killed.) In defense, the director said that the animals were killed, but also eaten by the actors and crew. That didn’t stop authorities from condemning the killings, and they found the director guilty of animal cruelty because the deaths were done for the purpose of making a film.^[11]

3 Kots Kaal Pato

Kots Kaal Pato is a festival held in Citilcum of Yucatan, Mexico where people once filled pinatas with live animals and beat them to death. Local superstition held that it was once associated with the rainy season. The local children rounded up animals, usually iguanas or a marsupial called an opossum, shoved them into pinatas, and then beat them with sticks. Any animal that escaped was trampled.

Other festivities included hanging up a duck by its feet on a wooden structure, then participants racing to tear its head off.^[12] When animal rights activists voiced their concerns about the festival to the local government, the Izamal municipality worked with the local Catholic church to end the festival as it was once carried out. Nowadays, live animals are no longer harmed during the festivities.^[13]

2 Badger Baiting

Badger baiting involves sending a dog into a badger burrow (either natural or artificial) in order to kill or capture it. Even if both animals survive, they can receive injuries so severe a vet might euthanize them. It was once a form of entertainment in the UK, but was outlawed in 1835 due to animal cruelty laws. Although outlawed, badger baiting never truly went away, and has in fact seen a modern resurgence.

Nowadays, badger baiting is usually a matter of a badger being found, either by the baiters themselves or a farmer, who calls them in to eliminate it.^[14] The men set their dogs out to find the badger, and then, once the dogs find it, they dig into its burrow as they sick their dogs on it. There have been hundreds of modern accusations of alleged baiters. And some are even breeding dogs for the sole purpose of fighting badgers. Undercover operations to infiltrate the world of badger baiting have seen several baiters facing jail time under animal cruelty laws.^[15]

1 Animal Crush Porn

Animal crush pornography is a horrific kind of fetish pornography where viewers gain sexual gratification by watching lingerie-clad women torture animals to death. Animals are tortured and killed in any number of horrifically cruel ways, although the genre first got its name from people crushing kittens. Boiling animals alive, blowtorching them, disemboweling them, stabbing stilettos in their eye. Any and every twisted act imaginable is carried out.

This kind of pornography mainly infests the dark web, since animal cruelty is illegal in most places. While some of the women in the videos seem to enjoy their actions, some are actually victims themselves. There was at least one case where the women in the videos were found to be victims of trafficking, and forced to carry out the torture upon threats to their own lives.^[16]

10 Times Scientists Got Animals High To See What Would Happen

What’s fun for one person can be fundamentally appalling to another. In fact, history is full of leisure activities where the offended parties certainly have a point. Standards change, although the following pastimes might make you wonder if the past even had standards.

From slaughtering animals on a moving train to mocking an entire race in motion pictures, it’s amazing (and more than a bit alarming) what used to pass for entertainment. Highlights—or shall we say lowlights—include a sex-offending skunk, an amusement park mini-city that treated little people like zoo animals, and a chart-topping song extolling the virtues of roofies.

10 Poor Tours: An International Slum-sation

Following the Industrial Revolution, late 19th-century London was among the Western world’s most economically imbalanced cities. In the twilight of the Victorian Era, East London in particular was impoverished and overflowing with working-class natives as well as Irish, Eastern European, and Jewish immigrants.

Across town, fabulously wealthy residents were just a carriage ride away, and they were intrigued by newspaper items describing the desperate state of the slums. And while some were motivated by religious or altruistic reasons, most were mere oglers and cheap thrill-seekers. Many even took voyeuristic vacations, donning disguises and spending a few nights among the poor in squalid tenements.

And then, slumming went international. In 1884, a headline in The New York Times proclaimed: “A Fashionable London Mania Reaches New-York. Slumming Parties to be the Rage This Winter.” For decades to come, well-to-do white New Yorkers spent their ample leisure time touring Harlem, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and other downtrodden neighborhoods.^[1]

In fact, the practice has endured to this day. Now known by such terms as “poorism” and “poverty porn,” touring impoverished areas has become a cottage industry around the world. Debates continue as to whether these constitute well-intending educational experiences or shameful schadenfreude.

9 The Original Drive-By Shooting

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the United States refocused on westward expansion. And to expand west unimpeded, something needed to be done about the Native Americans. One of the strategies involved destroying what, for many Native American tribes, was an irreplaceable lifeblood: the bison.

