Every year, the AVN Awards bestow upon porn’s best and brightest the greatest accolades the industry has ever known, and this year was no different. Pornstars both veteran and fledgling, female and male, were handed phallic trophies declaring them the best blahblahblah of 2011 and therefore guaranteeing them a place in the upper echelon of adult performers; at least, that is, until next year. In order to properly assess the current state of the industry and ruminate on what 2012 might have in store for porn viewers across the globe, why don’t we run down the list of the more prominent achievements heralded by the 2011 AVN Awards and see what’s what.
Female Performer of the Year, Bobbi Starr, certainly deserved her accolade, having in the last 12 months cemented herself not only as a astonishing performer capable of the most raucous and debasing kink and rough sex scenes as well as an incredibly tender onscreen lover when it is required, but by managing to do all of this while establishing herself as a maverick director of feminist pro-sex porn for men and women of all persuasions.
Manuel Ferrara took home the Male Performer of the Year award and few could argue that the Frenchman hadn’t earned his phallic trophy. It seems like Manny has been plowing the asses of porn’s best and brightest for eons but the last year has really been a fantastic one for the uncircumcised multiple-shot-popper, having broken in the rear passages of London Keyes, Holly Michaels, Gracie Glam, and Kagney Linn Karter, and extending his extremely intimate Raw DVD series, while maintaining his handsome yet down-to-earth persona.
New Starlet of the Year was a hotly contested category and while I could definitely sit here are argue that Skin Diamond, Holly Michaels, Abella Anderson, Jessie Andrews, and Rebeca Linares’ new tits are all worthy of the accolade (even if the latter did only enter the industry to get their host into big boob movies and out of anal ones), you’ve gotta hand it to Brooklyn Lee. The native Ohioan took on the toughest performers, both male and female, in the industry and proved herself a worthy match. While I can’t help but feel this award might’ve been more appropriately awarded to Ms. Lee last year when she first made a splash, she’s nonetheless a stunning performer with a bright future.
My frontrunner for Female Performer of the Year, Asa Akira, didn’t win that category, but instead took home a wheelbarrow full of awards for the Best Tease Performance, Solo Sex Scene, Anal Sex Scene, Double-Penetration Scene, Threeway Sex Scene (boy/boy/girl), Group Sex Scene, and, for Asa Akira is Insatiable 2, Best All-Sex Release. Quite a year for the diminutive Japanese-American with, well, an insatiable appetite for powerful sex.
Having not yet seen Diary of a Call Girl, I can’t personally vouch for Actress of the Year award winner Jessie Andrews’ performance in the title role, but her numerous other onscreen roles have made quite an impression, both on this reviewer and the porn industry at large. Julia Ann, the wondermilf herself, called Jessie one of the brightest new talents in the business after performing with her in Club 59’s Teach Me. This girl has very, very big things ahead of her.
Industry awards are great, sure, but they don’t mean anything compared to a legion of devoted, sexually satisfied fans. When it came to the fan-voted awards, Riley Steele took ’em all! Best Body, Favorite Porn Star, Twitter Queen, and Hottest Sex Scene (shared with Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Stoya, BiBi Jones and Manuel Ferrara for Digital Playground’s Babysitters 2). Talk about an active fanbase!
One of Mr. Pink’s favorite sites, Brazzers, took home Best Membership Website, beating out Naughty America, Bang Bros, and Reality Kings to nab the trophy once again. Oh, and there were plenty of statues handed to producers, directors (most notably Axel Braun), writers, and cinematographers of parody films both drama and comedy, so if you needed one safe bet for the rest of 2012, it’s that parody porn still doesn’t seem to have worn out its welcome. And, no, I don’t quite know how to feel about that.
Congratulations to all of this years winners and our warmest condolences to the rest of the nominees, and here’s to another great year of good ol’ American porn!
Some sad news crossed the Mr. Pink’s desk this week, concerning the apparent loss of another porn heroine of the Golden Age, Kandi Barbour. Star of such XXX films as The Pink Ladies (1980), Bon Appetit (’80), California Gigolo (’79), and Screwples (’79), Barbour (real name Linda Jean Smith) amassed a small but impressive filmography over her nine years as an adult performer, leading her to be inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2009. To the surprise of many people in porn, the native Kansan was sadly found dead in San Francisco on Thursday January 26th, another victim of the city’s immense homeless problem.
