Netflix has just released the trailer for Circus of Books, a documentary about the landmark West Hollywood gay adult shop of the same name.
Director Rachel Mason assembled the film as a family memoir; her parents owned the store for 35 years until it closed in 2019. It features extensive archival footage, as well as in-depth interviews with Karen & Barry Mason, Rachel’s parents, her siblings, as well as former store employees, including future Drag Race star Alaska Thunderf*ck.
“My parents are so immersed in this world and they’re so used to it that it didn’t phase them at all to watch Jeff Stryker doing all these ridiculously graphic dances to his hit song ‘Pop You in the Pooper,'” Mason quipped to Queerty last summer. We managed to catch Circus of Books on the festival circuit. So did Ryan Murphy, who signed on as producer for the film and helped to ensure its release.
Related: Rachel Mason shares secrets of her family’s famed gay adult store ‘Circus of Books’
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In addition to the history of the store itself, Mason and her family open up about how operating an adult store affected their private lives, and how the store inadvertently became a refuge for the LGBTQ community during the AIDS crisis.
“I also knew nobody else really could [make the film],” Mason told us, “because my mom—I think other filmmakers approached her—and she was always reticent to let anyone know about the business. So it had to be me.”
Circus of Books spills all the family secrets on Netflix April 22.
Chrisk
Looks good. Totally going to see this.
jeanrvasbinder
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Josh447
West Hollywood my favorite stomping ground. I wonder if they’ll cover what went on in that alley behind that bookstore at night. Talk about bumper to bumper drive thru sex. Those were the days when the tigers were out roaming the jungle, as opposed to the now in house gamble on ordering in. (yawn)
Chrisk
Yep. Vaseline Alley.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
We in NY had the book store on Christopher Street. I checked out a whole lot more than books in the back room.
🙂
Kangol2
@PWWO, so true. And a very few of the porn video shops are still on Christopher, just like there still are a few porn videos shops dotting the West Village, Chelsea, and other parts of NYC (like Queens, the Bronx, etc.). It’s nothing like right before Rudy Ghouliani began his war against porn shops and his bid to turn Times Square into Disneyland East, all with the hope of “cleaning up New York” and eventually becoming President (sorry, Rudia–remember his drag persona & that video where he kisses Don the Con on the mouth–yeccch!), but some do survive, and a year ago (maybe 2?) a judge struck Ghouliani’s anti-porn crusade laws about the porn theaters down. It unfortunately was too late for many, though, since most of the Times Square ones folded and are now high-rent/luxury real estate. Now that Covid-19 has hit, let’s see how much this entire “luxury” house of cards, subsidized for two decades on the backs of regular people, comes tumbling down.
ridgelineranger
Ah the good old days. Bought magazines and toys at Circus Of Books and cruised the alley.
jdr11201
When I first arrived in West Hollywood 1978-79, I remember driving by it. It wasn’t till I went to a bar directly across from it The Gold Coast at around midnight that bookstore got very busy “Hustlers” it was entertaining. What a riot ;p