Why must nudity be justified?

[DLD]

I worked with a very famous actor who had a thing about bad language, even quite mild ones would be removed from scripts and replaced if people wanted him in the movie or stage show...

Two days ago, a friend posts a photo taken on a set of arguably greatest Soviet comedy called the "Gentlemen of Fortune". So, I look online and, for sh!ts and giggles, find a quote from the film. Then it dawns on me that, when I first saw it in my early teens, I completely missed the lexicon that was invented by the film's writers. Meaning that, in a film about the criminal element, the writers had to use words that sort of sounded like the expletives but weren't expletives, as those would never get by the censors.

Which reminds me of the nearly identical situation from the American TV, where (the late great) David Angell, then writing for "Cheers", had to come up with an alternative word for the intercourse and thus delivered "boink" to the masses.

 

[OldCorpse]

Fact is, she became an instant superstar and I don't believe she's appeared nude in a film since.

LOL. I tell you what this reminds me of. Sex tapes that made people famous... and often incredibly wealthy. Paris Hilton. Kim Kardashian. Many other women tried the same route - make a sex tape and hope it goes viral. Now, perhaps Hilton (or Kardashian) didn’t exactly plan it that way, but it certainly worked out that way... and many, many, many others took note and tried to replicate that success. Because hey, who wouldn’t want Kardiashian type money for a bit of “acting” - we’re talking hundreds of millions. Actors are not the only folks who have cottoned on to the fact that sex sells - and they can use that fact with full premeditation. I’m not judging, but let’s not kid ourselves what’s happening. The only thing that bothers me is if someone uses that route and then gets holier than thou... a bit hypocritical, seems to me. Do what you want to do, but own it.

Sexual predators are not new things but while unpleasant by today’s standards were a thing many took advantage of to get a career hike. They made a business decision, like another career has always done. Difficult to live with perhaps, but still an agreement? It was a career enhancing decision and I guess something lots have kept quiet about. After all, for the process to get named, as in the casting couch, it want really a secret. Just another example of wanting to rewrite the past with today’s weird double standards.

Totally. Of course. 100%. The history of film - and pretty much any other industry. I think everyone can agree that sexual predators are despicable and we should do all we can to banish such practices. But let’s get real - some folks have totally made a conscious decision and a bargain. Marilyn Monroe famously said after “servicing” an exec to get a role, and when she got famous after that said “that’s the last c*ck I’ll ever have to s**k” - she knew that fame was coming and now she wouldn’t need to do the casting couch anymore, now she held the power. That’s hollywood, folks. Do you imagine she was the only one who made that bargain or calculation? Hardly. Doesn’t make it right. Nobody should feel compelled to cater to sexual predators for the sake of a career. We should ABSOLUTELY do all we can to forever banish such abhorrent practices. But I think we sometimes forget that not everyone is in exactly the same position - obviously there are rape and abuse victims who should never have experienced these crimes, hence Me Too. But while Me Too is totally needed, we also need to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. And the truth is, that for some - and again, it doesn’t make it right by any means - for some (and only some) this was a business proposition. That’s the part that isn’t spoken of so often because it’s not as black and white neat villain/victim a narrative. Reality is messy. Regardless however, such abuse of power is WRONG UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES - that is why you are not for example allowed to enter into a slavery arrangement (so, if someone were to offer themselves to be a slave, this is illegal, regardless of the fact that the victim is claiming to be doing so voluntarily).

Obviously, any decent human being would be opposed to all such practices - and I personally wouldn’t have it any other way. But at the same time, I’m not going to falsify history for the sake of making a neat narrative that’s simply untrue. Reality is not black and white, it’s gray. All IMHO.

 

[paulears]

Absolutely. Here in the uk we actually have a modern slavery issue in my area. We have a huge fruit industry, and brits historically hate picking it. The workforce used to come from the Eastern European area. Since Brexit, this is impossible. So what is happening is people are being brought in, they surrender their passports to gang masters, get food and accommodation and surrender their wages. Documents are forged and this seems common. The police try to stop it with our immigration service, but it’s slavery. They are not free, they are controlled by criminal gangs. They’re a commodity to be sold. Apparently the sex industry is the same. It’s unacceptable but seemingly impossible to stop. Film, music and theatre people are just newsworthy.

