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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Topic: Is it the new thing for actresses to show off their tits?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-03-2010 11:09 PM
Here's my 2˘ on the topic:
I always laugh a little whenever any man pretends to be offended by the sight of exposed female breasts in a movie. Don't try to bring up that scene with the old woman ghost in The Shining. That's not "offense" you experienced, digust and horrible feelings of mortality and nihilism are more like it. Usually if a Hollywood movie camera is pointed at a woman's rack it is pointed there because it looks GREAT! Just like Kellogg's Frosted Flakes™.
Maybe this is the old Madonna-whore Freudian adolescent complex at work, something America has never been able to grow past when it comes to sex and how we see the female body.
There are far worse things out there worthy of inciting offended feelings and self righteous indignation than an exposed pair of female breasts in a scene of simulated sexual activity in a Hollywood movie.
News flash to Tom Petrov: American movies have rarely used nudity in recent years. Most R-rated American movies are R-rated just for violence and profanity -no nudity! Today it's possible for an American movie to be rated R just for references to drug use and smoking! 20 to 30 years ago many more R-rated movies had at least a scene or two with exposed tits and perhaps ass or even BUSH! Sheesh, it seems most women these days (going by the ones I've been with over the last decade) are shaving off theirs. I digress.
Sex in Hollywood cinema is pretty laughable. How can anyone be offended by it? The shit is TAME and LAME at best compared to other outlets. The content seems like Disneyland® compared to some of the programming on premium cable TV. The stuff is positively saintly next to what anyone can easily see on the Internet. And that's just confining the discussion to sex.
I find the trend with violence much more disturbing. The MPAA isn't doing anything wrong with branding movies with an R-rating when the violence passes a certain level. Unfortunately graphic violence is more and more tolerated in cable and free broadcast network TV programming. There's a serious amount of what I feel is R-rated quality blood and gore being put on display. I have the feeling few people if anyone cares about this. It's more palatable to see a nurse on the TV series Grey's Anatomy get her brains blown out by a killer walking the hospital halls than for that nurse to show off her boobs in a love scene. In the Fall season premiere we got the graphic, shot out nurse brains, but no boobs.
Going deeper into this, the whole thing with simulated gore and naked tits is superficial. There's no substance to it.
Want to know what I find most offensive? CRUELTY.
So called "reality TV" liberally indulges in broadcasting cruelty. The TV series Survivor rewards the most cruel, scheming son of a bitch as the winner. Shows like The Bachelor don't show any naked tits. But they sure do show contestants using sex as a weapon to stab each other in the back to claw their way to the top. American Idol is just about done, but its big selling point in the beginning was Simon Cowell being as big an asshole as possible to contestants.
American society is a sick, twisted, judgmental lot -at least if you go by what Hollywood and mass media give us for entertainment. We get off on looking down our noses at other people. It's an American pasttime.
In the end we have to ask ourselves: "why do we have these ratings for movies and TV shows?" Um, sending the right message to children is the usual answer. Well, from where I sit those messages of violence and back-stabbing people for opportunity are toxic to kids. A lot more toxic than tits. But dealing with those issues is just too damned complicated. So let's stick with the easy, superficial shit! No bare tits (or any naked woman parts), no smoking, no smoking dope, no cussing and try to keep the brain exploding mayhem to a minimum. Say whatever you want even if it has to do with fucking. Just don't do it on screen. If you can just do emotionally cruel shit to each other. That stuff is just perfectly fine.
quote: Joe Redifer
It was The Ice Storm
I don't remember Sigourney Weaver bearing her breasts in The Ice Storm. The character she played sure wasn't a crying in the kitchen emo type either, just an icy, selfish bitch. I've seen that movie a couple different times. Although it had some strong sexual subject matter, I can't remember the movie actually having any nudity in it at all. It probably pissed off lots of viewers to see actors talking about screwing, taking part in simulated screwing while wearing clothes and liberally using the "F" word -yet not showing any skin.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-04-2010 05:01 PM
I probably could have said what I said about the purpose of the ratings system a bit better. But it's still kind of the same thing. The parents see the "R" logo and automatically know the movie is probably something they should not allow their kids to watch.
