Manipulating the Tiers of Business: A Jenna Jameson Profile

The woman uses designer six inch stiletto heels to propel herself up a massive birthday cake for her boyfriend. She's clad in a sparkly bra top which fails to cover her ample cleavage as well as a red and black see through panty and garter set. A top hat sits balanced on a cascade of wheat blonde hair extensions and she coos affectionately into the microphone in her hand as she climbs the tiers.

Jenna Jameson, porn starlet turned business mogul is still climbing her own cake and she can eat it too. It's almost seems no coincidence that the porn sensation shares a birthday with Hugh Hefner of the infamous Playboy Mansion and is one of the most widely known stars in the world for her roles in adult entertainment. "I always wanted to be a star, I've always embraced my hard-core roots, but becoming a household name was an important thing to me" recalls Jameson. Not only is her body one of the most recognized but her mind is showcased in some of her latest films where she had her directorial debut.

Taking back power since 2004, Jameson has drawn 40% of her earnings from ClubJenna, a website geared towards women. The website houses sixteen other female stars and Jameson launched it in the hopes of never having sex on camera again. "Wicked [her first production company] launched me into superstardom, but I was determined to become my own boss." In seven years this porn starlet has managed to get by without having sex on camera with any woman or man, other than her ex husband, and has collected 40% of her earnings from the website membership. If you enter her name into a popular news search engine Lexis Nexis, you'll receive 726 articles from the past five years for perusal. The amount of interviews alone must have made her a nice hunk of cash.

The cash flow for Jameson has never been a problem. Though she has made only 50 movies-not a high number by industry standards- her star power propels itself through magazine sales, toy sales, and her latest hobby, directing films.. She kept herself in the spotlight through constant television spots on Howard Stern's show and movie "Private Parts", as well as doing a voice over for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 in 2002.

Her latest venture doesn't require a video camera. Now she wants to be known as a good business women and mother. Her own mother was a show girl in Las Vegas and her police man father raised her there until she was eighteen and went from studying ballet to modeling nude professionally. From that career choice, Jameson became an exotic dancer, (with encouragement from her control freak, tattoo artist boyfriend), when her contract with Wicked pornography wasn't paying the big bucks. With the help of her new video side gig, Jameson was able to earn as much as 50,000 dollars a night from adoring fans. This launched her career into Penthouse and Hustler magazines which eventually lead to her illustrious video career.

This very video career lead to several nominations in various categories in the adult film awards throughout the years. A normal adult video sells 3,000 copies in the first month; a Jenna Jameson sells 50,000. In an interview with Forbes magazine her ex- husband said: "This has developed from an individual star into a porn conglomerate. Her brand has been developed with the reputation of being the best, and now we are capitalizing on that and monetizing the name." To all the naysayers who believe a woman can't run a company in a male dominated profession, Jameson is completely in control of every endorsement and every brand that carries her name. A business consultant had this to say about the bombshell: "Some people might think Jenna is some blonde bimbo because of her films, but they are wrong. When we sit down for business meetings, she never leaves the room."

By being able to call all her shots both on set and off, Jameson has marketed herself as a high demand commodity without, like most porn stars, letting her managing company run the show. "Not doing my movies doesn't mean retirement; It means more work--and more money." By making herself readily available to all markets of media and keeping herself out there, she was better able to barter herself as a woman of merit.

Now Jameson is known for not only her porn career and stint as a playboy bunny, but for her earnings which Forbes estimates is one the highest working women's salaries in porn today. As president of her own empire Jameson is able to earn residuals from not just her women's approved line of toys with Doc Johnson or her DVD's, but also her recent ad for PETA. Recently, she stood defiantly against a blush pink background in a pleather bra and black wig looking like a dominatrix and encouraged women and men to do pleather, not leather. As a driven animal activist Jameson was able to give back from her super stardom and branch out to do things she cared about that didn't involve a hyper-sexualized world. Jameson muses about the film industry: "I'm not a show pony. I don't want to hang out with you and your friends, and I don't want to leave a message on your answering machine: 'You've reached Scott, he's busy with me right now.' I don't want to play some part where I have to dye my hair, get my boobs reduced and change my name." One of the many perks of having the brains and drive to put enough porn on the back burner and the managing skills to take over new talent that allows for her to do what she wants with her life.

From an industry where the opinions of women appear both demeaning and from the outside looking in, pitying, Jameson has managed to rise above it all on her frosting topped cake. From her perch she directs the people below her, clad in whatever she wants to wear for the day, normally something casual or fluffy, and she commences with her work. Most of her time lately consists of walking her dogs and meeting with executives to branch out on A and E for a new reality TV show that would follow her around for a week. No longer does she want to wring her perfectly exercised thighs on a stripper pole or pose in a tiny school-girl skirt for ogling men everywhere. Jenna Jameson's new venture aims for something quite different. After her night of partying with her boyfriend, her top hat and sequined bra hung in the walk in closet, she sets her alarm for a nine am meeting, gets out her glasses from the nightstand, and reads the proposals for the morning before laying her perfectly manicured face and hair onto the pillow to go to sleep.

Bibliography
Grigoriadis, Vanessa. "Girl on Top". The Independent on Sunday. Sep 2004.

Allen, Scott. "Jenna Jameson's Transformation from Porn Princess to Media Mogul".http://entrepreneurs.about.com/b/2005/07/30/jenna-jamesons-transformation-from-porn-princess-to-media-mogul.htm