But for the
most part, he's right: there are no restrictions on
nudity in movies, but the American market is such that too much
explicit sex will actually hurt the mass-market value of a movie.
French folks don't have a problem taking their kids to nice
family movie that happens to have a bit of nudity in it. American
parents in the heartland will consider a movie with any nudity to
be for adults only, and its market will be hurt.
While technically true, that's grossly misleading. There are few
legal restrictions on nudity in the movies, but there are draconian
quasi-legal industry restrictions.
Instead of "the American market is such that too much explicit sex will
actually hurt the mass-market value of a movie" the more accurate
portrayal is
Any explicit sex will prevent a movie from being shown in any mainstream
theater, with few exceptions.
The MPAA decides the moral code for acceptable movies with an iron fist,
often demanding changes to the movie for it to get a "non-adult" rating.
Any movie they deem to be NC-17 has no financial future in U.S. movie
theaters.
Cunc is the one misrepresenting the facts here: there are /no/
legal restrictions on nudity in movies of any kind, period. Yes, the
MPAA rules with "an iron fist", but it is precisely because that's
the way the American public wants it. He may not like the fact that
most Americans want it that way, but the fact remains that they do.
There have certainly been protests of the MPAA (and I personally
consider Jack Valenti to be the Antichrist, for many reasons), but
those protests have been from a small minority of folks like us, not
from the people as a whole, who still overwhelmingly support them.
You can't blame the failure of adult-only movies on anything but
good old American prudery.
--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee(a)piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC