There are three things that should never be shown in media because it’s completely unnecessary and all three can be directly implied without showing any real detail of them.
These three things are: Sex, vomiting, going to the bathroom.
All three of these can be relayed to the viewer without actually showing them but it seems like they’re shown all the time and it’s infuriating.
I’m sure there’s some real person out there who would argue that a particular shitting scene is necessary because it shows the authors mindset on the constipation of the world in the sense of some kind of moral ambiguity or some bs like that
Most movie sex scenes are terrible. They fail as both pornography and as literary devices.
When you put a sex scene, or any other scene in a movie it has to serve some purpose. It can move the plot along, it can show the characters emotions or it can just be there for titillation. If it’s just there because someone thinks that the main characters are supposed to smash, it’s dumb.
I remember that when we rented “Basic Instinct” you knew how often people re-watched the interrogation scene because the old VHS tapes would get worn at that spot and you could see the screen artifacts.
Two things made that worth watching. The whole movie was about sex so it made sense, both in the movie and for the character. The way to get porn at the time was to walk into a store and buy a magazine. And Sharon Stone was hot, OK 3 reasons.
There absolutely are movies where the sex scenes make sense and are important. David Kronenberg’s “Crash” and Kimberly Peirce’s “Boys Don’t Cry”, would have been weird if they didn’t include the sex scenes or just left them implied.
The sex scene in, “Team America: World Police”, worked because it was a satire of sex scenes in movies.
Pornhub works because their scenes are very explicit.
When you have a boring, unironic, semi-artistic sex scene in a movie that’s not otherwise about sex, it’s just a distraction.
Some, but remember that the only way that get real porn was to go to a store and buy a physical thing. Aside from the convenience there was a stigma to buying porn and it’s illegal for kids to buy. For a horny kid in the 80’s, light on-screen T&A and a Victoria’s Secret Catalog was a pretty good substitute.
When you have a boring, unironic, semi-artistic sex scene in a movie that’s not otherwise about sex, it’s just a distraction.
I don’t disagree. But I do see room to expand the definition.
Recently, I’ve been introducing my partner to The Sopranos for the first time (we’re in s3). I think there are legitimate depictions of sex in the series. They only appear briefly to help illustrate what types of people the characters are. They’re quick and out of the way. Like, oh, that guy’s fucking her, now let’s move on to the dialog that happens after. It’s when we see that these are characters who have sex as opposed to seeing the sex that makes the difference, imo.
I feel that the title of the article is misleading, as the poll in the article shows that Gen Z are turned off by gratuitous sex scenes that are not relevant to the plot, and not Gen Z suddenly turning into evangelical prudes. What they wanted is not the unrealistic, lazy, paint-by-number relationships as commonly depicted to stir controversy to drive engagement(a very cynical approach, I might add), but a full spectrum of different types of relationships good and bad, authentic in their depiction and sincere in their on-screen expression.
Note that the sincerity of expression doesn’t mean that the relationship depicted has to be good, or even genuine. For example, the sex scenes in “The Wolf of Wall Street” (you’re welcome, by the way) are important because they highlight that between Jordan and Naomi, there is nothing between the two besides money and sex, it’s shallow, materialistic, two selfish, toxic people using the other to get what they want, without which they can’t stand each other, in stark contrast with the genuine parental love that Naomi felt for her children, and it is the resolution of said contradiction which contributed to Jordan Belfort’s downfall.
The person you responded to doesn’t understand statistics. As long as your sample is random and unbiased, you don’t need to sample the whole population.
Think of someone cooking. They just taste a little bit of the food to adjust the spices. If they mixed it up evenly, they don’t need to eat the whole thing to get an idea of how it tastes. That is the basis of random sampling.
There’s a weird online phenomena of people with no knowledge of statistics criticizing the sample size of studies they disagree with. Of course that criticism never comes up when it backs up their world view.
I’m just sick of hollywood shoehorning a romance into every story. Not every story needs a romance, and most of the romances in movies are cliche and unnecessary.
Everyone is saying sex scenes aren’t needed. I present my evidence that sex scenes are needed: Office Space
The sex scene shows that Peter is paranoid and deeply uncomfortable with the fact that his girlfriend, Joanna had sex with his boss. A fact that Peter heard as a rumour from a horny co-worker. Lumbergh would never talk about their sex life at work as that would inappropriate as a manager.
