It was not until she was in high school that the artist, musician and filmmaker, Rachel Mason found out what her parents did for a living: that their Los Angeles bookshop, Circus of Books, was a gay hardcore porn store. “I was about 14 or 15. My friends were jealous of me and I was like, now, I finally had something cool to tell everybody!”
At first, however, she was shocked. It was the very opposite of what she expected from her conventional, straight, middle aged, Jewish parents, especially her religiously devout mother, Karen. But having always been a non-conformist and part of the counterculture, Mason says she has only ever felt pride and happiness about her parents’ business, which ran for more than 30 years and closed late last year. “It was great, but you know, I’m not the normal kid and that’s why I’m the one who made this movie — I understood how incredible this whole thing was.”
Circus of Books, Mason’s debut documentary, is a tender and engrossing film which explores the disparity between her parents’ personal lives and character and their unusual professional life. It also examines the integral part the bookstore played in the lives of gay men in the 1980s and 90s - as a safe and well-known meeting place for the city’s hidden LGBTQ+ community, when to be gay was perceived as unspeakable, says one contributor.
In the late 1970s, Karen and Barry Mason had found themselves in a difficult financial situation and, with three children to support, they responded to an ad in a paper asking for people to circulate Hustler magazine, produced by the porn magnate, Larry Flynt. One thing led to another and eventually they became the unlikely owners of Circus of Books and, at one point, were perhaps the biggest distributors of hardcore gay porn films in the US — all unknown to their family and friends.
Initially, Mason had set out to examine the role of the bookshop within the broader history of gay politics but began to realise that the personal aspect was more compelling. “I think it would have been a much smaller film, which would have probably only appealed to the LGBT community, and even smaller than that — the community within LA,” she explains, speaking on the phone from her LA home. “I knew it was a really important store in LA and I come from that community. My friends are artists — many of whom don’t follow any gender or sexuality norm rules, myself included. The people in my world love that store so I figured I needed to do this and then move on to other things. I didn’t realise it would suck me in for four years and it would change the course of my life and my career,” she says, laughing.
Her mother’s religiosity ensured that Mason and her two brothers had a strong Jewish upbringing which sustained her identity in the public school she attended where being white, let alone being Jewish, meant she was in a minority. “My mother bordered on Orthodoxy. We were members of a really hardline synagogue and I hated it,” Mason says. “It was very traditional, and I fought with my mother because she always made me wear a skirt or a dress. Ironically, she was at the centre of a really counter cultural store, but the synagogue and our Jewish life was very conservative.”
Contradiction lies at the heart of the documentary, says Mason. “If it had just been my laidback dad owning the business, it wouldn’t be a story, but because my mum is so totally contradictory and conflicted, it’s fascinating.” When Karen’s younger son, Josh, came out during a Friday night dinner in his college years, she struggled to accept it — thinking she was being punished by God — despite having supported many of her gay employees, including during the height of the AIDS crisis. She found acceptance by re-examining her theological perspective through study and, in a remarkable twist to the story, she and Barry became deeply involved in PFlag (Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gays), a grassroots organisation that helps parents understand and support their LQBTQ+ children.
“I think that’s what makes this story universal and actually a form of activism, in and of itself,” says Mason. She has been contacted by numerous people — some rejected by their families because of their sexuality — who tell her they have been encouraged by Karen’s actions to come out of the closet to their parents. “I think my mum represents the most hardened of people in our culture,” believes Mason, but her capacity for change, “turned her into the best kind of activist.”
Although Karen Mason is not a reluctant activist, she presents as a reluctant star. “Oh, she was never comfortable in front of the camera, I’ll say that!” Mason laughs. “The moments when she is more upbeat, it’s not usually me she’s talking to.”
Karen argues that there were others who fought more and what she and Barry did was sort of accidental, says Mason, but she is finally accepting the store’s positive contribution to the lives of so many people. Her constant refrain is that they did not start the store, it was not their idea, they were just everyday entrepreneurs who catered to a particular market. “It is true, someone else came up with the store in the 1960s but they actually made it what it became for the gay community,” Mason explains. “I think, in some ways, she’s always felt this shame for being in a shamed business. Her morality and sense of who she is has never aligned with being a pornographer.”
Although Mason filmed everyone in her immediate family and many interviews were conducted by members of her production or camera team as well as herself, it is Josh’s candid and affecting conversation with her that was so unpredicted. “I just couldn’t believe what he was saying to me [about the difficulties of living in the closet] -—literally on camera — which led to my reaction being so profound,” she says. “Crying on camera wasn’t something I wanted or expected.”
She feels her film has achieved two things. “How a family overcomes its own struggle with homophobia — my mother’s journey. She can be difficult and forthright but for somebody so intense she’s not afraid to admit that she made a huge mistake. That’s what makes her so powerful.”
The business declined with the advent of the internet, but its legacy is undisputed. Mason also believes that the film succeeded in adding another dimension to the untold story of gay history. “I’m happy that I was able to reveal to the world the actual value of adult material and have it not seen as something as disgusting but necessary and culturally vital to this group of people.”
Circus of Books is available on Netflix
