It’s nudity, but is it art? The U.S. Supreme Court deemed the question irrelevant with it is legalization of raunchy nudity in April 1968. But in the years leading up to the ruling, the representation of the male form in media had to have ‘socially redeeming value’ in order to avoid any persecution.

Now, the Bob Mizer Foundation is releasing a fresh DVD that examines Mizer’s portrayal of the male physique in the decade betwixt the Supreme Court’s ruling in 1957 that media could be labeled bawdy unless they included any ‘socially redeeming values’ and the same court’s legalization of male nudity during one of the almost any tumultuous years in the country’s history -- the year after the Summer of Love and in advance of the Stonewall riots. The recent compilation of Mizer’s films, titled “Socially Redeeming Value,” will be released May 20.

The DVD’s release comes on the heels of final year’s DVD, “Bob Mizer: Court Declares Nudity Not Obscene, 1967-71,” an 11-film compilation of Mizer movie scenes produced in the months directly previous to and after the court redefined obscenity.

The 1957 arrival of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s noted poem “Howl” in the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court signaled a landmark in the fight for artists to be free to express themselves in their work. Especially in the middle of 1950s America’s puritanical aversion to sex and the male form, Ginsberg’s victory set the stage for the evolution of Mizer’s own work. Finally, male nudity could be portrayed in media, but not erotically – it had to have “redeeming social importance.

In the years that followed, photographers and filmmakers like Mizer presented undressed fellows in setting such as nudist camps, promoting em as pristine models for robust health and worthy living. Desert camps such as Ramona Ranch, Hemet and Homeland were the settings for those films that showed undressed male models in an unerotic light. By the centre of the decade, male in natures garb photography and films at nudist camps were extremely popular, going to distributors like Wyngate and Bevins (one of the 1st porn mogul companies), setting the stage for the golden age of pornography in the early and mid-1970s.

Five years later, Miller v. California would lead the Supreme Court to develop it is Three-Prong Obscenity Test, which measured whether materials could be labeled impure: 1. If the “average person” in any given community could discover that the material appealed to his or her prurient interests, 2. If the work depicts raunchy conduct in a patently offensive way, and 3. If the work lacks any “literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” The court ruled that the work could be considered filthy if it met all 3 criteria.

Trailers and vids for “Socially Redeeming Value” will be released on Bobmizer and the foundation’s social media pages in the coming days previous to the DVD’s rollout in late May. The foundation will accept preorders starting later this week.

The Bob Mizer Foundation seeks to raise awareness and appreciation of Mizer’s photographs and films produced over the span of his career of greater amount than 50 years.


Format: mkv (Matroska)
Duration: 1:04:12
Video: 720x480, MPG2
Audio: 187kbps

File size: 2.9 GB