On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 12:49, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
(Jimmy Wales
<jwales(a)bomis.com>)m>):
BTW, is
it just prudery that I seldom see nudity in american movies,
or are there laws against it? If so, this might become a similar
problem.
America is the porn capital of the world,...
Apparently Jim has never been to Amsterdam. :-)
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.