I think what you are trying to say here is that Rome is not porn (like the work of Helmut Newton) and Femmes Fatale IS porn (like the work of Suze Randall). I get where you are coming from, in a way, but what we’re talking here is a matter of degree, not kind. Rome’s main appeal was its storyline, but is someone wanted to watch the sex scenes for erotic gratification, they could. I don’t know why they would bother, considering how much really, really good porn is out there on the Interwebz.
Thing is, the same is true of Femmes Fatale. Why would you watch an episde just to get off when there’s so much more explicit and, frankly, well-made (in the sense that it is specifically designed to get watchers off) porn out there?
Nope, the people who watch Femmes Fatale do it to see stories about sexy, dangerous women who do sexy, dangerous stuff. I tried a couple of episodes, they bored me. The sexy, sometimes naked stuff couldn’t make up for it.
I tried watching Rome, too, and it bored me as well. The sexy, naked stuff was barely noticeable … but I suspect more of it might have helped.
And yes, there’s a big difference between Helmut Newton and Suze Randall: he does photos in black and white and she does photos in color.
Nudity riders are drafted separately are are extremely specific as to exactly what you consent to. For instance, you can’t consent to “side boob, no nipples” and then be asked to simulate rough sex. If they didn’t have her sign a rider or they asked her to do things that were not included in her rider, they are out of luck on top of everything else in her complaint.
Oh ferchrissakes.-don’t give me an example of what it might include because that’s next to useless, and telling me to guess as to it’s definition looks like nothing more than a brushoff. “Entertainment indicated for the purpose of sexual arousal” is a wide field.
A woman can withdraw consent for sex, and has a legal right to have that respected. However, the law doesn’t specify what the repercussions for withdrawing consent are, as long as said repercussions aren’t already illegal. There’s no law against your boyfriend breaking up with you in frustration or refusing to buy you dinner because you keep changing your mind at the lest second; all it says is that if he goes through with having sex anyway he’s a criminal. And of course he can’t beat you for it, but that’s because he can’t beat you anyway, not because sex was involved.
Likewise, if a contract mandated sex (e.g. you agreed to star in a porn film), the contract can’t mandate you to have sex if you change your mind because that would be raping you, but it can recognize that you did indeed agree to the sexual act and thus there may be financial repercussions for reneging.
…Oh ferchrissakes. I don’t keep using the term sexual entertainment. I’ve used the phrase once. It appears twenty three times on this page. And that one time I used it was hardly a conclusive use of the term. Stop making stuff up about me.
We’ve just had a multi-page hijack over the word persecution. That was boring. If you really can’t make the leap and figure out what we are talking about please feel free to ignore this part of the conversation.
…I never called Femmes Fatale’s porn. But Rome and Femmes Fatale are both clearly produced to target different audiences. And as a consequence the type of actor that would be attracted to either project is different as well. You can be nude in Rome and still have a prominent career in the industry. If you feature in a programme like Femmes Fatale your career is likely to continue appearing in bit parts as a lesbian zombie.
The same with Newton and Randall. They both attract and shoot with different talent. I’m not just talking about the consumer watching the programme or viewing the material. There are plenty of models who would pose nude for Newton for free and wouldn’t consider shooting with Randall for thousands of dollars. It would end their career.
Who judges which “art” is good enough to not be limited? My point was that the same things you object to in this show also show up in more high class shows. Whether they are in for ratings or for the needs of art is not something I’d want outsiders to judge.
I just get that certain types of not very well defined actions on screen won’t have contractual protection. But there are all sorts of possibilities. Simulated sex under the covers? Heads only? Half the couple is animated?
In any case, it is already true that an actor or actress can reject sexual roles without being financially destroyed. What is not true is that she can accept a role and then reject it at the last minute without consequences. But like I said, actors who cost the production company money without the protection of box office draw face the same consequences without sex being involved.
If the only roles she can get involve taking off her clothes, and she doesn’t want to, she should find another line of work.
Jesus frog. SI wouldn’t sell as many copies of its swimsuit issue as it does if a while bunch of people weren’t sexually aroused by it. Sure some shots these days are without a top, but covered, and it is possible that the model, if she wished to, would never be exposed. But issues before the tops came off were still arousing - do they count under your definition?
