I think that the internet plays into it in another way too. Back in “the day” an actress might be willing to do a nude scene thinking that the movie was only going to be in theaters for a limited time and when it made it to TV the scene would be cut anyway. But, first with VCR’s and now the net, your boobs will be out there forever now.
Mark Rylance is probably the only actor with an Oscar who also has a cum-shot in his legit movie career.
And split-second scenes that could once be allowed to slip by no longer are. Case in point, Clan of the Cavebear. There is a scene where Darryl Hanna is crouching to drink from a pond, it startled, and runs away. At the time that was released, you only saw it in theaters, so you can think “wait–did I just see…?” but with no way to confirm it. But after the invention of home media, you can pause it just as she turns to run, her short skirt flies up, and you confirm once and for all that Darryl Hanna is a natural blonde…
None of that explains why it’s now common to see nudity in mainstream TV shows, though.
are all those 76 that have voted for no, men?
I only want full frontal for men too! Why the discrimination??
So what? Sell it in books and magazines
Sigh, now what did I say…edit within 5 minutes!! Grrr:mad:
Ok something like this
boobs with nips, why not hard dicks and I know hard ones and limp ones have their place
Otherwise, kids all know about sex why not put it on the big screen? (not all kids of course) Slam one of those X ratings on them.
Let me guess, you’re of the male sect??
What exactly is ‘these days’? People who talk about it never specify, and it makes discussing things difficult. Presuming it’s something like the last decade or two, I would say that movies are less graphic than they used to be in both categories. There’s more violence in terms of ‘violent act count’ because movies pack more action in, but outside of torture porn it tends to be cartoon violence where you see guys dropping to gunshots or well coordinated martial arts fights, but not a lot of gory realistic injuries. It used to be standard for R-rated movies to include a gratuitous nude or tit shot just because, but that’s long died out. There is more nudity in stories that are overtly sexual, but the majority of movies probably have less (though TV has more).
For a counter example, the movie A Clockwork Orange came out in 1971, more than 45 years ago (definitely not ‘these days’) and got a simple R rating in spite of lots of nudity, explicit realistic violence, and explicit rape scenes. I don’t think a modern movie with that level of violence, rape, and nudity would be able to score an R rating today, I’m pretty sure it would need to cut things to be shown in theaters.
Nudity has really weird scoring levels when you think about it. Male upper-body nudity is so low-level it feels weird to apply ‘nudity’ to a guy with his shirt off, this is perfectly fine to show on kids shows, G movies, or the evening news. Female upper-body nudity is much higher on the scale, you can’t show this on regular network TV, news shows will use a blur of black box, and certainly can’t show it in a G movie. (Good example: In the famous Superbowl nipple incident, if they exposed Justin Timberlake’s boob instead of Janet Jackson’s there wouldn’t even be a controversy). Bare butt for both sexes is at a slightly lower level than female toplessness, it’s generally OK on TV where boobs wouldn’t be. Female full-body nudity is only little bump more (no pun intended), generally if a movie can show boobs women can also ditch their pants. Male full-body nudity is a much higher rating though, if a penis is going to make it’s way into a scene it’s generally a HUGE deal and cock doesn’t slip it’s way into a late evening show the way a butt does.
I honestly don’t get why nudity in books and magazines would be OK but not in movies. I can see someone objecting to sexual content, but objecting to it only in movies but not other media is just confusing to me.
In my circles, it’s generally women who like nudity in non-porn movies. Men tend to take more of a ‘if I want to see naked chicks, I’ll watch porn instead of wading through a plot for boobs’. I hear a lot more about Hugh Jackman’s disappearing shirt in X-men than Mystique’s sartorial lack, for example. I think among older people (maybe 50s, definitely 60s) there’s more of a tendency for men to like ‘titilation’ mixed into movies or TV, but that seems to be because they came from an era where getting pictures of naked women normally required effort and embarassment. Having a device that’s always around that can access live and recorded porn at any time from any urban location takes away the novelty.
That is what I came in to post. There was far more gratuitous nudity in the 80s than you see nowadays.
Nudity is fine for me, no issues or problems. Sexuality while it fits some movies is overused a bit IMHO, not too far, just many times not needed, though sometimes it’s done right. I would rather have the ‘fade to black’ method suggesting the sexual encounter instead of showing the porn scene.