In short order, the millions of bison roaming the Great Plains were reduced to near-extinction. Not coincidentally, bison pelts had come into fashion, and by the 1880s, over 5,000 hunters were involved in the wholesale slaughter of whole herds. The picture above easily says 1,000 words about the tragedy that transpired.

But perhaps the most sickening part of the already carnivalesque carnage was when railroads started advertising hunting by rail,^[2] which is a nice way of saying “blowing out bison brains from a moving train.” The ads flooded newspapers back east, and in no time, any “adventurous” gentlemen with a few bucks and a rifle could kill a beautiful beast just for fun—strewing the landscape with rotting, unutilized carcasses whose lives weren’t even worth slowing down for.

The spectacle was particularly macabre in instances where a herd would cross rail tracks. Slowing or stopping the train offered nearly point-blank, fish-in-a-barrel shootings that eliminated any already precarious semblance of sport.

8 Insult To Injury: Wild West Shows

History is typically written by those in power, and to the victors go the spoils. The turn-of-the-20th-century American spectacles of traveling Wild West Shows were among the most perverse examples of both. After driving an entire race of people into desperation and destitution, enterprising entertainers such as the celebrated “Buffalo Bill” Cody made them relive their humiliation in fictionalized accounts of white valor and Native American barbarism.^[3]

By the 1880s, the Wild West had been tamed. Native Americans were herded onto desolate reservations whose landscapes looked nothing like their established homes, meaning their ways of life, and ability to support themselves, had been decimated.

Among the few job prospects was playing themselves—or, rather, whitewashed versions of themselves—in traveling shows romanticizing the closing American frontier. Not surprisingly, indigenous peoples were portrayed as unprovoked murderers and thieves and conquered by blameless white heroes in front of packed houses. To an entertained public, the performances, which ran well into the early 1900s, solidified notions of “Indians” as subhuman savages whose fate was fully deserved.

Sadly, many prominent Native Americans were lured into participating, usually as the only means to escape abject poverty. Cody featured Sitting Bull in his show in 1885, and for a competing show, the legendary Geronimo was advertised as “The Worst Indian That Ever Lived”—a typically sensationalist sentiment. He appeared in Cody’s show, as well.

7 The Little Things That Thrill

Along with Steeplechase and Luna Park, Dreamland was among the original three amusement parks that cemented the carnival legacy of New York City’s Coney Island. And though it only operated from 1904 to 1911, Dreamland established itself among the most ambitious entertainment-driven projects ever, well, dreamed up.

Illuminated by an otherworldly one million light bulbs, Dreamland’s imaginative attractions included a gondola ride through a recreated Venice, a train journey through the Swiss Alps, complete with gusts of frosty air, and a twice-daily six-story tenement building fire fought by scores of actors.

But one spectacle stooped really low: Lilliputia, a pint-sized European village where some 300 little people lived full-time.^[4] Also known as the now-offensive “Midget City,” the tiny town was lined with half-size houses stocked with small-scale furniture and even had stables with miniature horses.

Collected from fairs and carnival sideshows across the country, its inhabitants performed in circuses, plays, and even operas for visitors. And since Coney Island is a beach destination, Lilliputia also had a stretch of sand frequented by small sunbathers and decked out with the littlest of lifeguard chairs.

Suffice to say, treating little people like a zoo exhibit would create more than a small stir today.

6 A Star Is Born: Preemie Voyeurism

Dreamland was so odd that it merits twin billing on this list. A short stroll from Lilliputia brought visitors to an attraction even stranger—and whose stars were even smaller. A special-admission sideshow featured premature babies being kept alive by a brand new invention: incubators.^[5]

The dazzling devices were the brainchild of Dr. Martin Couney, who, upon developing the lifesaving contraption, realized that the clinical operating costs were impossibly prohibitive. Charging goo-goo gaga-ing gawkers an extra 25 cents (about $7 in today’s money) helped fund the facility.

Like its residents, the incubator installation was ahead of its time: When the exhibit opened in 1903, premature babies were considered genetically inferior and, from a medical standpoint, lost causes doomed to die. Couney’s invention disproved this assumption, showing that, with proper care, babies born early could indeed develop into healthy children.

