And
Erections.
I'd say it's a censorship group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgyG8y1vg1M
MPAA: Why Sex Is Worse Than Violence
- Thread starter rayw
- Start date
And
I'd say it's a censorship group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgyG8y1vg1M
Amen. The double standard is frankly embarrassing.
I completely agree with you. How is violence better than sex? What a twisted society we live in.
As for French adverts using feminine form to sell things, that's another matter and does not relate to this at all. It's silly to compare the two since one is using sex to sell something (morally questionable) while the other is using sex to portray a feeling - love, affection (a good thing).
The advert using sex to sell things is morally wrong, I agree, but to go from that to say my open-ness is based on that I find insulting. My open mindedness to sensuality is based on my personal experience in Mediterranean societies where it is much less of a taboo than in the US.
The MPAA is backwards on this as many of you have said. But the question is, CAN we do anything about it?
No. I wouldn't think so.
***
As with so many things, it's about control.
From the article:
So people are more afraid of (usually) simulated sex than they are of simulated violence.
Maybe that's because in real life, in the real world, violence is easier to control than sex is.
So we really need to keep the clamps on sex and expressions of sexuality. Same as it ever was. Er, well, I'm guessing that's as long as at least since the Agricultural Revolution?
And it's about exclusion, as the South Park guys nicely explained.
I guess that just has to do with the movie business being a...well, a business. They want to please their customers --angry parents. And the big guys want to quash the little guys, the start ups.
All pretty normal.
That sucks for independent filmmakers who want to make more challenging or adult oriented films that do not conform to the MPAA's criteria (and really, as explained by the South Park guys, to the criteria established by the Big Guys, their underwriters) and who also and understandably hope to see their independent films become hits that everyone wants to see and consequently (those films) do find their ways onto 3000 big screens.
But I also wonder about the independent films that are "independent" in the sense that their creators don't want them to conform to the establishment. They aren't concerned about, or at least they can live with, their films not getting the MPAA rating that they'd prefer or that would get them the most marketability or the biggest return. What about indie filmmakers who are okay with just getting their films straight to video, or increasingly, straight to VOD and perhaps without an MPAA rating at all?
True, if I was making a film that perhaps cost millions of dollars and that was important for me, and more importantly, for the investors to get a PG13 or less rating, then I'm sure it would be agonzing to get an R, or worse, an NC-17 from the MPAA, especially if they weren't willing to assist in cutting whatever needed to be cut.
I think here on IT independent filmmaking is usually described and more-or-less assumed to refer to filmmaking outside of the studios but that wants to play in the mainstream, make loads of money, and if possible make it onto 3000 big screens. I realize that most of you, or at least it's my impression that most of you are in that camp.
But I wonder about independent filmmakers who are independent in the sense of being avant-garde, arthouse, or simply noncomformists who don't want to be censored by the MPAA (or by whomever) and are okay with not making films for 100 or 200 million dollars, bringing in those kinds of returns, or showing on 3000 big screens. (And let's be honest with ourselves...it surely must be a pitifully small few who will ever get to make films in that arena, anyway.) Maybe they're okay with making their "naughty" films that they actually want to make and maybe they're okay with those films just going straight to video. Maybe they're okay with not working in that rarefied arena of outlandish costs and outlandish returns, and screw the MPAA. Maybe in the new world of video delivery which seems to be taking shape, well, maybe that won't be such a bad place to be. Who knows.
My point is, maybe, if I have one, in the age of the Digital Revolution, with streaming on-demand video and all the rest etc etc, and with most filmmakers squeezed out of the 3000 screens world, anyway, how relevant will the MPAA be in the coming decade and decades? The less, the better, I say. Not that, as has been expressed above, it's not a good thing for some entity to tell us what content to expect from a given film so that parents (and others) can make informed decisions. That's a good thing. But because the MPAA, and any entity like it, does, effectively, censor and control what movies can and do get made and seen.
Just makes trying to sell to and produce films for premium TV like HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc more attractive, if you ask me (I know no one has), if you want a more reasonable amount of freedom of expression for your filmmaking.
It's part-way there already, sadly. Your ISPs control what you can and can't see unless you learn how to get around them (proxies etc).
The question is not whether one is worse than the other as much as it is how it is used within the medium. Sex or violence, just for the sake of either, does not really do much for a film other than shocking the hypersensitive into publicizing the film/event.
Violence has always been easier to witness than sex in the United States. We were bred on burning witches at the stake, hanging the accused/oppressed/unworthy, lynching the "wicked," hunting the furry and feathered.
We have always found ways to condone our destructive ways.
We have not, however, gotten away from our puritan views of sexuality. Sex has been something you do in the dark, but never display in the open since the first settlers decided that living here was better than vacationing. Before that actually, because many of our beliefs go back to the Old Testament, a series of books that talked much about the fighting of Holy Wars and the punishing of the sexually inappropriate.