Violence I would say can get graphic, but I guess the movies I see are not in that category, so when it happened I notice it. I don’t think it is overused or have gone to far.
What I think has gone too far is the fast paced ‘matrix’ like scenes which continuous shifting perspective that can get one motion sick and lost in the movie. But perhaps that is a generational thing that I just have not gotten.
This makes me think of a movie called Miracle Beach (from 1992) that I watched recently. A while back I had seen part of on TV. It had a really cute actress starring in it, so I recently decided to chase down the whole movie. I was suprised to find that the non-edited-for-tv version of it (on top of some of the worst acting and writing I have ever seen in a movie) had somewhere around a half-dozen gratuitous topless female scenes.
I’m finding that there are more TV shows I find raunchy than films of late. I had to stop watching the AHS “Hotel” season after the 3,216 anal rape via stainless-steel drill bit. I did make it through The Tudors (binge-watched it last year) because I eventually just forwarded through the gauzy-rapey-breast-and-J.Rhyss-butt scenes.
When violence and nekkidness start seeming gratuitous and based in 16-year-old masturbatory fantasies, I get bored.
I also get this weird aversion to sex in historical dramas because people weren’t the cleanest of humans in the past. When Claire and Jamie of Outlander fall upon one another after Jamie has been killing people and wallowing in guts and shit all I can think about is how stinky private parts would be. Henry VIII would have been extra yucky in later years with his open leg ulcer squick :dubious:
People in the past were far cleaner than we usually give them credit for.
Henry VIII was always particularly concerned about cleanliness throughout his life. He was the first British monarch to have baths built with hot and cold running water, and installed at most of his palaces. His leg ulcer was of course bandaged, and the dressing changed every day, or even more often.
I’d guess that it’s because “mainstream TV” now includes shows like Game of Thrones that were created for cable or streaming services. They don’t have the same FCC restrictions on content as broadcast channels, and including nudity is one way for them to distinguish themselves from the broadcast networks.
I don’t have cable, so when I watch TV it’s usually network TV. Nudity doesn’t seem to be any more common there than it was 20 years ago. I’ve seen the occasional bare butt or a PG-13-level sex scene, but only in dramas aired later in the evening.
That explains part of it, but nudity on cable-only shows isn’t new, either. Cinemax showed so much of it that it was nicknamed Skinemax. But it didn’t used to be mainstream: Back then, nobody would admit in public that they watched Skinemax, but nowadays, it’s no big deal for folks in the break room at work to discuss the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
I suppose, in a way, that that might be the result of the easy accessibility of internet porn, too. Skinemax was the closest you could easily get to real porn, and so the shows were designed for that purpose. But now, since TV doesn’t have to cater to that market any more, a show can contain nudity without it needing to be the entire focus of the show.
It’s my recollection that through most of the '90s, made-for-cable television shows tended to be regarded as cheap trash whether they featured nudity or not. I don’t remember there being much in the way of “prestigious” made-for-cable shows prior to The Sopranos.
I am certain this same question was posed in 1970.
I thought it went too far when I started seeing vomiting in almost every movie. However, I did think it was a cool effect when I saw a clay-mation figure vomiting.
Skinemax was porn. It was softcore enough that people didn’t pressure cable providers to ban it the way they might a hardcore sex channel, and people watching it would probably not call it porn because they felt like porn was something seedy perverts watched in disgusting theaters, but it was squarely in that category. The specific category of ‘soft-core enough to claim it’s not porn’ has died out to a large degree since porn has lost stigma and is easily available without needing to wear a trenchcoat and venture to a seedy shop in the bad part of town, but that’s what it was.
People didn’t talk about it because talking about porn at work is declasse even today beyond an oblique joking reference, and because there’s not really much to chat about in a porn if you’re at the ‘Skinemax’ level. Shows like Game of Thrones aren’t porn - there is definitely plot, intrigue, action, character development, world building, and things other than just sex going on, and pretty much no one watches GOT primarily for the nude scenes. So it makes sense to talk about it in the break room at work, because it’s an actual story with entertainment beyond titillation. (Also, it seems to have cut the amount of nudity a lot from earlier seasons, which strikes me as a bit odd).