I do agree the ratings help parents dodge some of their parental duties. My parents weren't as squeamish as so many parents are about having frank discussions with their children over adult subject matter in movies, music, etc. They felt it was more important to put that stuff in its proper perspective rather than foolishly trying to sheild us from it. Me and my brother were going to see a bunch of that stuff at some point anyway. My parents wanted us to learn about it properly rather than letting us jump to wrong conclusions and make stupid, destructive, life changing choices on those wrong conclusions.
quote: Greg Anderson
And, nothing personal, but when you try to turn this into a discussion about "there's too much violence on the screen" you're beside the point. Nobody was talking about violence. Every time someone questions sex or nudity in the media someone else tries to divert the topic into a discussion of violence. It's a weak tactic.
No it is not a weak tactic. All I am doing with bringing up widespread violence in entertainment is pointing out the hypocrisy present with America's salad bar style of fake morality. We pick and choose a few things to make off limits while allowing a lot of other toxic crap to be tolerated. There's no consistency.
A big part of American society characterizes sex as a dirty activity that should be off limits to most of us. Another part of American society portrays sex as a type of currency meant to be traded only among the best looking and most affluent people. Again, the intention is there to make it off limits to most people.
Sex is a common, natural, normal part of life. The nude human figure is a natural thing and has been an icon in art for thousands of years.
Sex is necessary to our society. IMHO, sex is a major factor in what drives the American economy. If we didn't have the drive to pair up with someone and start a family our economy would collapse. We wouldn't need the bigger vehicles, bigger houses and all the stuff to fill those living spaces. If the pursuit of sex was not important the vast majority of us would just stay single and live more modest, simple and far more affordable life styles.
The point about "intellectual exercise" and some lady being someone's wife, mother, daughter, girlfriend, etc. sounds like another example of characterizing nudity and sex into something that is dirty. The vast majority of adults have had sex and maintain active sex lives if they're able to do so. That goes regardless of whether the adult is someone's wife, husband, son, daughter, mother, father, etc.
With that being said, dramatized sex and nudity can have a place in a movie with adult characters. Sex is a critical part of most relationships and is a factor in maintaining or destroying relationships.
Speaking of what isn't necessary, violence isn't really necessary to our society. I don't go through my daily life committing acts of violence against other people. One could make a good argument that violence isn't very necessary to movies either (although most action genres would be destroyed without it).
quote: Greg Anderson
The idea that, somehow, the willingness to be naked for a movie makes you a "better" or "more dedicated" actor is pure nonsense. We can see from some of the comments in this very discussion that, often, the nudity is appreciated as it would be if it were common, ordinary porn.
Again this sounds like nudity being characterized as something dirty, especially with porn being brought into the discussion. There's a lot more to sex than the superficial stuff shown by the porn industry.
The kind of sex performed in hardcore porn videos and most of the stuff in softcore shows on cable is not normal sex. It's a bunch of mechanical, goal-oriented garbage. It's mostly jerk-off fodder for sexually dissatisfied men; very little of it is designed for women or couples to watch.
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Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 12-06-2010 10:10 AM
Another weak tactic enters the discussion. When did anyone here declare that sex is dirty? When did Tom say he's gay? You shouldn't be able to "win the argument" by making up something the other guy didn't say and then criticizing the other guy for it. (But it happens in politics all the time.)
I would modify the statement that "sex is a common, natural, normal part of life" by saying that it's a common, natural, normal part of a person's private life. And that's why, when it appears in the movies, a lot of people don't appreciate it. That's also why a lot of people can't process the idea of sharing any of it with a movie crew or random viewers.
When I hear someone talk about a "nice rack" on an actress who's trying to be "a serious artist" I tend to conclude that her "art" is being appreciated as it would be if it were common, ordinary porn. Porn is in the eye of the beholder, of course. When did I say that nudity was dirty? For all you know, Bobby, I am attempting to appreciate fine art while surrounded by guys who cheapen my experience by talking about "a nice rack."
There are plenty of people who have absolutely no hang-ups when it comes to sex; People who do it a lot and are as satisfied as you can imagine. Out of those people, most of them don't even like to talk about what they do in private, except for with their chosen partner. There's nothing dirty about their lives but they still don't shout about themselves. Why should they?
Ironically, it's the porn industry which teaches us that "bad" people are having sex or that "naughty girls" take off their clothes. Hollywood often reinforces that same message.
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