Maitland Ward is back in the news! But before you roll your eyes about her near-constant presence in the news cycle, check this out: The former Boy Meets World star is championing the adult entertainment industry by once again pointing out that porn can show mainstream how it’s done.
Her recent essay for the Daily Beast details how Ward—along with Deeper.com’s Kayden Kross and an all-star cast—shot a porno feature film during the pandemic. “I’ve just seen what can be done in this industry firsthand,” she wrote. “In spite of the obstacles and deterrents and naysayers that said we could never accomplish such a thing, we just made a film.”
The film, called Muse, which asks the question “Can pornography be art?” according to the Daily Mail, is now being developed into a multi-season series.
Production began back in July, when Los Angeles was in the midst of a spike of COVID-19 cases. “At first, I have to admit, I was a little skeptical. How would this all work? Would the cast and crew be able to remain safe and healthy for a span of days and weeks?” wrote Ward for the Daily Beast. “Any trepidation I had quickly left me when I saw the time and effort put in to insure this production would run smoothly and safely.”
According to Ward, “We tested every single morning of the project, regardless if you were working that day or not. Everyone was accounted for. Performers were contact-traced by monitoring who they had worked with in a specified timeframe.” An EMT was hired to swab everyone on set every day, she said, and temperature checks, masks, disinfecting, and social distancing were strictly enforced.
The possibility of keeping everyone safe was in question when filming began, but in retrospect, Ward wrote that no one should be surprised by its success. “We are an industry already run on testing. We live by it,” she wrote. “While mainstream grapples with how to get production up and running, the paperwork and health checks involved are a norm for us. Granted, COVID testing is far more frequent and vigorous, and requires tireless commitment, but we’ve now proven it’s more than possible.”
And it’s not just the testing protocols that are already normalized in porn, said Ward—it’s toughness. “While the crew at Deeper is larger than most porn sets, it’s minuscule when stacked up against big-budget movies and TV,” she said. “We also know how to work under severe time constraints and how to overcome conditions.”
“Porn is constantly underestimated,” she continued. “How much harder is it for the world to believe porn can be a good place—a place of innovation and creativity, a place to set standards rather than to fall below them, and for that to make news.”
The adult industry can find mainstream folks who dip their toes into porn tiresome, but Ward has so far stuck it out and used her mainstream-sized platform to help the industry. She shows no signs of slowing down, even during the pandemic. Just like the industry itself. “While the ground has shifted, it’s also served to set us apart,” she wrote. “It’s allowed us a new path to take our product and see it shine. This is the time we can change the way porn is received and how people watch it.”
