SOURCE: Forman, Milos, and Richard Porton. “Porn Again: The People vs. Larry Flynt.” Cineaste 22, no. 4 (fall 1996): 28-32.

In the following interview, Forman discusses his views on censorship and his film The People vs. Larry Flynt.

The controversy inspired by Milos Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt has focused attention on America's most notorious pornographer and Hustler magazine's virulent misogyny. Unfortunately, this ongoing debate has yielded considerably more heat than political or moral illumination. Distinctions between Hustler's frequently vile brand of porn, First-Amendment issues, and Flynt's personal life have become hopelessly blurred. Gloria Steinem, for example, points out that Hustler's fondness for simulated rape and torture—a truly peculiar notion of erotica—is unquestionably degrading to women. Yet her understandable impatience with attempts to brand Flynt a “free speech hero” does not negate the fact that the smut peddler's censorship battles have, however unwittingly, helped to safeguard...