I'm all for it.
There was a time, maybe the early nineties, when it seemed like in every film, every thriller, anyway, they were popular then, there had to be what felt like the obligatory love scene. That got pretty tiresome and groan worthy (and not so much the good kind of groan). But that was mainly because they weren't done very well, and yes, often they weren't necessary to the story. But that would have been fine if they had put adequate effort into making them
good love scenes.
2 quick examples I can think of are.... its seemingly ok for censorship committees to pass a film such a Rambo where 50,000 people are killed in 1 film or pass Hostel where people are literally getting butchered and tortured limb from limb but films like Antichrist with a penetrative sex scene cause uproar.
So why is our culture, as well as the cultures of any number of others, so sex-negative?
I'd say that much or most of it has everything to do with control, as Neo might say. =D
Furthermore, is it at all at least possible to have multiple sex partners of assorted genders in a stable, healthy, non-standard relationship?
Possible.
Umm... Yeah.
I was watching "Martha Marcy May Marlene" the other day and wondered what if there was a commune where the sex wasn't abusive and weird? H3ll, what if the human contact of sex actually allowed the members to better tollerate their living conditions? Oh. But that's gotta be impossible, or something. We can have 10ft blue cat-people flying on dragons and riding on six-legged horses all connected by four foot penis-minds but we can't have a dozen people doinking each other without dysfunction.
Sure.
Fine.
Whatever.
Well put!
And what on Earth are we teaching children about the human experience when their daily cartoon diet is replete with animated violence but not so much as a single exchange of "I love you" between any characters across the entire spectrum of children's entertainment?
And on the bright side, Ray, don't forget Barney.
I think part of the problem lies within the definition of (and society's attitude to) pornography and the purpose of having sex in film. The shot in Antichrist, allbeit about 5 seconds long, serves no purpose to the story... it serves no purpose other than to be controversial for controversy's sake. For explict sex to become accepted in mainstream cinema, it would need to become more commonplace. But then, the line between narrative film and porn would become increasingly blurred. I for one wouldn't want it to... I don't want to be sat in the theatre surrounded by men with boners!
Whether it's a form of sex-negativism spawned by religion or social-control-motivations and culture wars or some species of puritanism, or whether it's its own kind of disdain arising from a sort of asexual utilitarianism(?) (thinking of Google definition number 1.
The doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority), it does seem to be widely believed, or propositioned, and typically in a hostile and an interrogative manner, that sex in art (considering, here, that film
is art, among other things), for example, five seconds of a penetration shot like that in
Antichrist, is unnecessary and therefore wrong.
My point is that if that attitude is as pervasive as it, anecdotally, appears to be, then filmmakers who want to include love scenes/sex in their films, are up against that hostility as well --whether that hostility is really just a bias imparted by religious tradition or a desire to maintain social and cultural control, or whether it's actually something else, such as some species of aesthetic judgement.
It does appear that there are many who must draw a line between art and pornography. Pornography, or even pornographic elements, cannot be art.
In their minds.
And of course, art cannot be pornographic. If something is pornographic, then it cannot be legitimate, it cannot be right, and it certainly cannot be art.
Therefore, it is not valid.
Put another way, if the
measure is usefullness/necessariness (to telling a story), and if pornography's purpose is to arouse the audience sexually, and if a scene in a film is pornograhic, and if sexual arousal is not a valid or a legitimate use, or purpose, then your typical love scene is wrong.
In their minds.
Put yet another way, trying to get this more succinct:
The typical sex scene in a movie is not strictly necessary to telling the story. Therefore, the typical sex scene is not
useful. Therefore, the typical sex scene is unnecessary, and consequently it's wrong to include them.
Add to that the usual sex-negativism:
The typical sex scene's only purpose is to sexually arouse. Therefore, the typical sex scene is pornographic. Pornography is wrong. Therefore, the typical sex scene is wrong because it's pornography.
That seems to be the reasoning, anyway.
Good luck fighting that. It seems to be well ingrained.
I would point out that if we were to take out every love scene that wasn't necessary to tell the story, then there would be precious few love scenes left standing, if any. I would also argue that if filmmakers had to abstain from including everything and anything that was strictly unnecessary to telling the story, then we'd have very little left over to watch, at all. That would be something, huh? Imagine if
every element had to withstand a
be necessary or be cut criteria? How much would be left? But of course, sex is singled out by some because sex is "wrong," anyway, so why include it?
You
shouldn't include it, because when is a sex scene
ever necessary?
Or, maybe some people just have a not-unusual-repulsion for being surrounded by men with...you know, and maybe that has nothing to do with the above. =D
Whatever.
Dunno if you've seen the doc
Inside Deep Throat (
trailer), but that was the vision of the filmmakers... apparently.
?
That's a great documentary.
What's your thoughts on Chloe Sevigny and the Brown Bunny film?
Thumbs up!
By the way, is that what they call mumblecore?