Although the spectacle was shunned by the medical community, Couney’s clinic luckily did not burn to the ground in 1911 with the rest of Dreamland. Instead, it remained open until 1943—and revolutionized pediatric science in the process. In hindsight, it’s one offensive idea worth defending.

5 The Amazing (And Disgusting) Pervasiveness Of Blackface Performances

Given the United States’ troubling racial legacy, the advent of blackface minstrelsy—comedic performances of “blackness” by whites in exaggerated costumes and makeup—is unremarkable. What is surprising is how widespread, enduring, and popular it was as a form of entertainment.

The first minstrel shows date to 1830s New York City, featuring white performers sporting tattered clothing and faces blackened with shoe polish. The actors characterized blacks as lazy, ignorant, sexually promiscuous thieves. Among the most popular recurring characters was Jim Crow, a term now best known for the repressive anti-black laws passed throughout the post-Civil War Southern US.

Something this offensive couldn’t possibly go ultra-mainstream . . . right?

Wrong. Blackface endured through the 19th century and, in the early 20th, made the leap to the big screen.^[6] Movies with abhorrent titles like Wooing and Wedding of a Coon and the feminist gem Coon Town Suffragettes were produced, and toxic characters with names like Stepin Fetchit and Sleep ‘n Eat concocted, well into the first half of the 1900s.

Blackface was so mainstream that a lengthy list of Hollywood stars appeared in films either as blackface characters or with them. These include Bing Crosby, Milton Berle, Fred Astaire, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, and future US president Ronald Reagan.

4 Will Foxtrot For Food: The Great Depression’s Dancing Destitute

Beginning in the mid-1920s as fun-filled endurance competitions, dance marathons were last-couple-standing contests in which the duo who could Charleston, Jitterbug, and Lindy Hop the longest won prizes.

But when the New York stock market crashed in late 1929, ushering in the Great Depression, dance-a-thons took a darker, more desperate turn on the dance floor. Suddenly, those prizes were the only income many dancers had a chance to earn, transforming a lighthearted competition into something more resembling The Hunger Games.

With US unemployment exceeding 25 percent, destitute dancers weren’t difficult to find. Well-to-do patrons paid for the privilege to cackle as demeaned duos did everything in their power to outlast their fellow impoverished competitors. Many took turns napping in their partners’ arms during events that would stretch on for days or even weeks.

As added incentive in a nation ravaged by hunger, the dancers were typically fed so long as they kept dancing.^[7]

All the while, onlookers watched and waited for dancers to quit, collapse, or have sleep-deprived nervous breakdowns. The schadenfreude-driven spectacles became so morbid that many states eventually banned them.

3 #MePew: The Sex Offender Skunk

Plenty of cartoons have featured questionable behavior at best: Elmer Fudd trying to murder an anthropomorphized bunny. Homer Simpson choking his son, Bart. Pretty much everything on South Park.

But the all-time award for “Worst Behavior in an Animated Program” undoubtedly goes to everyone’s favorite forced fornicator: Pepe Le Pew.

Granted, Fudd deserves an honorable mention for his armed pursuit of Bugs Bunny. But at least hunting wabbits is legal. Ol’ Pepe is consumed by the compulsion to commit interspecies rape.

His perpetual would-be victim is Penelope the Pussycat.^[8] And ever since Pepe laid his skunk eyes on her, she’s been fleeing her odiferous, amorous assailant. Since Pepe’s debut in 1945, children have witnessed the attempted sexual subjugation of a female feline . . . and apparently found it amusing enough to make Pepe a Merrie Melodies regular.

It’s unfair to judge cartoonists in the first half of the 20th century by 2018 standards, but was attempted rape acceptable enough in the postwar West that it was fodder for children’s entertainment? New episodes were made until 1962 and reran for decades afterward. Sacrebleu!

2 Flipper: Not Really Smiling

Long before the controversial orca show in Sea World, there was America’s favorite dolphin, right in everyone’s living rooms.

Purportedly faster than lightning and smarter than his fellow seafarers, Flipper was a hit TV show from 1964 to 1967. The marine mammal saved would-be drowning victims, caught criminals, and even (for some reason) once flew in a helicopter before diving down into the ocean depths to save the day.

Only in reality, that wasn’t Flipper. A dead, frozen dolphin was tossed from the helicopter. Granted, entertainment was tricky in the days before CGI allowed filmmakers to create pretty much any visual they wanted. But the show has an even darker story.

