The law of unintended consequence has undone another law once thought immutable. Sex sells.
Sex doesn’t sell anymore, at least when it comes to mainstream movies.
According to Vincent Bruzzese of Ipsos, a market research company, sex has been all but eradicated from Hollywood scripts over the past 18 months. “Sex scenes used to be written, no matter the plot, to spice up a film trailer,” he said in an interview at the weekend. “But all that does today is get the film an adult-only rating and lose a younger audience.”
These days, he maintains, people are so uninterested in sex that on-screen couplings are now written out by Hollywood producers before they’re even shot. “They ask, ‘Do we really even need the sex?’ ‘Can we fill the space with dazzling special effects instead and keep the family-friendly rating?’ ” They can and they do. They’ll blow up whole Chinese provinces, the White House and MI6’s HQ, and create humanoid species with which to populate the moon, but they won’t show a couple getting it on.
In a weird way, I think the pervasiveness of porn these days is cleaning up mainstream movies.
Who is going to buy a ticket for a movie with a boring R-rated sex scene when XXX debauchery is available for free and just a click away?
Steamy sex scenes helped sell a movie when screen sex was still taboo and more inaccessible. In a world of porn-on-demand, r-rated sex seems like pale imitation.
So market forces leading movie-makers to the conclusion that sex doesn’t help and can only hurt the accessibility of the films. So why do it?
It is my sincere hope that film-makers, without the crutch of the sex-scene, will actually try to make better films that appeal to more nobler aspects of the human experience and not just their libidos. If they do, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.
March 28, 2013 at 5:45 pm
It seems like a boon at first, but the problem is that there is a corresponding sexualization of everything. From casual sexual innuendo to steady – if lowered – sexual tension, movies are much worse because the normalization of pornography has made those offenses seem light. As a result, we get a constant stream of garbage.
That porn's availability makes the mainstream cleaner is an illusion. It's actually much worse.
March 28, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Father,
I wasn't suggesting that we are in a better situation overall. Rather, that this affords us an opportunity to show that good can sell too.
Gotta start somewhere.
March 28, 2013 at 6:06 pm
Many people have become desensitised to sexual immorality in its many manifestations.
March 28, 2013 at 7:44 pm
I wouldn't count on them making better movies. For a place seemingly built on imagination, the folks there are seriously lacking.
March 28, 2013 at 8:07 pm
Unfortunately, sex is still selling on TV. There are several TV shows (especially premium cable channel shows) that have looked intriguing to me but I've been unable to check out because of all the sex.
March 28, 2013 at 8:07 pm
It still doesn't help the crap holly weird belches out. It is such garbage that what passes for children or family friendly programming makes most adults jaws drop. Nope. Still sticking to tv avoidance.
March 29, 2013 at 12:27 am
I just recently saw a trailer for a ting CNN was doing for the upcoming season of Game of Thrones, which talks about the language that is used by the certain groups in the show. They didn't touch on that the show is littered with basic porn scenes, and that the actresses that re in them are basically porn people in the UK. BTW you can actually even get porn fro free on twitter, and facebook, no I am serious all you need to to know is what your looking for, and things like web filters can't really block it out because it's in a link on a twitter post. You have to block the site itself and just not unblock it.