The scene also shows how Peter see Lumbergh as a person. It also sets up for the conflict between Peter and Joanna as Peter acts on his nightmare like a child.
Granted the scene is extremely soft core and played for laughs. However, I think the movie would be a little weaker if Peter had gone to to the office the next day and told everyone about the nightmare without showing it. Yes, you could cut out the scene as the party scene sets everything up for the future conflict. The sex scene shows how deeply uncomfortable Peter is with the situation. It’s truly a scene that does “Show, Don’t Tell”.
I think they mean scenes that are in earnest. The one in office space is used to intentionally make us uncomfortable, just as Peter is. So it works great here for us to connect more with the main character. But yeah I basically agree. They can work when used with intent.
strange, I thought it was aimed at them, hence the shitty Netflix billboard that I am impossible to scroll with my kids around and tbh, I feel also this shit as an aggression, like ads.
This is definitely a cultural prudishness emerging. But that’s only part of it. There has also been a shift away from artistic filmmaking and toward high-grossing tentpole movies. Because nudity is a taboo in our society, you need an artistic purpose to the nudity (or sex scene) in the film or it won’t serve any purpose to the film, and people will notice that it’s out of place. If most of the movies you have are cookie-cutter concept movies with little to no artistic expression, you just can’t make anything taboo work in them.
Obviously everyone has different taste in movies, but some films that made on-screen sex work really well are Basic Instinct, Blue Velvet, and Eyes Wide Shut. It also adds a lot to really campy movies. Nightmare on Elm Street comes to mind. Species became a cult classic because of its use of nudity and sex. For just plain nudity, It Follows used it well in the briefest of glimpses of the antagonist. It also added a lot to Ex Machina.
Those are just the movies off the top of my head that were made more impactful by sex and nudity.
Oh! Airplane also has a big laugh thanks to a scene of gratuitous nudity. Let’s not forget the comedies!
Original Sin comes to the forefront of my mind when I think of gratuitous sex scenes in movies, yet the movie still worked, since it was pretty much all about sex.
How does Gen Z feel about nudity in films? Either nudity that fits the scene and feels logical or nudity just for fan service?
I’m cool if your just not a fan of shoe horned in and cringey sex scenes, but lots of younger folks come off as weirdly puritanically prudish to me. Why are we so much more comfortable with casual violence than casual nudity? That bothers me.
I feel like Gen Z are very conservative when it comes to sex and nudity and not just in films. The amount of swerfs and “sex positive” individuals is staggering.
Sex-worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists. They are individuals who are against sex work and workers to the point of sexual confinement. From my experience, most are sex negative, puritanical, and end up supporting policies that increase abuse.
Gen Z in the macro sense is a very prudish generation. It’s weird because they clad themselves in sex-positivity, and are conceptually pro-sexuality, but individually are often quite prudish and reserved.
This is very different from my personal lives experience, and those of most people I know, but again my entire point here is that I don’t really know the current experience of young people.
I wonder to what extent that it could be an observation bias? genZ are very online and very used to having a public persona that’s safe and detached - it’s very true that online most genZ seem almost corporate, they’re less likely to say something wild than the Wendy’s lady.
When I think of the ones I actually interact with personally very few of them are like that, obviously this is likely to be selection bias but in person or private conversation they’re very different to their social media persona.
They’re a very nervous and shy generation because they’ve been so in the spotlight on social media, their parents are generally at least internet aware too so it’s not like the private world it was for us. I wonder if they’re just more used to guarding their statements.
As a Gen Z I wonder the exact same thing, and that violence seemsto be better than nudity bothes me too.
Personally I’m perfectly fine with nudity in media be it fitting or fan service.
If something bothers me about nude scenes or sex scenes for that matter, it isn’t about the nudity or sex in of it self, but more so that extremely shoehornd in romance and sex just because it has to happen if a male and female lead or support, spends any amount of time together.
I really hate that sort of practice and I much more prefer a crime movie with two friends as the main characters. Over the same crime movie but now they have to be in love, because one of them happened to be a woman. Of it’s a good love story or it makes sense I buy it, but more of the time it really doesn’t.
