One thing I’ve noticed over the last couple decades is that the amount of sex and nudity allowed in mainstream movies and network TV seems to have steadily increased. I theorize this is because the population of young adults is now one where they have had access to internet porn most of their lives, and so this kind of content is no longer as big a deal as it seemed before.
There are also movies now, such as Nymphomaniac, that are treated like mainstream films, with a quality plot, sets, and filming yet have straight up porn scenes during portions of the film.
In the typical network TV show, by season 2 or 3, the male and female leads usually hook up. (with a will they/won’t they teasing done for a couple seasons, generally) Most movies meant for adult audiences, whether they be romance or action, have at least one scene where the male/female leads have sex.
So it seems like a logical idea to make that scene more powerful by filming it with actual “porn” content. The male and females leads won’t just pretend to have sex, they’ll actually do it, and the camera will perhaps catch a glimpse of genitals so the audience knows it’s the real deal. The rest of the movie would be the same as usual.
How many decades before American culture is ok with this, do you think? For obvious logistic reasons, the theatrical cut of the film might not have the explicit camera shots, but the blu ray/download version would.
I think that American culture will be okay with this, but I’m not sure you’ll get many actors interested given that so many won’t even do nude or topless scenes once they’ve made it. You’ll be more likely to see it in B movies and independent films. Actually, I’m surprised we haven’t already seen it in independent films. Probably because if you do have an explicit sex scene it would be labelled “porn”, only the kind no one wants to see because you have to sit through a 90 minute movie to get to the good part.
By the time American culture would be accepting of this, what we know as movies and TV (or at least the latter) will have changed so much and/or taken such a different place in society as to make the comparison difficult, or moot—it’d be like wondering when mainstream Vaudeville will accept nudity and openly gay themes.
I’m not so sure about this. It doesn’t really match my (admittedly limited) experience. I would have thought the heyday of nudity and sex in mainstream movies was in the 70s or 80s, back when it might help to sell tickets because the internet hadn’t yet come along and made it easy to see nudity and sex on demand.
I agree with TB – while there is certainly more implied sex in the movies and on TV than there was 25 years ago, it seems to me there is less nudity and sex actually depicted overall. In general, I mean. Sure, you have your Game of Thrones but that’s often called out because it has so much sex; it’s quite an outlier.
I agree- I think most movies are aimed at a teenage demographic and anything worse than a PG-13 rating can be bad for business.
There are certainly more cable TV and Netflix series that allow more nudity and simulated sex than we’ve seen before, but even ***Game of Thrones ***doesn’t show actual sex, and never will.
Actual sex may occur in art-house films (it already has, from time to time, in films like Brown Bunny), but you’ll never see Jennifer Lawrence or Bradley Cooper engaging in real intercourse on screen at your local multiplex.
Yep, there’s a lot LESS nudity in Hollywood movies than there used to be. It used to be that every other mainstream action movie and comedy threw in some gratuitous T&A.
It seems to me that there’s a lot less demand for this sort of thing now that everyone has magic porn box on their desk or in their pocket. If you want to see some T&A it takes 5 seconds to google something, you don’t have to go to the metroplex and pay $9.50 and sit through 2 hours of car chases and gunfights to see some bare breasts for a few seconds.
I don’t see it happening anytime in the near future. Hollywood is a business and they’re looking at the bottom dollar before anything else. Mainstream movies and television wants to sell tickets and advertising not push the boundaries. There’s always a vocal opposition to sex scenes and the MPAA and FCC listen to this opposition so Hollywood backs off.
I’m joining in the consensus here. There is no benefit for major mainstream mass-market film/TV productions to have the actors really get it on.
As for film, the OP already acknowledges that some “arthouse” indie films include explicit content – but it would seem it would stay like that for a while. The strategy of filming a parallel hardcore version so that scene may be included or not included is actually a practice used (for decades now) by actual *porn *producers so they can have a “softcore” version that they can sell and release more widely than just to the hardcore market. And besides why try to get, say, Renee Russo and Pierce Brosnan, or Michael Douglas and Jeanne Tripplehorn, to actually copulate on camera when the “merely” simulated scene was good enough?
Meanwhile with “TV” and its variations, as more of it is consumed via direct download/stream you probaly will get quite some more material equivalent to film R- even NC-17-rating, or softcore content, in specific productions; but those aimed at a mass-market audience will stay with broadcast and basic cable/satellite standards and top out at PG-13 so they can have maximum distribution. At best you may hope for FCC, MPAA and TV Standards and Practices to get to a more “European” standard so you may have incidental topless or nonsexual nudity and perhaps be able to finally say “goddamn” out loud on broadcast TV, but that’s still a good ways away.
My question is how come Gilligan’s Island, The Honeymooners, Happy Days, I love Lucy, and hundreds of other classic sitcoms did just fine and are still funny 30-50 years later with no sex?
True, but I think there’s a line between gratuitous and something that actually furthers a story. The problem with 60s TV shows is that characters didn’t even seem to have any bodily functions of any sort other than eating and drinking(and smoking, which was actually more acceptable in TV and movies back then). But you couldn’t even film a scene in a bathroom.
As to when Porn will become mainstream on the Internet. Well, let me tell ya! I expect you might be able to find a place or two to see yourself the random titty!