If I want to watch porn, I'll watch porn, I'm sure as hell not going to opt for some scene in a regular movie. Then again, maybe it's for people that refuse to watch porn for one reason or another and this is as close as they get?
This is the true reason why violence is allowed on TV, whereas sex is always problematic and often censored. You can watch violence with just about anybody (kids, parents, etc.) and it doesn't feel awkward.
It's typically made very clear to everyone that violence is wrong, and what you are watching on a movie or series is fictional violence. In other words, you are watching something that no one would like to go through.
Sex is fundamentally different. As it is not only desirable in many senses, but it is also a basic human function, but at the same time it is something extremely intimate, not something you share with any random person.
That’s cultural - our reactions to violence are pretty fundamental, too, with roots deep in our brains. It’s natural to feel empathy for someone being hurt, to appreciate the implications of them being hurt or killed, etc. The difference is that our culture says that’s okay to show children, so most of us are at least partially desensitized during childhood.
Broadly speaking (many exceptions), Americans are fine with young teens watching a movie about a man using kung fu fantasy tactics to bloodlessly shoot his way through a building of bad guys, like John Wick, but don't necessarily feel the same way about something that depicts violence in a more brutal and arguably realistic way, like Saving Private Ryan. Is there a little puff of red CGI mist blood coming out of somebody's chest, or does the movie show one of the 'good guys' with half his skull blown away? These are both hardcore violence in a sense, but most people see a large qualitative difference between the two.
I think it basically comes down to how likely a movie is to give people nightmares, which of course is a function of desensitization. The American public is broadly desensitized to unrealistic violence, but most aren't desensitized to realistic violence.
Incidentally, Saving Private Ryan has a lopsided depiction of violence. The deaths of Americans are shown to be gruesome and agonizing, while the deaths of Germans are mostly shown to be relatively quick and clean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4FeyONCtfc I re-watched Saving Private Ryan after watching this video and found it to be very apparent, but it wasn't apparent to me the first time I watched it.
I generally agree with your point but this has changed over time. For example, showing someone getting shot in combat was generally acceptable before torture or maiming since we’re more likely to say that those are never justified. Someone who grew up in a culture with public executions and punishments might have a more situational view based on whether it was “deserved”.
To me, clearly there is a huge difference between tv and in person. I've never even seen a dead person (except in movies).
Usually this has a bad connotation, that's why I interpreted what you said the way I did.
I think you’re on the right track here. In the 90s, teenagers would watch objectively terrible TV and movies for the handful of scenes where someone hot was as close to naked as allowed. Sports Illustrated sold a ton of swimsuit issues to guys who didn’t want to be seen buying Playboy, etc.
Now that anyone looking for that can get unlimited quantities of any type of erotic material they can imagine online, anyone looking for entertainment is going to skip anything which isn’t very good - no more trying to make up for bad writing and concepts by tossing in a gratuitous shower scene or having your heroine inexplicably choosing to fight in a bikini.
The other thing which has been developing for a while, and really ramped up with #MeToo was the realization that a lot of the guys making decisions about what goes into movies were pretty sleazy. It’s not a new observation that there were some pretty screwed up decisions about sexualizing things like rape or other violence, but I think a lot of people decided to stop watching it even if it was in a popular film or show, not to mention some very influential Hollywood types having their careers reconsidered in light of harassment claims, and I’d bet some of that factors into the results of this survey, too.
Exactly. Like the OP said, if I want to watch porn, I'll watch porn. If it's important to the story to know that a couple slept together then you can show them going to bed, starting foreplay, and then fade out and cut back in to after the event. There's obvious ways to show the characters had sex together without actually showing the sex. We know they had sex - move the story along! You can still show a titillating butt shot or boob shot if you're trying to juice up your ratings and still not show the actual sex!
There’s another big misconception here: kink isn’t rape. 50 shades had some criticism but it was generally understood that boundaries were being pushed voluntarily. That’s not perfect - there are a million essays on that - but it’s very different from criminal violence.
What I was referring to was the way rape is portrayed as sexy in a way which doesn’t happen for other acts of violence in mainstream media. It’s become a lazy screenwriting trope complete with the soft lighting and prolonged focus on how attractive the victim’s body is in a way you’d never see for, say, a man getting stabbed even though both of them are having the worst days of their lives.
I'm no prude, and I have no problem with porn. But for the most part, I find the mandatory sex scene is a huge distraction from the plot. Why not hint at it, like they used to?
I re-watched Don't Look Back the other night; the sex scene in that movie is fine, because it really is part of the plot. But chucking in a long, sweaty sex scene just because you've cast a pretty actress is stupid. I treat it like an ad-break - I either fast-forward, or I go to make a cup of tea.
Then watch some european movies. Unlike Hollywood, the sex scenes have a meaning in the whole construct. ( Meaning of life by Monthy Python for example ;) )
Family guy did some hilarious puking scenes back in the day by showing it as horrible as it really is. The Hollywood vomit-lite is just embarrassing at this point.
Some stand up comics use something similar. It’s easier to make someone laugh because they’re uncomfortable than it is to make them laugh by being funny, so some comics will be obscene and get their laughs that way.
In the same vein, it’s easier to make a story feel serious by putting in a sex scene than it is to write an engaging plot.
An example of how suppressed it was a friend told me her first husband (1960's) was a sleazy truck driver that made extra cash on the side transporting 16mm porn movies. Same way other more sleazy truckers transported drugs.