And as this is a very common trope in movies, this dose lead to me choosing movie that doesn’t feature romance or sex at all. Because that is easier than trying to find one that doesn’t just shoehorn the stuff in for the sack of it.
Apparently I’m the only one that likes being titillated by movies. I don’t get the “it adds nothing to the plot” complaint. Tons of movies have action scenes and gratuitous violence that add nothing to the plot, yet i don’t see complaints about that. 90% of John Wick is gratuitous violence that added nothing to the plot, but I still love it.
I think this says more about American prudishness and people’s unhealthy attitudes towards sex than anything.
Bunch of unnecessary death? Cool and fun! An unnecessary titty? Awkward and gratuitous.
Fuck all of you. I want more nudity and sex in my movies and the comparative lack of it compared to the 80s and 90s feels like we’re going out of our way to exclude a huge part of life from art because it makes the prudes out there uncomfortable. But those same people are happy to watch nameless dudes get creatively and graphically killed for half a movie’s run time.
I want more gratuitous sex and less gratuitous moral pandering
I don’t want porn. I want art to stop awkwardly excluding a major part of life.
“Everyone is beautiful and no one is horny.” It’s like movies these days are all set in this weird Twilight Zone world where sexuality just isn’t a thing. I find this far creepier than the gratuitous sex scenes of the 80s.
This is because some people aren’t on the spectrum and ignored. They deserve representation. If you find that weird this is more a problem with you because maybe you have been submerged into sexuality for far too long that anything lacking sex is weird. It’s like being addicted to a food taste and realizing there are other types of food and you think it’s weird that other types of food exist , well then : you’re the weird one.
Porn is super easy to access. There are more hours of porn recorded than there are hours of my life left.
R-rated sex scenes are literally competing with a host of just better options.
Not once has a fake sex scene in a movie not trigger cringe in me. It’s nice to see the actresses’ titties but that is it. Fade to black, imply they fucked and move on. Pornhub literally is a click away.
The fact that you only equate sex and nudity to porn shows the problem. Sex and nudity can be fun, dramatic, scary, or funny depending on the context. It wouldn’t be “competing” with porn.
I can’t suspend my disbelief when media pretends sexuality just doesn’t exist or isn’t relevant.
It’s not 100%, someone else brought up Crank which has a hilarious sex scene that I wouldn’t cut and it’s vital to the plot.
Most sex scenes just have this feel of “the director wanted to see actresses’ naked and had the power of authority and money to make it happen”. It doesn’t feel fun it has an air of exploitation to it, which I’ll admit lots of porn does too, but not all. The best porn is when everyone involved likes it.
I think a sex scene in an otherwise not-pornographic film needs to be second guessed. Does cutting it ruin the plot? Could it just be implied and move on?
I just think they really need to justify it more than normally do.
I just think they really need to justify it more than normally do.
Why? Why can’t they just have it for fun like any other type of gratuitous scene in a movie? I agree it’s not usually done well, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be done.
99% of previous attempts have been, what I would call “weak shit”. It’s up to the writers/director/actors to bring their A game and prove themselves, because so far, I’ve yet to see one i wouldn’t mind being cut out entirely.
Because one of John Wicks main reasons for existing is choreographed violence? And the violence is sort of character building in the way it shows John Wick’s skill as a killer. There is a case to be made here where sex is sort of superfluous, because unlike John Wick, choreographed sex generally does not contribute to story beats unless it’s a porno. And there’s nothing unhealthy about being uncomfortable watching an intimate moment unless your porn addled brain has made you desensitizes to sex.
I’m not saying I want a movie with non-stop sex, that would obviously just be porn. I’m saying the “it doesn’t progress the plot” complaint about sex in movies is bullshit when those same people watch other movies that are full of gratuitous shit that doesn’t move the plot (violence, action, contrived drama).
Movies have been all but stripped of sexuality other than clumsy attempts at pandering to lgbt people. I think some of it is an overcorrection from Weinstein and Me-Too, some of it is just America’s puritan cultural hangups that have always been there, and some of it is the effect of Gen-Z growing up with an abundance of porn and now they can’t associate sex/nudity on a screen as art (or even just fun).