 

[JAMedia]

Sexual predators are not new things but while unpleasant by today’s standards were a thing many took advantage of to get a career hike. They made a business decision, like another career has always done. Difficult to live with perhaps, but still an agreement? It was a career enhancing decision and I guess something lots have kept quiet about. After all, for the process to get named, as in the casting couch, it want really a secret. Just another example of wanting to rewrite the past with today’s weird double standards.

The case of Traci Lords comes to mind on this one. She engineered a whole career out of it and used the system against itself.

There is also an interesting twist on the Jeffrey Epstein case. When the FBI were investigating the young girls (13-18?) he brought in from the wrong side of town some testified others didn't but quite a few said: "I knew what I was doing and he funded my way though collage. " and said they used him as much as he used them so they refused to testify. Not that this makes what he did right but doesn't half confuse the issue.

However we are a long way off nudity in films. The thing is Nudity does not equal sex. At least not all the time. There is a lot of non sexual nudity. The problem arises when in the minds of some any nudity equates to sex and pornography.
Then you have the problem that in some cultures the levels of erotic depiction (as opposed to sex acts) is very different to others.
In some countries what is considered normal/natural non-sexual nudity would be considered banable pornography in others.
It is all shades of grey (more than 50 Shades).

 

[Mitch Gross]

Apparently Harvey Weinstein was surprised by the industry reaction when the stories of his numerous rapes became public. He pleaded to others in the business to come to his defense because he was just doing what many before him had. It's a pretty skewed perspective but also not one completely blind to history.

I agree tjat nudity does not equal sex and that there are very different social standards for what defines either in various groups. When female pop stars perform concerts in Jakarta they regularly have to adjust their stage outfits to be less revealing in accordance to local laws. This can mean wearing leggings underneath shorts or skirts so that legs are fully covered to the ankle. "Nudity" is defined differently by different people.

 

[DLD]

... When female pop stars perform concerts in Jakarta they regularly have to adjust their stage outfits to be less revealing in accordance to local laws. This can mean wearing leggings underneath shorts or skirts so that legs are fully covered to the ankle...

At the very end of the USSR, when there was no laws or morality to speak of, there was an onslaught of the female bands that barely dressed into anything. Their nickname (in Russian) was "dancing underpants".

 

[JAMedia]

Apparently Harvey Weinstein was surprised by the industry reaction when the stories of his numerous rapes became public. He pleaded to others in the business to come to his defense because he was just doing what many before him had. It's a pretty skewed perspective but also not one completely blind to history.

I have no direct experience of Hollywood but my impression was that whilst there was a "casting couch" way of doing things it would be with women/men of legal age (or very close to). With Harvey Wienstein was targeting girls who were definitely minors The ages seem to be in the range 13-18? Though there was some mention of younger girls. I think the suggestion was that Harvey knew others with "similar interests" in a position of power who would protect him (or the conspiracy says... silence him) hence his call to others to come to his defence. I doubt we will ever know but this is orthogonal to the argument of justifying nudity (as opposed to sex/eroticism ) in films.

 

[Razz16mm]

If it isn't important to the context of a story or as an appropriate expression of artistic aesthetics, then it is a biologically manipulative distraction from what is and demeans the work.

 

[Razz16mm]

If it isn't important to the context of a story or as an appropriate expression of artistic aesthetics, then it is a biologically manipulative distraction from what is and demeans the work.

 

[JAMedia]

If it isn't important to the context of a story or as an appropriate expression of artistic aesthetics, then it is a biologically manipulative distraction from what is and demeans the work.

This is not true at all. I was just watching an old re-run of Tales of the Unexpected on a free to air TV channel on a Sunday morning. This one had some scenes by a hotel pool in France. In the background both male and female guests were sunbathing topless. This was not important to the story at all but was just normal. It is what people in that part of the world do in normal life. It might have been a distraction to teenage boys but no one else. In many parts of the world non-sexual nudity is normal and every day it doesn't demean anything unless you have been brought up in a sexually repressed society.

 

[Mitch Gross]

This is not true at all. I was just watching an old re-run of Tales of the Unexpected on a free to air TV channel on a Sunday morning. This one had some scenes by a hotel pool in France. In the background both male and female guests were sunbathing topless. This was not important to the story at all but was just normal. It is what people in that part of the world do in normal life. It might have been a distraction to teenage boys but no one else. In many parts of the world non-sexual nudity is normal and every day it doesn't demean anything unless you have been brought up in a sexually repressed society.