Flipper was portrayed by a handful of dolphins. A few years after the show’s cancellation, one of them committed suicide.^[9] Yes, apparently dolphins can do that.

One day in 1970, after years in captivity, Kathy the dolphin swam into the arms of her longtime trainer, Ric O’Barry. She then ceased breathing, sinking to the bottom of her tank. Unlike humans, dolphins can choose to stop breathing (we can’t—try it). O’Barry, who soon after described Kathy as “really depressed,” went on to be a marine mammal rights activist, even authoring a 1988 memoir called Behind the Dolphin Smile.

Programs and films with animal stars are often met with questions about their humane treatment. In Flipper ’s case, those worries were warranted.

1 Funky Cold Rohypnol

Examples abound of songs that, either by being dated or just plain degrading, disrespect women. From the old-fashioned, no-means-no-noncompliant holiday classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”^[10] to rappers perched on giant female posteriors, the music industry has had the objectification of women down to a science for generations.

Few songs, however, are disturbing on the level of 1989’s “Funky Cold Medina.” It’s basically a song about roofie-ing women.

The story unfolds as follows: Like any red-blooded gent, Tone Loc—the same artist who brought us the similarly racy (but refreshingly rape-free) “Wild Thing”—was out on the town, an eligible bachelor in the market to meet some bachelorettes. Upon entering a local watering hole, however, our hero is puzzled by the number of attractive, seemingly amorous young ladies keeping the company of a less conventionally appealing chap.

Naturally, Tone couldn’t help but query the pub’s most popular bloke as to his secret. Per the lyrics:

This brother told me a secret on how to get more chicks,
Put a little Medina in your glass, and the girls will come real quick.
It’s better than any alcohol or aphrodisiac,
A couple of sips of this love potion, and she’ll be on your lap.

Undeterred by the prospect of committing felony sexual assault, Mr. Loc decided to employ the somehow novel strategy of spiking someone’s drink to get them in the bedroom. Unluckily for him, it backfired. Per the lyrics:

I took her to my crib, and everything went well as planned,
But when she got undressed, it was a big old mess, Sheena was a man!

Now that’s cold.

Christopher Dale frequently writes on society, politics, and sobriety-based issues. He’s been published in Salon, The Daily Beast, NY Daily News, and Parents.com, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter at @ChrisDaleWriter.

Sometimes referred to as the other Hollywood, the worlds of adult entertainment and mainstream Hollywood have always been clearly divided. You may occasionally get a Ron Jeremy or Sasha Grey who can transition into a semblance of a mainstream acting career, but often they will not be household names. At most, some will transition into the world of the B-Movies or cult classics (such as stars like Traci Lords). But there are a few rarities who started in adult entertainment and managed to transition into a successful career in the mainstream. The following 10 celebrities are among those select few.

Related: Top 10 Titillating Facts About Pornography

10 Larry Hankin

Odds are, the name Larry Hankin may not ring a bell. Acting since the late ’60s, Larry Hankin has over 100 acting credits to his name. With featured roles on shows such as Breaking Bad and memorable guest-starring roles on shows such as Seinfeld and Friends. In fact, he is the only actor besides Brian Cranston to have a role on Malcolm in the Middle, Seinfeld, and Breaking Bad. He also has a lucrative film career, sharing the screen with acting legends like Clint Eastwood and roles in smash comedy successes, including Billy Madison.

Yet, one of his earliest roles was a non-sex role in the 1977 pornographic film China de Sade. Directed by noted adult film director Charles Webb, the film follows a Chinese spy played by Linda Wong as she becomes involved with a den of sadists. Hankin appears in the film as an agent (credited under the name Lance Hunt). Unfortunately, there is not much info available about the film to explain how he wound up in it. However, he is not the only future mainstream actor to appear in a non-sex role in a golden age adult film.^[1]

9 James Hong

James Hong has managed to accumulate an impressive legacy with over 400 acting roles. Well known as both an actor and voice actor, there is no shortage of well-known characters. Arguably best known as the lead villain Lo Pan in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China and a memorable guest role on programs such as Seinfeld (an odd recurring theme thus far). To younger audiences, he may be best known for his voice work in Jackie Chan Adventures and Kung Fu Panda.

