So you make a movie that is like The Purge, but with sex instead of murder and then you cut out all the sex because “it takes you out of the movie”??
How did the younger generations end up being such prudes?
Probably because they spent their formative years gooning to porn in their bedroom, and now associate any and all depictions of nudity/sex with porn.
And now that we’re in the post-#MeToo era, a lot of people are (rightfully) concerned about the actors’ consent to filming these scenes, but now I think people are overcorrecting.
Speaking of formative years, kids aren’t required to change in front of each other for PE starting in middle school, like they used to be. I think that’s part of it. They never face that embarrassment and get past it. Plus they don’t gather in crowds of strangers, they stick to their friend groups, too often online only, so there’s not the opportunity or the gentle pressure to take a shot and ask someone out. Also, from what I’ve read, people are bailing on plans they do make at the last minute.
Add to that the stigma against sexualizing others--if you’re not allowed to look at another person with the idea and intent of getting them to have sex with you, and you can’t talk sexually about other people to your friends, the plane never even leaves the hanger. I know this one would rile feathers, but there needs to be some leeway here.
To add to all this, conservative Christian values have seen a resurgence in right wing spaces (tradwife culture, in particular). Young people are very vulnerable to this type of messaging.
Nothing prudish about it. IMO very few directors can film a sex scene in a way that genuinely contributes to the movie. Most such scenes are just an indulgence, and those of us who don’t have a horny mind usually go “yeah, they fucked” and skip ahead.
His name made this title impossible to read. I spent too long trying to figure out what gluck cutting meant.
Didn’t understand the title until this comment. Thanks
Is it a garden path sentence or a crash blossom?
What’s wrong with gluck? It’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Seriously, it’s like nobody even tries to embiggen their vocabulary anymore
If only we had some way to write proper nouns in a way that clearly distinguishes them from other words.
I think everyone in this thread is high. And I’m right there with you.
I came to the comments hoping someone else had mentioned this.
Wait, it isn’t slang?
Well glucking is a sound some people make when giving real nasty sloppy toppy so I thought it may have had something to do with that but variety is normally not that crass.
“People are upset with all the nudity in this BJ porno!” now that’d be a story. ha
Finally found what I want carved on my tombstone.
He’s not wrong. You can depict sex in a movie without it being explicit.
Yes there are stories where sex is the point and explicitness makes sense but for most stories it doesn’t, a kiss, a back shot of a removed top and a fade to black is all we need. They boned. Fabulous. Let’s get on with the plot.
Agreed, I can’t stand sex scenes in movies. It’s not a morality thing, I just find them annoying and boring.
Fuck the plot. The plot is just a framework to hang the parts of the movie I actually care about on. Give me texture. Give me emotion. If there’s a big moment between two characters, let’s sit with it a minute. Make me feel something.
Not saying every movie needs a sex scene, but they shouldn’t need to be excused or justified. The idea that adult viewers are getting squeamish about this is disturbing to me.
I feel like you had your way for a while. Seemingly every movie targeted at vaguely adult audiences needed to have a sex scene in it. For some it was fitting (Anora is the last one that comes to mind), but for the vast majority it just felt so forced. You could almost see that everyone involved in making the movie, from actors to camera operators to the director, didn’t really want a sex scene and just had to add it because it would boost movie ticket sales (or more likely blu-ray sales, hopefully people wouldn’t be wackin’ it in the theaters). Some of those scenes were so out-of-tune and out-of-pallet from the rest of the movie, it completely shattered the suspension of disbelief, reminding me that it is really just a bunch of scenes spliced together rather than a believable story or a self-contained experience.
In this case, since it’s literally a movie about fucking, a few explicit sex scenes are in order. But overall I think it’s good, at least for the art of moviemaking, that the pendulum is swinging the other way.
That’s a reasonable position. The movie industry has definitely been weird about sex in a lot of ways, especially with regard to the women in front of the camera.
But I’m really not advocating that we need some particular quota of sex scenes in our media, I’m more disturbed by the reason that number is decreasing. It’s not because the creatives making these movies are pushing for it. In this case the director was forced to cut out his sex scenes because the test audiences immediately started squirming in their seats like a bunch of school kids. To me that seems like an extremely unhealthy relationship with sex. And that’s in line with a general trend I’m sensing of the world getting increasingly prudish and puritanical.
Doesn’t help that the other two responses I got here are acting like I should be self flagellating for enjoying Pillion last week.