I don’t particularly consider this a good excuse. Going to the bathroom is normal activity everywhere on the planet. Clipping one’s toenails is as well. We don’t show these or thousands of other mundane activities in the background of movies because we actively choose what we do and do not represent. Movies are not a slice of life they are a slice of cake (quoting Hitchcock). Any choice to put something in the film is an active choice, and the filmmakers need to own it for better or worse.

 

[niki]

I don’t particularly consider this a good excuse. Going to the bathroom is normal activity everywhere on the planet. Clipping one’s toenails is as well. We don’t show these or thousands of other mundane activities in the background of movies because we actively choose what we do and do not represent. Movies are not a slice of life they are a slice of cake (quoting Hitchcock). Any choice to put something in the film is an active choice, and the filmmakers need to own it for better or worse.

+1

nudity usually means female nudity...putting an actresses in a terrible position of wanting to take a role but not wanting to be nude...or semi-nude...where the only reason the nudity is in there in the first place is for sales or more male viewers..

 

[ahalpert]

+1

nudity usually means female nudity...putting an actresses in a terrible position of wanting to take a role but not wanting to be nude...or semi-nude...where the only reason the nudity is in there in the first place is for sales or more male viewers..

I enjoyed the 1st season of Altered Carbon on Netflix but I left with the impression that the more nudity an actor had to display, the worse their acting was. I inferred that all the good actors turned down those parts and whoever was left got the gig. It's not very nice of me to say, but the actress featured numerous times in the clip below was really dull and unbelievable the whole series. Then I got to the scene where her naked clones die a dozen times and it clicked for me. Interestingly, I couldn't find the scene on youtube in english, although one of the top google hits is where it's hosted on a porn site. It also never made sense to me that their clones couldn't be clothed while in stasis considering how powerful these people are. The scene is really cool in concept but the nudity is totally gratuitous. But as has been mentioned, the sexually arousing aspect of the content dovetails with the tropes of the pulpy scifi genre and general fantasizing (mostly about technology)

 

[JAMedia]

I don’t particularly consider this a good excuse. Going to the bathroom is normal activity everywhere on the planet. Clipping one’s toenails is as well. We don’t show these or thousands of other mundane activities in the background of movies because we actively choose what we do and do not represent. Movies are not a slice of life they are a slice of cake (quoting Hitchcock). Any choice to put something in the film is an active choice, and the filmmakers need to own it for better or worse.

Going to the bathroom (or did you mean using the toilet? ) tends to be a solitary private thing. My example was a public group activity that is a normal public part of life.

 

[OldCorpse]

Displays of nudity whose only purpose is to tittilate and arouse the viewer is the very definition of pornography. After all, pornography, especially early on, used to also have a “plot”, before it all went down to brass tacks and the real purpose - “the pizza delivery guy comes over and is seduced”, “the secretary is seduced by the boss”, “the real estate agent shows a house and”.

So if you’re using nudity in the same way, all that’s different is the proportion of “plot” and use of actors. It’s no accident that the porno industry has their own award shows and functions as a kind of shadow hollywood, with stars and agents and awards ceremonies.

The dividing line here is both cultural and biological. Yes, nudity in various cultures has different significance. Absolutely, the US is more conservative in the respect of showing nudity than f.ex. Scandinavia. And Iran is more conservative yet. In some places in Africa, nobody in a village would take note that “hey, all of us are walking around pretty much naked!” - nudity is a non-issue. Meanwhile in other places unless a woman is covered head to toe in a tent, it’s a scandal of nudity.

But there is something else going on too. And that’s biology. Not every activity is equally subject to cultural influence. Nudity and sex are not the same. Reactions to nudity may be more culturally determined. But we are hardwired in our reactions to sex... and violence! Sex is arresting. Violence is arresting. The way “ordinary daily activities” are not. Just read some anthropology and research on monkeys and the like. Monkeys - and other animals - will stop everything and watch a fight (violence). Even cats become highly agitated and run to see other cats fight. It’s inborn. We watch it, because our lives might depend on it. Monkeys watch violence, because evolution has taught them that violence spills over, so they must watch it. Have you noticed how cars slow down when passing an accident, slowing traffic, even if there is no obstruction - so called “rubbernecking”. We feel compelled to watch.

