Of course a question I have for McDonough, who claims he won’t do sex scenes because he’s a devout Catholic and a family man, is how he justified being on Desperate Housewives. Is it that he’s fine with other actors doing it but doesn’t want to himself or did he leave DW because of it or… what exactly?
One thing you have to say for Cameron is he puts his money where his mouth is: he could probably get another network series fairly easily if he didn’t have to exercise complete creative control to make sure it was rated G. McDonough should perhaps take a lesson.
Here’s what I think. I think TV and movies don’t need sex scenes. You could count on one hand the number of movies that actually needed to include a visual representation of sex taking place.
Nor do they need to show violence on-screen: the Greek classics all made do with off-stage violence. Nor do they need naughty language: great film noir classics have nothing profane or obscene in them.
Thing is, sex, violence, and cussin are fun. You may not need them in a movie, but they sure can make it more fun.
How much detail do television as opposed to film contracts go into regarding stuff like nudity or love scenes? It’s not like a movie where it’s known in advance exactly how much skin will be exposed and for how long. They’ve got to be written in very general terms. The contracts for Oz for example seemed to include a requirement that most male actors do frontal scenes on a regular basis. Many network shows (particularly daytime soaps) will still find any excuse they can to get male stars shirtless. The teenage son on The Middle spends most of his scenes wearing only boxers.
Different people have different comfort zones. Maybe he is comfortable with other actors doing romantic scenes but it’s just not something he’s comfortable with.
It seems to me that McDonough is putting his money where his mouth is seeing as how he lost his job.
He cashed the checks from the many shows and movies that he evidently found immoral, however, which seems to me analogous to being a photographer for* Hustler* while speaking against smut.
Where he’s going with it is that while Neal McDonough is fine playing a character who happily chops up babies to bits even though it goes against his moral fibre, getting naked onscreen is “over the line” :rolleyes:
What’s so hard to understand? I don’t eat pork for religious reasons, but I don’t mind if my dining companions order bacon cheeseburgers, as they so often do.
I don’t see it as a conflict, the way I view it is seeing it this way:
“I understand and accept that fiction will portray behaviors I don’t approve of in reality, and as an actor I am fine with it so long as I am simply simulating such behavior. Yes, violence is abhorrent but in portraying a violent character I never actually commit a violent act. Sex isn’t abhorrent but in portraying it I would have to do things I personally consider to be borderline, and maybe actually, adulterous in reality.”
If he would refuse to be in a movie if doubles were used for kissing and sex scenes simply because the end result would make it appear he did those things (and maybe he has, I don’t know) then yeah, I’d say there’s a disconnect.
Heh. Yah, I remember Ron Moore mentioning on the Battlestar Galactica podcast that one of the first scenes the actor playing Baltar shot was a romp with Six. “Welcome to the set - now hop in the sack with Tricia over there …”
But Mr Cameron probably already has a lot of money.
From the Simpsons
Smithers) What will you do with another million dollars
Mr Burns) I dunno, throw it on the pile.
I also kind of think TV doesn’t need the amount of sex, it once did. Let’s face it with the Internet sex is just every where. I was once at the gym and I was watching the Bachelor, and he was without his shirt, taking and kissing the girls open mouthed. I thought “What is this, porn for people too afraid to go into the video store and rent it?”
The women in SI are generally more attractive than Playboy (only older washed-up celebrities seem to pose for them these days), the photography is better, and SI doesn’t retouch them to hell. These days looking at a Playboy picture is more like looking at a painting or a computer rendering than a photograph. I don’t even really feel like I’ve seen a woman nude after seeing her in Playboy.