Violence and action do drive plot. They can build character and be narratively cathartic. Sex in movies does not do that because sex is a subjective experience between two people.
violence is not the same as sex. it’s expected to see violence in an action movie. it would be expected to see sex in a porno. i’m not surprised people don’t want sex in their action movies
You’re right, it’s way worse. And it’s disturbing that we’re culturally encouraged to find fun in violence but sex needs to be cordoned off to a containment genre and excised from mainstream art. I’m not saying it needs to be in every action movie - but its been obvious for a while they’re going out of their way to avoid it even in places where it would make sense or be fun.
With all due respect, have you read the article? Attributing this to prudishness misses a lot of what’s actually being said: that shoe-horning in romance or sex for no reason is the problem, as well as lack of attention being given to developing platonic relationships. Exploring non-romantic or sexual relationships better doesn’t necessarily mean cutting out sex and romance, and imo, would likely lead to better sex and romance in TV and movies.
But I agree with you also, that gratuitous sex and nudity can be used to great effect. Another user lemmy.world/comment/4888355 (don’t know how to link comments, hopefully this will work) posted a link to the article “Everyone is beautiful, no-one is horny” above, and this really highlights the problem on this side of things, in my view
After reading the article it looks like they aren’t being prude. They just wanted to see more healthier relationship spectrums. I think that’s a fair call. Not all story points have to be about sex.
Plus representation matters.
There are asexuals. And many other sexuality types in the world. Violence is not making a point on that so I don’t know where you’re going with that.
There is also echoing healthier relationships between men and women. I’ve known far too many people who cry friendzone and watch complete shit like friends and HIMYM and the various sitcoms that echo very dehumanizing, simplistic, unhealthy relationships between men and women where they stubbornly won’t relate to each other and sexuality is used as a tolerance or payoff of each other’s existence.
So whiile we could debate gratuitous violence has an impact, I think bad relationships and how they have been presented as a template has had a different impact they are trying to discuss.
I’m fine with asexuals and representation. But currently it feels like 99% of media is catering to either asexuals or homosexuals.
And I bring up violence to point out the double standard. When it comes to nudity people scrutinize if it’s relevant to the plot - but don’t tend to do that with violence or clunky moral preaching.
oh please you don’t need representation because you don’t want to have sex. that has been a thing for as long as can be and no one has a problem with it. the worst oppression you might face is family members asking you when you will be having a child
when did i say it takes anything away from me? I’m just saying it’s not particularly important every single minor facet of life needs to shoehorn representation for such a minor thing as not wanting to have sex.
A Boomer here, and I’m finding these comments to be very interesting–mostly because I’m realizing I agree in many cases! Far from prudish, just last night I fast-forwarded past the sex scenes in the first episode of a new streamer series. “Yeah, yeah, I get it…you’re hot for each other. Can we move it along, please?”
There it is again. People acting like genZ are the first to say no and protest to things…. This simply isn’t true.
Genz didn’t invent this idea of protesting it . Women against pornography was formed in the 60s. So we know people have been bothered by it for more than one generation and people have tried to act against it.
I don’t think this should be a generation topic. Film makers are by far and large trying to get people to watch their shit using gags and named actors. they use sex and violence in film like capitalists use sugar and salt in food to get people to consume it. It’s a crutch.
I find this so funny, how a lot of “Boomer media” makes such a fuss about discovering that Gen Z ist also just normal people, with some more progressed ideas and ideals but also tired of being overloaded with information and media.
I think part of it now is that they also realize that half of the fads they have been making up about how the youth of the 2000/2010 era with how sex, violence and drugs craving it alledgely was, were just bullshit.
I suspect that is true as well. Most of the really dramatic girls I’ve known have been super into romcoms and reality TV. If not causing the behavior they are at least reinforcing it.
I hate sex scenes in movies. By far the worst sex scene I’ve seen was sthe end of Sausage Party. I felt physically ill from it. I watched the movie with my parents and they thought my disgust was hilarious. Now I rarely watch movies other than superhero movies with them.
I can’t watch many movies from the 80s and 90s because of the cringe sex scenes. My parents think that time was the best time for movies and they’re just wrong lol
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