Does it really surprise anyone that the people in authority would still view violence as more appealing than sex? Even in the age of "Coward with an automatic weapon" we fight for our guns and the right to use them as we see fit.
Okay, I got a bit off point, but the bottom line is that we are more tolerant, as a nation, of Rambo with his amazingly large knife than we are of a Sexually Aggressive woman having her way with men and women a like, or worse a sexually aggressive bisexual MAN.
Instead of getting caught up on which is worse, we should be asking if the inclusion of either positively affects the story.
Let's be real, when is it ever important to show an extreme sex scene in a movie?
Unless it is to show the motivations or actions of a character, where is is 100% explicitly vital for us to see her going full monty, it is just sex for the sake of sex.
The same can be said for violence. Unless you are showing something vital to the story, why, besides shock value, are you putting in the extreme gore?
Violence has always been easier to witness than sex in the United States. We were bred on burning witches at the stake, hanging the accused/oppressed/unworthy, lynching the "wicked," hunting the furry and feathered.
We have always found ways to condone our destructive ways.
We have not, however, gotten away from our puritan views of sexuality. Sex has been something you do in the dark, but never display in the open since the first settlers decided that living here was better than vacationing. Before that actually, because many of our beliefs go back to the Old Testament, a series of books that talked much about the fighting of Holy Wars and the punishing of the sexually inappropriate.
Does it really surprise anyone that the people in authority would still view violence as more appealing than sex? Even in the age of "Coward with an automatic weapon" we fight for our guns and the right to use them as we see fit.
Okay, I got a bit off point, but the bottom line is that we are more tolerant, as a nation, of Rambo with his amazingly large knife than we are of a Sexually Aggressive woman having her way with men and women a like, or worse a sexually aggressive bisexual MAN.
Instead of getting caught up on which is worse, we should be asking if the inclusion of either positively affects the story.
Let's be real, when is it ever important to show an extreme sex scene in a movie?
Unless it is to show the motivations or actions of a character, where is is 100% explicitly vital for us to see her going full monty, it is just sex for the sake of sex.
The same can be said for violence. Unless you are showing something vital to the story, why, besides shock value, are you putting in the extreme gore?
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I disagree with this, respectfully. Most people engage in fornication all the time. Few of us have say, committed murder by comparison, yet murder is treated much more slight in the movies. Plus American is not an eye for an eye society at all.
For example, I know people who have found out that their spouses cheated on them, then they got jealous and cheated back out of revenge. But no one wants to get revenge for murder. When O.J. got away with murder for example, no attempts were made on his life at all by American society. America's attitude was 'well I guess the justice system has spoken and that's that, I'm going to go out and get laid tonight'.
For example, I know people who have found out that their spouses cheated on them, then they got jealous and cheated back out of revenge. But no one wants to get revenge for murder. When O.J. got away with murder for example, no attempts were made on his life at all by American society. America's attitude was 'well I guess the justice system has spoken and that's that, I'm going to go out and get laid tonight'.
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This is exactly why we view sex as more taboo. We are not all going out on murder sprees. When it happens in reality it is so horrific it sends chills down our spines and makes us call for action. After a while, though, that feeling dissipates. A new movie comes out. A celebrity dies. Some one has a baby. We forget the outrage. We move on to something else, well, until the next tragedy.
Sex, however is real. Our children can and will engage in it. STDs are real. Pregnancies are real. Adultery and Fornication are real.
These things are real because they happen to people we know, people we see, and people we love.
Unless we are directly affected by violence, we don't often think about it as reality. Which is why we are more tolerant of it in our entertainment. Sure people get killed. Sure, there are rapes, assaults, etc. But in truth, most of us are rarely affected by the extreme violence we see in movies. Heck, most of the people I have met in my travels have never been in a fist fight.
They don't truly know violence, and honestly, even when they are the perpetrators of it, it never really registers with them. It can't. They have no point of reference.
Now, they do know a li'l bit about adult relations. And that, my friend, is why it is so scary.
Sex, however is real. Our children can and will engage in it. STDs are real. Pregnancies are real. Adultery and Fornication are real.
These things are real because they happen to people we know, people we see, and people we love.
Unless we are directly affected by violence, we don't often think about it as reality. Which is why we are more tolerant of it in our entertainment. Sure people get killed. Sure, there are rapes, assaults, etc. But in truth, most of us are rarely affected by the extreme violence we see in movies. Heck, most of the people I have met in my travels have never been in a fist fight.
They don't truly know violence, and honestly, even when they are the perpetrators of it, it never really registers with them. It can't. They have no point of reference.
Now, they do know a li'l bit about adult relations. And that, my friend, is why it is so scary.