Among his hundreds of credits is a non-sex role in the 1974 adult film China Girl (credited as Y.C. Chan). Besides sharing the screen with golden age starlet Annette Haven, not much is known about his involvement with the film. He also happened to appear in an unrelated 1987 film entitled—ironically—China Girl. Even more curious is that he wasn’t a struggling actor by this point as he had already been active for 20 years. In the same year, he appeared in the critically acclaimed classic Chinatown (granted, it was as a butler).^[2]

8 Simon Rex

While not a household name, Simon Rex has nonetheless proven himself as a capable comedic actor. Anyone from the ’90s might remember him as an MTV VJ. He’s mainly remembered nowadays for his work on shows like What I Like About You and in films such as the Scary Movie franchise. He has even gained a more recent following on internet platforms such as Vine.

Yet before all that, before he even planned on being in entertainment, he was just a young man with responsibilities. At 18, while working as a busboy and helping take care of his girlfriend and her child, he found himself in need of cash for rent. His girlfriend, already working in the adult business, set up a few shoots for him. These adult flicks, all solo masturbation videos, credited him under the name Sebastian (a name bestowed upon him by the director). Since then, he has managed to establish a decent acting career, with those three videos being his only entries into the adult business (outside of their uses in compilations).^[3]

7 Sibel Kekilli

Premiering in 2011, Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon, turning several of its stars into household names. Sibel Kekilli played the character, Shae for 20 episodes across the first four seasons. While she may not have been a central cast member, she was among the more prominent recurring characters. Given Game of Thrones’ penchant for sex and nudity, it should come as no surprise that they cast a few adult entertainers.

The difference between Sibel Kekilli and the others, though, is that she had long put her pornographic career behind her. Active for only about six months between 2001 and 2002, she starred in only a few adult films before being discovered by a casting director in a mall. This led to her casting as one of the leads in the German drama film Head-On. Sadly, the attention the film brought her led to her being outed for her past, causing her parents to cut off contact with her. Luckily, a series of successful roles led to her continued success as an actress before finally being cast in Game of Thrones.^[4]

6 Wes Craven

Hailed as a Master of Horror, Wes Craven made a splash within the film industry with his controversial success, Last House on the Left. From there, he built a reputation as a horror director with successful franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. Craven even branched out of horror to direct the musical drama Music of the Heart (nabbing Meryl Streep another Oscar nomination). This, however, is not his only directorial effort to deviate from the horror genre, as before he was an established horror name, he tried his hand at another genre.

Per his own words, he left his studies to work within the adult film industry. He directed several films under different pseudonyms, sometimes even appearing in non-sex roles. His earliest credited role in the International Adult Film Database is the 1972 film It Happened In Hollywood (the same year as his film debut). Between his first film and the follow-up, The Hills Have Eyes, he is credited for two other adult films, directing one in 1975 under the name Abe Snake. His involvement within the adult industry would explain the appearance of prolific pornographic director and actor Fred J. Lincoln within his film debut as one of the lead villains. He also isn’t the only future prolific director who got his start in the adult industry.^[5]

5 Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola is one of his generation’s most respected and influential directors, creating classics such as The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now. With several Academy and Golden Globe awards, you may be hard-pressed to remember a time when he wasn’t a household name. Yet, in the early 1960s, he was a struggling artist with only 10 dollars. Having no other choice, he took a stab at directing skin flicks.

Raising $3,000, he wrote and directed the short film The Peeper featuring Playboy playmate Marli Renfro. Finding distributors was a difficult task, and he was asked to combine his short film with another Marli Renfro nudie western film titled The Wide Open Spaces, creating a new softcore comedy out of the two titled Tonight For Sure. This led to him helming another cut and paste job on what would become a 3D skin flick entitled The Bellboy and the Playgirls. Like his first one, he edited an existing film with new footage to create a new movie. Coppola himself has never been ashamed of the works, admitting that it was the only way he could make a film at the time.^[6].

4 Shel Silverstein

For any kid growing up since at least the ‘70s, odds are you instantly recognize the name Shel Silverstein. Whether it’s his book The Giving Tree or any of his collections of poems, his work is a staple of many childhoods. For being such a renowned children’s entertainer, some may find it weird to learn exactly where he first achieved success.

