**This topic will probably only make sense to people who have had experience with television in the United States or similar Victorian countries. **
I was watching the History Channel and they showed some 19th Century “pornography.” It was mostly breasts, but some total nudity. These pictures could have been from Playboy, if Playboy was shot in black and white and the women wore 19th c. hair styles. If there were similar photographs in color and the women looked modern, the History Channel would have certainly used the blurry mosaic treatment we all love so much. You know, as they do on Entertainment Televison (Wild On whatever). What gives?
Next, the “National Geographic rules” baffle me. On several of the other educational channels I have seen totally naked Africans, South American natives, etc… What gives?
Dammit. Nudity is not a crime, usually. There is nothing freaking wrong with showing naked people at all. But, assuming there is something wrong, what makes some nudity OK?
I would have said racism, but the old nudity really threw me. It is not the cable television angle, both E and the History Channel are cable networks. Is there a room of censors somewhere arbitrarily deciding what body parts are OK? Can a television network really get in trouble with the FCC for showing, say, a naked porno star,* but not a naked 19th c. prostitute? I would love to see that rule written down. Or, are the networks just cowardly?
I’m not sure why this is in the BBQ pit. It would probably be better off in IMHO or GQ…
Anyways, the reason that some nudity is ok, is because that nudity is presented in an educational or academic manner. If it were presented primarily to cause sexual arousal, than it classifies as pornography.
Here (Japan) even National Geographic-type documentaries get sensored. I saw a show about Sadhus, holy Hindu men who go about naked. Tiling their genitals seemed so very, very wrong. If anyone finds anything remotely sexual about a very long haired 85 year old naked man, well, then, really I guess anything should turn you on… What’s particularly strange about this situation is that hot springs being very popular, naked men strolling around is far from an uncommon sight.
Though I hate tiling and blurring, at least I appreciate the effort to distinguish between sexual and non-sexual nudity. It’s all about context I suppose.
Yes, even in the UK you can see ladies’ nipples and men’s willies (gasp!) on TV. In fact, I saw a documentary programme the other night called “Sex BC” or something (speculating about the sexual mores and practices of e.g. the inhabitants of Skara Brae, blimey you’d have thought it would be too cold, but I digress) and there was a lengthy illustrative shot of what the programme-makers presumably thought prehistoric shagging would have been like (lots of fur and skins to lie on, and not nearly as bloody freezing cold as you would have thought, apparently…). We do usually have to wait until after 9pm though, when a siren blares over the BBC and warns sensitive souls to turn off their TVs and make their cocoa… then on comes Eurotrash!
Even advertising billboards on Oxford Street seem to show nips these days, even though nude women on the front of porn magazines must for some reason still have little black dots placed over theirs… I do remember a TV advertising campaign (for Garnier Nutralia shower gel) that at first ran with a risqué shot revealing the model’s entire breast, but seemed later to be replaced by an edited version where you couldn’t see the nipple.
I apologise for the apparent obsession with nipples, but the day when men’s best buddies appear on public billboards seems far off…
It has been the case for some time that society seems to think there are different kinds of nudity. When Manet painted Olympia everyone got really upset because she was looking directly at the viewer: that was bad, pornographic nudity, as opposed to the good, pure nudity of any model gazing into the middle distance.
Yes, even in the UK you can see ladies’ nipples and men’s willies (gasp!) on TV. In fact, I saw a documentary programme the other night called “Sex BC” or something (speculating about the sexual mores and practices of e.g. the inhabitants of Skara Brae, blimey you’d have thought it would be too cold, but I digress) and there was a lengthy illustrative shot of what the programme-makers presumably thought prehistoric shagging would have been like (lots of fur and skins to lie on, and not nearly as bloody freezing cold as you would have thought, apparently…). We do usually have to wait until after 9pm though, when a siren blares over the BBC and warns sensitive souls to turn off their TVs and make their cocoa… then on comes Eurotrash!
Even advertising billboards on Oxford Street seem to show nips these days, even though nude women on the front of porn magazines must for some reason still have little black dots placed over theirs… I do remember a TV advertising campaign (for Garnier Nutralia shower gel) that at first ran with a risqué shot revealing the model’s entire breast, but seemed later to be replaced by an edited version where you couldn’t see the nipple.
I apologise for the apparent obsession with nipples, but the day when men’s best buddies appear on public billboards seems far off…
It has been the case for some time that society seems to think there are different kinds of nudity. When Manet painted Olympia everyone got really upset because she was looking directly at the viewer: that was bad, pornographic nudity, as opposed to the good, pure nudity of any model gazing into the middle distance.
In the US, cable channels generally go for what they can get away with without getting swamped by angry letters. Which usually isn’t that much, actually…documentaries can get away with more since they’re informative.
Some of them were lookin’ pretty good to me. Seriously. Not to mention the pygmies. Mmmmm…pygmies.
I posted this in the pit so people could be obscene and feel good about it. Describing TV nudity and discussing it seemed pitworthy. I thought some people might have some lewd observations. ([sub]was hoping[/sub])
Oh, and I did not want a debate about “contemporary community standards” breaking out. Personally, I don’t think nudity equates to obscenity anyway. Of course, I could be wrong.
I am still not clear on the “educational” thing. I could fit lots of down and dirty action under that rubric.
And then you get something like what I saw on Trio (the arts network is what they bill themselves as I believe) and they were showing the History of Pornography in 3 parts. Uncensored even! Which left me baffled as to why they then proceeded to cover up all the interesting parts of even old photos and statues and paintings with big bright orange dots.
The whole thing makes no sense because no one really wants to make a clear cut definition of what is and what is not acceptible. Of course some stuff is clearly forbidden like penetration. But they all want to follow the lead of … was it Rehnquist who said of pornography “I’ll know it when I see it” in that Supreme Court case back in the 80s?
Unfortunately we’d have a hard time dictating a time at which various levels of undress could be shown since many stations have their shows on at varying times across the nation. “Are we there yet” plays on the History Channel at 9pm in New York. 8pm in Chicago. 7pm in Denver. 9pm in Los Angeles. And 6pm in Honolulu. Not that I would complain about nudity in prime time, but I’m a single guy with nothing better to do.
The thing is, the people who blurred the Sadhis’ genitalia may have wanted to preserve their (the Sadhis’) dignity. But that wouldn’t be necessary, if these men are naked in their daily lives!
Reading this, I started wondering about another visual: kissing. Standards may have changed when I was a kid in the '70s, but I seem to remember that when I was watching something aimed at a kid audience, they would never show a man and a woman kissing! Not even if they were animated! I remember a Christmas special (animated) where the male and female leads were making eyes at each other, talking sweet, and getting closer and closer, then, just before the point of contact, a reindeer or something jumped across the screen for no reason except to block the sight of them :giggle: kissing! At the time, I thought, “They must think it’s a private thing, and it would be wrong for us to see it.” Now I think the censors must have been thinking, “We can’t have little kids watching lip contact, because then the next day on the playground, they’ll all be running around trying to smooch with each other!”
American society, I swear. You can show anything at all in the way of violence, but god forbid you expose a breast, and forget about a penis. You can show a man murdering a woman, or the reverse, but you can’t show them in bed for longer than it takes to pull the covers up and fade out.
Wow, he said it in 1964. I must have heard it as it was bandied about in the late 80s over another Supreme Court case. A quote of a quote sort of thing.
I wish I had a cite for this. I remember hearing a story about some appellate court (maybe even the SCOTUS) viewing porn for days. I do a search and the first thousand hits are about child porn - bummer. That is not cool.