Yeah that's true, you have a point. The MPAA is weird though. In the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated, they talked about how if movies have missionary style sex, their is a good chance it will get an R rating, but if the sex is doggy style, it has a greater chance of getting an NC-17. It's still intercourse and I don't see how one is more inappropriate than the other. Things like that are why Americans views on sex, or at least the MPAA's, is just weird and possibly hypocritical to me.
The whole double standard is bizarre to me.
As a parent I hope, in real life, my ADULT children exprience more sex than violence.
I'd like for Americans to stop being such a bunch of super freaks over celebrity nipples and side-boobs.
And I really wish films had more "I love you" sex between rational people in ongoing relationships - INSTEAD OF - "We're f#cking each other!" sex between dysfunctional people that really aren't intrested in mutual satisfaction on any scale.
Can we not be naked and nice to each other?
Is that just such a repulsive, horrid thing to see?
Apparantly.
It's 100% okay to watch Frodo and company slash and cut orcs and uruk-hai by the gross, but heaven forbid should we see Aragorn stuffin' the elf.
Missionary style, of course.
Elf on top if we're lucky. No, wait. I saw 'The Ledge'. We ain't missing much.
Butt... I did see Aragorn's junk floppin' around in 'Eastern Promises'. No glory.
I remember when 'Robocop' came out and I thought Paul Verhoven was a gore freak.
I've since been quite desensitized, butt still choose to not watch 'Hostel', the 'Saw' franchise, or 'A Serbian Film'.
'The Raid: Redemption' is about as much violence as I can watch and still be entertained.
How many ACTION films are there where there's not violence?
Does perilous, mortal threat short of actual violence count?
Can a character be beaten to death, shot, or murderd/severely injured/tortured off screen and that NOT count as violence?
How much bloodless "implication of violence" can I shovel?
Can I portray violent consensual sex just off screen without an MPAA NC-17?
It's a big world out there.
I'd like to make a film with robots, not even androids, engaged in violent replication.
I wonder how that would go over.
Visions of Optimus Prime violently shoving a cam shaft repeatedly through Bumblebee's posterior.
Nuts, bolts, and sparks flying.
Optimus Prime and Bumblebee eja... "emit" the All-spark audio transmission together.
Beneath them Nokia phones and RC cars stream onto the ground beeping and whirring.
OP & B return to their vehicle forms, and smoke tires down the road together, offspring en tow.
BTW...
I belong to a twelve step program: F#ckers Anonymous.
We don't get much done at the meetings, although everyone keeps coming and coming.
It all starts off fine, butt before you know it one thing leads to another and we've got couples hooking up, threesomes, outright orgies,
Before you know it it's become a laughing human katamari game.
And I don't know what Frank's doing over there at the donuts and coffee table.
I don't think that's what people generally mean when they ask for cream in their coffee. Cough, cough, ackk!
"Stop that, Frank! The Fetishists Anonymous meeting is across the hall!
Get with the program, you freak!"
Next Edit:
How about instead of 'X-Men: First Class' declaration of "Mutant, and proud." we have a feature film about socially functional furries declaring "Furry, and proud."
As a parent I hope, in real life, my ADULT children exprience more sex than violence.
I'd like for Americans to stop being such a bunch of super freaks over celebrity nipples and side-boobs.
And I really wish films had more "I love you" sex between rational people in ongoing relationships - INSTEAD OF - "We're f#cking each other!" sex between dysfunctional people that really aren't intrested in mutual satisfaction on any scale.
Can we not be naked and nice to each other?
Is that just such a repulsive, horrid thing to see?
Apparantly.
It's 100% okay to watch Frodo and company slash and cut orcs and uruk-hai by the gross, but heaven forbid should we see Aragorn stuffin' the elf.
Missionary style, of course.
Elf on top if we're lucky. No, wait. I saw 'The Ledge'. We ain't missing much.
Butt... I did see Aragorn's junk floppin' around in 'Eastern Promises'. No glory.
I remember when 'Robocop' came out and I thought Paul Verhoven was a gore freak.
I've since been quite desensitized, butt still choose to not watch 'Hostel', the 'Saw' franchise, or 'A Serbian Film'.
'The Raid: Redemption' is about as much violence as I can watch and still be entertained.
How many ACTION films are there where there's not violence?
Does perilous, mortal threat short of actual violence count?
Can a character be beaten to death, shot, or murderd/severely injured/tortured off screen and that NOT count as violence?
How much bloodless "implication of violence" can I shovel?
Can I portray violent consensual sex just off screen without an MPAA NC-17?It's a big world out there.
I'd like to make a film with robots, not even androids, engaged in violent replication.
I wonder how that would go over.
Visions of Optimus Prime violently shoving a cam shaft repeatedly through Bumblebee's posterior.
Nuts, bolts, and sparks flying.