His cartoons once graced the pages of Playboy. However, he wasn’t simply an occasional artist; he became one of the leading cartoonists for the magazine in 1957. They sent him around the world to document what he saw in a segment titled “Shel Silverstein Visits.” Despite their comedic nature, the cartoons touched on very adult subjects. More intriguing is that they featured illustrations of Silverstein himself engaged in NSFW activities such as bathtub orgies or haggling with sex workers. His signature style and humor are still apparent from these illustrations, but they are a far cry from the more kid-friendly work he would become more well known for.^[7]

3 Cameron Diaz

Modeling since the age of 16, Cameron Diaz first became known to audiences for her leading role in the 1994 hit The Mask. Several notable films followed, including the box office success Charlie’s Angels. But before her film debut, at the age of 19, she participated in a topless S&M leather lingerie photo and video shoot. While the story behind the shoot is obvious (she was simply a model with no aspirations of an acting career at the time), the story after her fame is far more notorious.

In 2003, the photographer, John Rutter, approached her and demanded 3.5 million dollars to prevent their release, or he would sell to other prospective buyers. Not wanting to give in to the blackmail, she instead ended up suing him. Despite her attempts at preventing their release, they wound up being distributed on a Russian website with the title “She’s No Angel” (attempting to capitalize on her success with Charlie’s Angels). Despite his pleas of innocence on the publication, Rutter was sentenced to more than three years in jail for attempted grand theft, forgery, and perjury.^[8]

2 Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan likely needs no introductions. Whether you knew him from his Hong Kong films or discovered him through his American work, you know who he is. Chan is a man of many titles such as actor, martial artist, stunt man, singer, and various other roles. But early in his career, he could add pornographic actor to it—sort of.

You see, in 1975, Jackie Chan was still just an uncredited extra/stuntman in the Hong Kong film industry. As such, he had no choice but to star in the Hong Kong sex comedy film All in the Family. While the film itself would be seen as softcore at most, Chan himself views it as pornographic. It features one of his only sex scenes and is notably way more risque of a role than those he would come to be known for. Luckily for Chan, he would achieve box office success by 1978 with the release of Drunken Master, and the rest is history.^[9]

1 Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone may be in one of the most well-known celebrity adult films to have ever existed, which is only fitting as he is one of the biggest stars to have ever lived. He quickly established himself as a leading man and star, bursting onto the scene with the critically acclaimed classic Rocky. Despite his meteoric success after Rocky, there was a time when Stallone was simply a young man in need of money. After being evicted from his apartment, he wound up homeless and sleeping in a bus station.

During this time, Stallone came upon a casting notice for the softcore film The Party at Kitty and Stud’s. Feeling that his only other option would be to rob someone, he chose to take the $200 pay for two days of work instead. While the film would have probably just wound up a forgotten softcore movie of its era, his unexpected success caused the filmmakers to try and capitalize on his newfound fame. Offering him the chance to buy the rights to the film, Stallone refused, saying that he wouldn’t purchase the film for two bucks. Instead, retitling the film The Italian Stallion, the filmmakers attempted to present the film as being more hardcore than it was, even inserting new hardcore sex scenes.

From starring in a softcore film to getting an Oscar nomination in only a few years (and becoming the only actor to star in a number 1 box office film across five decades), Stallone has come far from where he started. Also worth noting is his small role in an erotic off-Broadway play entitled Score, where he played the small part of a telephone repairman, a role which he sadly did not reprise for the 1974 film version.^[10]

The People’s Republic of China and its dominant party, the Chinese Communist Party, can be  trickier to place on the political compass than it might seem. While it’s famous for state-owned businesses, in 2019 the National Bureau of Statistics reported that 84% of its businesses are privately owned, which was part of a 78% uptick since 2013.

While it’s far enough to the left on social issues that there is a 95.1% healthcare coverage rate as of 2013 (in America it’s closer to 91.5% as of 2018), it also is very unfriendly to LGBTQ rights, and we’ll see examples of this shortly. Wherever it fits in terms of economics and social issues, when it comes to published media, the People’s Republic of China does not pull punches. From sports to esports to broadcasts, nothing is too seemingly innocuous or too influential to escape government controls. 

