# Are nude scenes ever not gratuitous? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2001, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872 "2001-01-19T15:22:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2001, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/41 "2001-01-20T17:28:57Z")
My girlfriend is french ( we live in england )and when we go there and see the tv you would be amazed at the adverts for shower gel. I think its cultural, many europeans see nothing with the naked body or where its necessary showing a love scene. What I find strange is that its ok to show a war film with people killing each other in a realistic way BUT when you show people naked everyone goes SCANDAL. If there were less wars and more topless beaches the world would be a better place, no ? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2001, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/42 "2001-01-20T17:45:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by handy \* > \*\* > If you watch Casablanca, a couple walks over the top of a mountain & comes back & smoke cigarettes. This is how they had sex in earlier films. I don’t know if they cuddled when they smoked though. \*\* I’ve watched Casablanca an estimated 523,793 times, and I really don’t think there’s such a scene in there. ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2001, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/43 "2001-01-20T19:22:38Z")
Woah there hoss! I think some ideas have been put into my head by various persons. JFTR:[list=1][li]I have no fundamental issue with nudity OR sex on screen. (Particularly nudity, which is why I’m concentrating on the sex) - but then I think that us Euros have less hangups than you US-ers on this one.)[/li][li]I will be the first to argue that there have been many, many films with non-gratuitous sex and/or nudity[/li][li]Hi Opal[/li][li]I don’t even think that seeing sex on screen is worse than seeing violence. Quite the reverse.[/list=1]With this in mind, I would answer the above points with:[list=1]I don’t wish to be a gooseberry (as above). I wish to know the characters as very close friends. I don’t want to see my very close friends copping off. What am I - weird?[/li][li]Many, many indeed. But still a minority. As **Screwtape** , **CC** and co. have been saying it mainly seems to be a not very subtle manipulative ploy. A desperate play to the teen gallery. It doesn’t make a weak film good - it makes a weak film weaker.[/li][li]Hi kabbes![/li][li](Maybe the most controversial point, except for point 3) Gratuitous violence is rare in films. Or at least (before I get shouted down) violent scenes that are as gratuitous as most sex scenes are rare in films that are otherwise unrelated to violence. Hmm - bad sentence. Look at it this way - I’ve absolutely no problem with sex in porn films. Similarly I’ve no problem with violence in a violent movie. It’s the sex in an otherwise sexless movie that irritates me. And I don’t see much violence in otherwise peaceful movies. Where it _does_ exist, I don’t like that either. It’s all about appropriateness[/list=1][/li] **ARL** - you approach films as a window in the life of some characters. Which is, of course, how many films present themselves. Where I find a film directing me in this fashion then the sex can indeed become part of the characterisation. No problem! My issue is with (possibly poorly directed films) where the characters are presented as _friends_. In this case the last thing I want to see is them having sex. pan ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/44 "2001-01-21T00:19:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CC \* > \*\*[Most] nudity in movies and on tv is unnecessary, does not advance the plot, is present only to titilate, . . . . is infantile, often, . . . which I resent. Often, it is an easy way to give “interest” to a piece or segment which is inherently weak. I really love porn, by the way, but that’s more honest. … On the other hand, I HATE seeing nudity and sex in a movie in which it’s really not necessary. It’s manipulative (although I refuse to be manipulated by it) and dishonest. \*\* I really liked this post. I sort of agree. But then again, I would say that often an entire _movie_ is gratuitous, in the sense of just being a fun diversion. So it depends. Sometimes the sex just seems inserted for no good reason. Sometimes it fits the whole. Sometimes I may not care all that much. It may depend on how _I,_ as viewer, perceive and approach the movie. For example, I tend to accept a lot in (some) foreign-language films–cut them some slack, so to speak–because I’m interested in absorbing the strangeness and alienness of it all. People in their own countries may look at them with disdain for being crude, but I’m not sure of the cultural attitudes, so I reserve judgement. But I may be a bit sharper-tongued about filmmakers in my own country. (I love Kevin Costner’s _The Postman._ But the big sex scene in it, between Costner himself and a noticeably younger woman, seemed over-long and self-indulgent on the part of the director/star. Of course, there are plenty laughable ways for a star to get ego-happy in a movie, trying to look smarter or tougher or more attractive than he is. But the way this scene used the actress was, for me, uncomfortable to watch, largely because it dragged on for so long.) Another point: to the degree that there is often too-easy sex between characters thrown together by the plot, a clever director can use this convention to sneak a plot development into something that _seems_ gratuitous. An admittedly imperfect example: The sex in _Terminator_ is an important part of the story, though it could have been done more off-screen. The sex act itself, rather than just its portrayal, seems gratuituous to the plot; but the importance of it sinks in later. [slight digression] Also, I just thought I’d mention that my mother is a Bible-Belt Republican who tried for a while to join the Time-Warner boycott (over “Cop Killer”, I think) and maybe even the Disney boycotts over who-remembers-what–and she _regularly_ watched _NYPD Blue_, at least when Jimmy Smits was on it, and I think the season after. ---
**Author:** ![Ace\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Ace\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace_Face)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/45 "2001-01-21T06:55:19Z")
I think it’s amusing how some people can be squeamish about sex scenes, but not those involving violence. After all, sex is a perfectly natural, (hopefully) regular part of life. But in real life how often do you see someone blown away with an AK-47? Think about how unrealistic most Hollywood violence scenes are. Makes the sex scenes look like documentaries in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Surgoshan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Surgoshan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surgoshan)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/46 "2001-01-21T07:49:42Z")
Well, what if you see movies as taking to a far extreme most of human interaction? Violence doesn’t have to use a gun, and sexual interaction doesn’t necesarilly involve intercourse. Vicious verbal sparring, or even mild insults are a form of violence, especially if you dislike the person. And I can recall several highly sexual episodes between myself and another where very little flesh actually touched. Violence and sex are everywhere, but since most people have trouble seeing it, and since in its most obvious form it’s more gratifying, movies portray it more obviously. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872/47 "2001-01-21T09:17:13Z")
I don’t think **all** nude scenes are gratuitous, although I think many of them are. As an adult person, I know what sex is. I don’t need to see it. If two characters are having an affair, I understand what it is they are doing in the bedroom without seeing them in all their glory on the screen. Likewise, I know that people need to eat to stay alive … if a character doesn’t happen to be seen eating a meal during the course of the movie, I don’t think “gee, that guy must be starving!” If the director really feels the need to include it, an empty pizza box on the table gets across the idea of eating … we didn’t sit in the theater watching a guy eat a pizza for 10 minutes. If the only reason a sex scene is included in a film is to show that the two people are having sex, I think that’s gratuitous and sort of boring. That’s how I feel about the NYPD Blue shot of Kim Delaney’s rear end while she is walking into the bathroom. Since she’s about to shower, of course she’s naked. This is not some amazing revelation about her character. I don’t see any footage of her clipping her toenails, and I’m sure she does that, too. But some sex scenes do show something about the characters and the story aside from the mere fact of the sexual act. I thought the scene in _Jerry McGuire_ where Jerry has sex with his bitchy girlfriend did a lot to establish the quality (or lack thereof) of their relationship. Showing the two of them having somewhat wild sex, and seeing that Tom Cruise’s character is sort of bored and put off by it, was an interesting choice on the part of the director, IMHO. Not only does it tell something about the characters, it’s surprising because usually a kinky (well, kinky for mainstream film) scene shows passion and excitement, and in this case it’s turned around on the audience and ends up looking vapid and bland. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-nude-scenes-ever-not-gratuitous/50872.md?page=2)