First, not all of the actresses appearing topless in Rome were big stars - I bet quite a few were on the same level, brought in as eye candy.
Second, roles are roles, and mean that you beat out all the other contenders. No one is going to lose work because she appeared in a reasonably legitimate series in a leading role. If she perchance showed some acting chops, she’ll work.
I’ve been to lots of commercial auditions, and no one ever acted as if they were demeaning themselves by trying out for one. Money is money.
People who think that a very large proportion of roles require nudity should start watching television earlier in the evening. A vast majority of parts require neither nude scenes or body doubles, and many scenes with nudity might feature actresses or actors (plenty of bare bums) who could turn it down if they wanted to.
…I never said they were “big stars.” I said they had prominent careers.
The acting chops of the principal actors of Rome are really not up for speculation. All of the principals had extensive credits prior to being cast and continue to have prominent careers seven years on.
I’m not the one judging whether or not something is art: the market does that. Rome and Femme Fatales are two very different programmes: marketed at different segments, telling different stories. Yes: both programmes have breasts: and both have sex scenes. Both programmes also have people wearing clothes, and they both have people speaking english.
Plenty of actors will not audition for roles if they think it might have potential to harm their careers. And I’m not demeaning anyone. You seem to think I hold a position I don’t hold. I have the greatest respect for actors whether they are in a production like Femme Fatales, one like Rome, The Big Bang Theory or a pornographic movie. All of them require talent and a certain type of bravery that I will never have.
My apologies, but you seemed to be implying that a role in Femme Fatales would sentence an actress to minor roles forever. Not true.
I only watched a few episodes of Rome, but in the sex scene I recall the woman involved was not a major character. Art has nothing to do with anything (though it appears LHoD thinks it does.) Who knows, in 20 years FF might become a cult favorite while Rome is forgotten. But a major role in Rome is a very good credit, I’d suspect.
I brought up commercials because many people think that actors in commercials are slumming in some way. That’s not the way it is viewed in the industry. There are three types of projects - legit (TV and movies), commercials, and industrials, like training films etc. It used to be that really big stars didn’t do commercials (or TV) as a career move, but that isn’t even true any more.
…of course it doesn’t “sentence” them to anything. But it is a thing that would be considered: and it is unlikely that the sort of talent that would be actively looking to work in projects like Rome would consider working for a project like Femme Fatales. Go look at the IMDB profiles of actors who starred in a similar programme to Femme Fatales, Red Shoe Diaries. Obviously Fox Mulder did okay. But most of the others worked minor roles only, which is about normal for any production of this type.
Rome and Femme Fatales are simply two different types of production, with vastly different budgets, appealing to different markets, and attracting different talent. As I said: Rome is not Femme Fatales.
And?
Well you did ask me about art and I responded. Art is a subjective thing: and I wasn’t talking about art, and it appears you wanted to ask someone else about art, so feel free to ask them.
My impression has been that you are in some way saying that these shows should be treated differently for the purpose of this discussion. If you are just making an esthetic judgement about the quality of the shows and their casts, we can drop this now. If however a contract for nudity in Rome is somehow different from a contract for nudity in Femme Fatales, then I want to know how they are different.
BTW art is not judged by the market, popularity is. Art is in some way judged by the critical infrastructure and posterity. But whether something is art or not, however it is judged, should have nothing to do with contract law. Or the First Amendment.
BTW, actors make career damaging choices all the time - see Nicholas Cage. But all the roles (for union jobs, at least) go on the list on the back of the head shot.
To sum up, if we want to restrict contract rights for junk, we’re also going to restrict them for art, however you define these terms. This is mostly addressed to Bricker’s hypothetical and LHoD’s actual proposal.
Well you’re completely right of course. Jennifer Connelly did some Skinamax style nudity in “The Hot Spot” and also did a naked double-dong lesbian scene in “Requiem for a Dream.” And Sandra Bulloch did a Skinamax sex scene in “Fire on the Amazon.” Absolutely DESTROYED their careers … wait a minute …
Interestingly enough, in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), the Supreme Court decided that whether a work has First Amendment protection DOES depend, in part, on whether it is art:
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A work that lacks these qualities, and appeals to the prurient interest, and depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct, can be proscribed as “obscene,” without offending the First Amendment.