Optimus Prime and Bumblebee eja... "emit" the All-spark audio transmission together.
Beneath them Nokia phones and RC cars stream onto the ground beeping and whirring.
OP & B return to their vehicle forms, and smoke tires down the road together, offspring en tow.
BTW...
I fornicate all the time.
I belong to a twelve step program: F#ckers Anonymous.
We don't get much done at the meetings, although everyone keeps coming and coming.
It all starts off fine, butt before you know it one thing leads to another and we've got couples hooking up, threesomes, outright orgies,
Before you know it it's become a laughing human katamari game.
And I don't know what Frank's doing over there at the donuts and coffee table.
I don't think that's what people generally mean when they ask for cream in their coffee. Cough, cough, ackk!
"Stop that, Frank! The Fetishists Anonymous meeting is across the hall!
Get with the program, you freak!"
Next Edit:
How about instead of 'X-Men: First Class' declaration of "Mutant, and proud." we have a feature film about socially functional furries declaring "Furry, and proud."
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Prescient.
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/sundance-heats-slew-sex-themed-films-192814861.html
" "When I got in the film business in the early '60s, it was a romantic time. Sex and romance were pretty well tied together; sexuality was pretty well expressed through romance. Times have changed, so now, 40, 50 years later, we see that sexual relations have moved to a place where it doesn't feel like there's so much romance involved. The romance is not part of the equation, because relations have changed, and they've changed because of changing times, and because of new technology. People are texting rather than dating and all that kind of stuff. So what we do, we just show what's there." — Sundance founder Robert Redford."
Rubber stamp me "OLD."
http://filmmakermagazine.com/63019-sundance-trailer-watch-kink/
It's a big world out there.
http://www.details.com/blogs/daily-...g-with-james-franco-the-science-of-submi.html
To the best of my casual internet searching abilities 'Kink' has not received any distribution deals.
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Ray, are you having a conversation with yourself? I'm tempted to just get out of the way to see what happens. 
I can't help but point out that this subject is was addressed, rather poignantly, by South Park, a long time ago.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e01-good-times-with-weapons
I can't help but point out that this subject is was addressed, rather poignantly, by South Park, a long time ago.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e01-good-times-with-weapons
Film ratings are marketing tools! Nothing more! Films are made to a rating that will best realize their potential market value. Its not uncommon to add some T&A shots to push from pg-13 to R becuase that is a better demographic for a particular genre. Consider slasher genre for example. A slasher with a pg-13 rating would not be considered "cool" to real fans of the genre, even if those fans are kids, they will flock to it and find "ways" to see it ESPECIALLY if it has an R rating!
Abiding by ratings are voluntary for consumers. MPAA is not a GOVERNMENT body, it has no force of law! Its inception was to AVOID law.. 'instituted initiatives to forestall government interference " The "Hays Code" was never law.
Its ignorance that blames current "conservative or religious folks" .. they are frankly a tiny portion of the market!
What is to blame here is the early monopolization of film business and the early complete vertical integration form film production to theater seats. Block purchasing etc. This concentrated creative decision making power into very few hands. Though the biz has gone through a few major changes, we are still basically in the same place.
Since the destruction of United Artists as a result of the worst flop in history "Heavens Gate" media conglomerates have been trying to "diffuse the bomb" a $200 million loss like what destroyed UA before conglomeration is not that big of deal to GE, more like a rounding error! So there might be worse clunkers than "Heavens Gate" they don't destroy entire corporations ala UA. So again, there is pressure to assure maximum return on investment for as little risk as possible at the corporate level. A good way to reduce risk in the aggregate is to offend as few people as possible, hence the artful use of MPAA ratings to certify to the public the potential for an individual to be offend.
Abiding by ratings are voluntary for consumers. MPAA is not a GOVERNMENT body, it has no force of law! Its inception was to AVOID law.. 'instituted initiatives to forestall government interference " The "Hays Code" was never law.
Its ignorance that blames current "conservative or religious folks" .. they are frankly a tiny portion of the market!
What is to blame here is the early monopolization of film business and the early complete vertical integration form film production to theater seats. Block purchasing etc. This concentrated creative decision making power into very few hands. Though the biz has gone through a few major changes, we are still basically in the same place.
Since the destruction of United Artists as a result of the worst flop in history "Heavens Gate" media conglomerates have been trying to "diffuse the bomb" a $200 million loss like what destroyed UA before conglomeration is not that big of deal to GE, more like a rounding error! So there might be worse clunkers than "Heavens Gate" they don't destroy entire corporations ala UA. So again, there is pressure to assure maximum return on investment for as little risk as possible at the corporate level. A good way to reduce risk in the aggregate is to offend as few people as possible, hence the artful use of MPAA ratings to certify to the public the potential for an individual to be offend.