10. Red Dawn Changes

Today the 1984 John Milius film Red Dawn is considered a bit campy and implausible, if nuanced in its anti-war message, but still it struck a sufficient chord with audiences that it was a box office hit and resonated enough that a major military operation was named after it for America’s disastrous War in Iraq. Even pretty naive moviegoers in the 1980s could feel how implausible it would be for a nation as large as the USA to fall to the USSR through conventional warfare, even with Mexico and Cuba’s help. The Cuban Missile Crisis was all the evidence anyone needed that nuclear deterrence made any such war unthinkable. But when the film was remade in 2012, changes that were made to please the PRC made the original look like a model of plausibility. 

From pressure by the Chinese market, the invaders in the remake were changed from China to North Korea. About the only way anyone could claim this change makes the least sense would be because North Korea has a standing army of roughly 1.2 million troops, but how the nation would get them on US soil when it’s a country whose biggest military accomplishment in recent years is that its missiles can reach Japan is a question the movie doesn’t come close to answering believably. This probably wasn’t the sole reason the remake was a box office failure, but it couldn’t have helped.     

9. Overruling Warner Brothers

In 2018 Legendary Entertainment, which as of 2016 was owned by Chinese Communist Party member Wang Jianlin, partnered with Warner Brothers Studios. While it has generally been a very lucrative arrangement. Still in 2021 the partners began a bitter argument over the distribution of Godzilla Vs. Kong. Warner Brothers planned to release it directly to HBO Max, a decision which was arrived at without consulting Legendary Entertainment. 

Not only did Godzilla Vs Kong turn out to be simultaneously released in theaters and on HBO Max, but only after HBO Max agreed to pay $250 million for it. The film went on to make $442 worldwide, which made it the one of the first box office smashes since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. It went to show that not all decisions made under the direction of the CCP don’t work out. 

8. The Apology

He may be a 17-time world champion wrestler, but John Cena decided in 2021 that he wasn’t about to tussle with the wrath of mainland China or his fans there. During an announcement regarding the theatrical distribution of Fast 9, Cena referred to Taiwan, with its infamously contentious relationship with China, as “the first nation” that the movie would be screened in. This went against the narrative the People’s Republic of China is insisting that Taiwan is as much part of China as Hawaii is a state in the USA, or at least as much as Guam is a US territory. 

Cena took to the Chinese site Weibo and recorded an apology video, speaking in the Mandarin Chinese he’d spent years learning. To date, there haven’t been any further significant developments and the movie went on to considerable box office success in China and Taiwan. It’s still one of the most uncomfortable reactions to pressure from a foreign power leading to kowtowing from professional wrestling since the WWE endorsed the nation of Saudi Arabia.   

7. The Looper Rewrite

2012 was really the year that the Chinese government made its influence felt on American screenplays. Under Dan Mintz of Dynamic Marketing Group’s direction, Rian Johnson’s screenplay for the film Looper was rewritten so that a scene set in Paris, France in the distant future of 2074 was moved to Shanghai. This was to ensure that the film got around the PRC’s foreign film limits for theatrical distribution. 

It’s also worth noting that DMG also guided the script from including any cultural stereotypes and cliches (street lanterns, “Chinatown” architecture, and so on). A failure to do so was disastrous for Men in Black 3, which was barred from theatrical distribution in China. Considering that Looper grossed more in China than it did domestically, that could have cost the sci-fi sequel dearly indeed.

6. Mulan Issues 

Mulan was one of the most critically-panned films of 2020, with even second generation critics such as Walter Chaw tearing it a new one for being simultaneously pandering, shallow, and dull. But truly, the greatest issue many had with the film was offscreen. And for certain authority figures, that didn’t leave the issue nearly out of sight or out of mind enough. 

A total of 78 seconds of the live action remake were filmed in Xinjiang Province, near the much-publicized re-education camps Uyghur Muslims were held in. As per domestic policy, the production had been required to partner with a local film company to shoot and distribute in China. Eight government agencies were thanked in the film’s credits. But what many found hardest to ignore was when star Liu Yifei made a statement in support of the police crackdowns in Hong Kong. It’s like the production couldn’t decide if it was more important to be a financial or a public relations disaster.

