Sex Doesn't Mean Quality

Movies these days. Sheesh.

Okay, that's out of the way. Now, to the specific. Because I'm not really talking about movies. I'm talking about television.

I watched a program on PBS the other night, as produced by the British, as all "good television" is nowadays. There wasn't a hint of anything untoward: no big explosions, no gore, practically no violence at all. What little there was took place off screen or in some other equally ambiguous manner. Some of it was probably because the British either don't have or choose not to spend money for big special effects like explosions, although you're seeing more of that recently.

It was not a children's show. It was about World War II, and it dealt with some very adult themes. Not a bad word in sight, though. In the United States, it would have been quite different.

But then, halfway through the show, with no warning whatsoever, a woman stripped and presented us with some very concrete reasons why the show could never be seen on network television. Then a few minutes later, wild sex.

I wasn't offended. I'm not prudish. It was less graphic than many things you see. But it seemed to be present in the piece solely as an excuse for the British to show off the fact that their televisual mores are less stringent on the subject of breasts than ours are. On the other hand, there are many things they can't show on TV which US networks cheerfully show in the afternoons on reruns. That's beside the point.

See, I'm not against sex and nudity. I don't think it's a sin. I don't think our moral values will be corrupted by seeing them on screen. I hardly think they are more dangerous than the ever-present violent images to which we expose our children, and my jury's still out on those. So I didn't have a problem with the frank depiction of the human body for those reasons.

I just didn't see the point. Many people, in the independent film industry (an oxymoron if there ever was one) mostly, seem to feel that in order for a film to be "good" it must include graphic sex or violence, usually sex, because blockbuster films have the violence angle pretty much cornered at this point. If your film is about sexual abuse, that's fine. I might argue that there are questions of gratuitousness involved, but if you make an artistic choice to be graphic in order to make a point about sexual abuse, that's a choice I support, even if I don't agree.

But when films, television, and even live theatre seem bent and determined to introduce nudity (almost always women, because that sells) into films which have no need for it, which have shied away from depicting other, more important images, I have to question it. It doesn't improve the movie to have someone get naked just for kicks. Nor does it make the film any more "real," an aim to which many film-makers aspire, little realizing that it's not real, nor will it ever be. I can think of many times when gratuitous sexuality was seemingly dropped into a story to make it more "sexy" or something, I can't really fathom what.

I have also seen movies, television shows, and plays which depicted extremely adult themes, did not shy away from them, but did not feel the need to insert things just to prove their independence. They're usually better. That's all.