Same with sex. Monkeys get excited - and even cats do - when they witness other monkeys have sex - because again evolution hardwired into them that it’s an opportunity to procreated, and it might present a chance, odds are higher.

There are these hardwired responses which don’t happen with other “ordinary activities”. Nobody stops to watch someone rub their shoulder. There’s a range of such responses - for example, it’s been shown that there’s a hardwired response to the sound of a baby crying - brain scans have shown that we react to that sound much more strongly than other sounds... and this has been taken advantage of by cats - evolution has led cats to meow at humans to sound almost like babies because it’s effective, and btw. cats NEVER meow at other cats, they have other sounds for that communication.

So we respond to both sex and violence much more viscerally. And that’s what movies take advantage of - they’re like cats in that respect

Therefore when discussing nudity in film we often compare it to violence (since watching violence is also hardwired), but not for example to shoulder rubbing. It’s a lot more complicated.

 

[Razz16mm]

This is not true at all. I was just watching an old re-run of Tales of the Unexpected on a free to air TV channel on a Sunday morning. This one had some scenes by a hotel pool in France. In the background both male and female guests were sunbathing topless. This was not important to the story at all but was just normal. It is what people in that part of the world do in normal life. It might have been a distraction to teenage boys but no one else. In many parts of the world non-sexual nudity is normal and every day it doesn't demean anything unless you have been brought up in a sexually repressed society.

Context in this case would mean nudity is more or less acceptable for the location. A lot of films seem to insist on setting scenes in strip clubs. The "bad guys" apparently like to hang out at those. A lot of that also seems like gratuitous titillation too.

 

[agcohn]

Legally, I believe that there needs to be some justification (literary, artistic, political, scientific, etc) for nudity in content (even in pornography), otherwise it would fail the Miller Test for obscenity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test

In reality though only the most heinous of content (snuff films, child pornography, etc) would ever be labeled as legally obscene these days.

 

[paulears]

What people fail to see is that they are making products for other people, and consistently fail to consider them. My sons hate watching programmes with sex in them or talking about sex in front of me. It’s an age things. So while it doesn’t offend them watching with their friends they find some things uncomfortable. It might be legal, but is it in good taste? Being able to do something doesn’t mean it’s the best thing. On a purely commercial basis, content controls exposure. More people will see it if it is able to be shown. Movies with edge pushing content often get dumped when public taste changes, yet some movies are repeated and rerun world wide for fifty years or more. Your cutting edge product will either get removed or cut. Probably just removed and binned. The first shock movies when video became popular were amazing then for the blood and gore, but they were terrible movies and nobody now puts those on a play list.

 

[JAMedia]

Context in this case would mean nudity is more or less acceptable for the location. A lot of films seem to insist on setting scenes in strip clubs. The "bad guys" apparently like to hang out at those. A lot of that also seems like gratuitous titillation too.

You seem to be confusing nudity and sex again. The example I gave was around an (outdoor) hotel swimming pool. Another example would be a beach by the sea where nudity is normal in many parts of the world.

Another example of normal public nudity (other than the very many nude statues around many cities) is this poster on a museum in Berlin. It is beside a high level mass transit railway. The photographer is standing up against the station.




You have to get past the view that nudity is somehow dirty. It isn't. That is a hang over from repressive puritanical cultures in places like Iran, Iraq, N. Korea etc The only western country that seems to have a problem with it is the USA. The UK did have a problem but in a different direction. See the Confessions series and the Carry On series of films . A lot of implied sex talk. A lot of nudity but no actual sex. It was much loved by all teenage boys. The UK also had Page 3 (topless) girls on well page 3 of a national newspaper. For some reason the UK was very happy with nudity and soft core porn but it took a while to accept , legaly, the hard core that was normal in the rest of Europe.

 

[Mitch Gross]

You seem to be confusing nudity and sex again. The example I gave was around an (outdoor) hotel swimming pool. Another example would be a beach by the sea where nudity is normal in many parts of the world.

Sure, but then the filmmakers are choosing to set a scene at that location. Why is that choice made? That's really the crux of the question.