If you want to watch porn, you know where to find it. There’s no reason why people who sit down to watch a movie should be surprised to find out one of its scenes is literally porn.
If you need to use nudity to make your audience feel something, then you’re a shit director and need to quit your job and transfer to the porn industry.
And if you require nudity in order to feel emotion then you’re probably a porn addict and should get therapy.
Sure they do. Seeing 2 people nude up and simulate motion isn’t texture, it’s carnal gratification no different than porn. You can dress it up as art or meaning or whatever that makes you ignore the fact that you want to see sex.
You know how I know I’m right? Where are the sex scenes with ugly and fat people in them?
It absolutely can be texture. Have you seen a History of Violence? The film has two sex scenes, and they’re crucial to the tone of the film, the characterization of the protagonist, and the narrative tension of a marriage in crisis. Would the film work without those scenes? Maybe, but it’s a much tougher sell to understand Viggo Mortensen’s character and emotional journey without them.
As for fat and ugly people not having sex scenes, that’s a selection bias. Most celebrities are not fat or ugly. The few celebrities that are may also be self conscious and unwilling to do such scenes. But they definitely happen. Off the top of my head, Kathy Bates and Woody Harrelson have both done sex scenes despite not being conventionally attractive.
There are plenty of things that are just in movies for the spectacle and excitement. Explosions, car chases. Surely we shouldn’t ban all of them.
Like, I get where people who don’t want to see sex scenes are coming from, but this is a movie literally about sex. There are plenty of Disney movies you can watch, let me have some sexiness here!
Felt cute, Will Gluck later.
-Hawk Tuah
Nudity is fine, but sex is boring. I’d prefer the actual simulated sex act be left out, I skip past them anyway if it’s more than a few seconds.
Nudity works well in comedies.
Kinda makes you wonder what the whole point of the movie was, then.
That’s like if the John Wick movies cut out all the violence and shooting.
So the dog is still alive? Gotta update its doesthedogdie.com entry.
For me I think it’s just consistency. They should match the main cast’s intent. If there’s a lot of nudity, but not the main cast, it takes me out because it’s clear they were not paid enough ir not on board. I even watched a cartoon that had nudity in it, but the main cast was not nude, and that’s a cartoon. Or when halfway through a show the nudity disappears and then it’s very apparent the actors feel big enough to not do it anymore.
I believe it’s been a societal shift from taking nudity in adult situations and putting them on your phones at home for everybody. Now it’s more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.
People are not having enough sex. That’s why they are conflating sex in a movie with watching pornography and feeling embarrassed or shameful about it when other people are around (e.g. in a cinema). They have become conditioned by too much wanking in solitude and are in desperate need of real sex in the real world to dispel their misconceptions and hang-ups.
How are we gonna get a worldwide audience to have more sex though?
The single biggest problem is that people spend too much time online now, particularly from a young age. Not only does this prevent them from meeting in-person and experiencing physical chemistry with others, but it also develops all these bizarre social behaviours and norms that make people anxious and cautious when they meet offline. It’s no surprise that people, especially younger people, are not having sex when you look at how they behave online. They are so passive aggressive and hostile by default - they don’t trust anyone because the constant fighting being pushed to them through algorithmic social media has conditioned them to think every other person is a dickhead or is going to betray them somehow. You need to be willing to get close to people and be vulnerable with them to have sex, and they aren’t.
The nudity isn’t the problem. It’s the long protracted fakest looking sex scenes.
As we started to show it to audiences, we felt it takes you out of the movie. You’re engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex, and you watch the audience … it’s a physical thing. They turn to who they’re with and … the benefits do not nearly outweigh the negatives of it. So we just kept editing it out until we got a balance, and those comments went away.
So the test audiences enjoyed the movie about sex, but only if you couldn’t see the sex. Sounds like terrible test audiences.
Perfect test audience for Skinemax style softcore porn. It’s porn, but without the good parts.
I’m looking forward to the not directors cut.
Gooners cut
Cinemas should run a drink and tissue box combo for it.
I worked at a 18+ cinema (served alcohol. Not that kind.) and 50 shades of gray came out (I’m dating myself hard here…)
Anyways we had this giant group of 40-60 year old women who came in and started having vibrator duels like they were lightsabers. Weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen and they almost got tresspassed for it.
Puritans should just stop making movies
and stop being in test audiences for movies literally about sex.
Put it back.
I noticed I do tend to skip all sex scenes…
he hates fun