5. Sports Aren’t Safe

It’s not just athletes like John Cena with his innocent gaffe who have to worry about Chinese backlash. On October 4, 2019, long before Liu Yifei spoke in favor of the Hong Kong crackdowns, then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the protestors. This gained an especially high amount of attention as the NBA had a number of exhibition games going on in China at the time, and it had turned out that a NBA training camp had been built near the Xinjiang internment camps. LeBron James was called upon to comment, and on October 9 he said that Morey’s tweet was poorly timed and that he had made the tweet without fully educating himself on the issue. This was felt to be so subservient to the PRC that LeBron James was dragged for it years later when tweeted that another police officer would be held accountable after Derek Chauvin’s conviction. 

The day after LeBron James’s comment, it was noted that ESPN had a broadcast which featured a map of China. Sharp-eyed viewers noted that Taiwan was included in the highlighted area despite the controversy regarding its sovereignty. ESPN did not comment on the use of the map, leaving many to assume the worst.       

4. The Celebrity Crackdowns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfYs7uvsbU4

Celebrity culture might seem too immaterial of an industry for the PRC to regulate very firmly, but there certainly have been a number of efforts in that direction recently. Beginning on June 8, 2017, a large number of celebrity news blogs and social media accounts were shut down. There was little consideration for backlash from banning accounts of size and influence: One gossip account by a Zhuo Wei had more than seven million followers and still went down. 

The PRC also cracked down on attempts to use social media influence to manipulate children for financial purposes. For example in May 2021 the reality program Youth Without You was shut down by the government because it was found that the show was secretly pushing products by the show’s sponsors on its young audience. Music groups such as Panda Boys have had to change their designation to “children’s art trope” for being too young to not appeal mainly to children. Imagine One Direction being told that they were too young and thus couldn’t advertise themselves as a “boy band.”  

On August 27, 2021, The Guardian reported that the PRC had banned sites which ranked celebrities by popularity. The justification largely boiled down to claims that such sites were creating too much fan rivalry and leading to intolerable amounts of online bullying, particularly among impressionable youth. There’s no explanation needed for why we here strongly object to any effort which bans lists! 

3. Gaming Restrictions

On September 1, 2021, it was reported that the PRC would be limiting the number of hours of online gaming that those under 18 could undertake to three per week. Or rather, per weekend since it’s only one hour per day Friday through Sunday, specifically from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. There would be time carved out for public holidays too, though you’d think that would be when the PRC would most want kids to be with their families or communities instead of trying to do 360 no scope headshots.  Penalties would only be inflicted on the companies instead of the underage players, which seemed like it would make massive workarounds almost inevitable. 

While this might have seemed out of the blue and arbitrary for many Westerners, for Chinese children it was more an escalation than an out of the blue restriction. On April 10, 2020, China banned the online game Animal Crossing. Apparently deciding that didn’t go nearly far enough, on April 16 of that year, the ban expanded to include all online games including zombies, doomsday, ghosts, and evil in general. All game chat rooms and customizations were to be strictly monitored. Anti-gaming advocate Jack Thompson must be feeling at least a little envious.  

2. Nanfu Wong’s Career

As far as the world of documentary filmmaking goes, the PRC probably has no higher profile and cutting critic than Nanfu Wong. In 2019, she released a documentary on the disastrous One Child policy called One Child Nation. The film won the prestigious Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and yet Chinese media censored all references to it being shortlisted for an Academy Award. 

Apparently deciding that wasn’t provocative enough, in 2021, she released In the Same Breath, which went in depth about how the PRC bungled the initial containment of Covid-19, how it arrested doctors that tried to warn the public, how it downplayed the spread and the human cost. In response, not only was Wong threatened by the government, but her family which lived in China. Even during the production her crews would follow around activists and get arrested. As Adam Johnston said in his review of her latest film, presumably she’ll never go back to China again. 

1. No “Girly Guns” on TV

For those who aren’t keeping up to date on Chinese slurs, “girly guns” is a phrase for effeminate men. On September 1, 2021, the National Radio and TV Administration announced that such men were to be banned as part of an effort to remove “abnormal aesthetics” from the national media. AP News speculated that this was intended to blunt the influence that music stars from Japan and South Korea were having.

In something of a callback to our third entry, on September 9, the PRC ordered gaming companies such as Tencent to remove all effeminate content from their games. Considering that games such as Fortnite intentionally included such male characters to appeal to a broader audience and discourage a culture of harassment (albeit it with reportedly limited success in terms of the latter) this could prove especially disastrous for the gaming giant. 

Dustin Koski can be followed on Twitter, though not so much in China since the site is blocked there.