Porn star’s Wrecking Ball video a big hit on YouTube

If you thought the Wrecking Ball music video with Miley Cyrus was racy, then you have to see what porn star Ron Jeremy does with it. The 60-year-old performer recreated the visuals of Cyrus’ video, swinging on the titular wrecking ball with his shirt off, crying fake tears and generally making it his own.

The satirical Wrecking Ball actually seems no more wild than the original. Jeremy, who is listed as taking part in more than 1,750 adult films according to his Internet Movie Database page, is shirtless, sweating and generally hamming it up in the video, but no moreso than Cyrus does in her original Wrecking Ball promotional short. The new video’s director said that a lot of the humor of the parody comes from Jeremy’s willingness to have fun with his own image — which is actually the opposite of what he’s like.

For example, the 5’6? Jeremy — not that this is the measurement most people know about the performer — used to be a high school teacher and still possesses an active teaching license. He’s an “all-around good guy,” the Wrecking Ball parody director said, and not at all what one might think the most well-known porn star in the world would be like.

“The Hedgehog,” as Jeremy is nicknamed for his general hirsuteness, also has acted in mainstream films, charted with original rap songs and often confounded expectations of both his critics and his fans. Both, however, are likely to enjoy the Wrecking Ball parody, since it serves up an indirect but highly trenchant comment on Miley Cyrus and the super-sexualized antics of her generation of performers.

The Wrecking Ball spoof seems to say “Is it pornographic only if a porn star does it?” Cyrus, who cast off her Disneyfied squeaky-clean image upon turning 18, gyrates and shows all the skin possible without the short becoming actual pornography. Jeremy does the same, although his bare hairy chest, flabby belly and love handles may make some viewers wish he hadn’t.

Social commentary notwithstanding, the Wrecking Ball parody is a lark that gently makes fun of Cyrus’ video by highlighting its absurdity through a late-middle-aged man going through the moves of a twentysomething pop star. The project’s director said he chose Jeremy for his high name recognition, a strategy that seems to have worked, with the Wrecking Ball porn version registering 1.2 million YouTube views and counting.