PHILLIPS TRANSFER & YALE CENSORSHIP

[c_77]

America will probably never overcome it's puritanical roots regarding sex. There was that picture floating around recently of Catherine Zeta Jones walking around topless, pregnant, and smoking a cigarette in front of her toddler son. Aside from the unhealthy sight of a pregnant woman dangling a smoke from her mouth, people gasped at her showing her breasts in front of her son like that. But many people, including mothers, walk around topless in Europe. (I won't further comment on my real feelings towards Zeta Jones.)

According to E-Weekly, R-rated films have been made less this past decade simply because a large part of their key audience would have been missing. This is why PG-13 was invented, not really having to do with censorship but profits.

Many famous women over the years have exposed themselves in major motion pictures to their own benefit. However, a lot of women who have shown-off nude in pictures haven't gone anywhere too! It works both ways. Look how many middle-of-the-road male actors take off their shirts and show up in People magazine, etc.

The interesting thing about the porn industry then and now is that in the 1970's it was largely run by the mafia, now it's mostly owned by major US corporations. Diane Sawyer did an expose' on this recently. Oh yeah, there seems to be a lot more attention given to 18 year-old women in these films nowadays...lock-up your daughters!

[lightfeat]

Well, women are accountable for their actions by law, but it is very unusual for women to commit violent sexual crimes such as rape. Women are much more vulnerable to this kind of abuse than men, and although I'm not suggesting that women are a blameless, pure lot, I am saying that sexual abuse and coersion is evil and should be illegal, as it is just about everywhere in the world - that is one moral the whole world shares.

Although I agree with you Matt, that our morals and values may differ, i don't think that this is a reason not to draw a line in the sand - this is precisely what the law of every country must adjudicate, and do so in a very considered way. That is their function. You may think America is puritanical, but there's a lot of sex and vilolence in the American culture I have been very exposed to all my life.

If I were a film transfer service, I think I might well have a problem with transferring porn, as I personally think that it is demeaning to both men and women - it reduces all of our humanities to that of animals - I find it compelling on an animal level, but sickenning as a human (yes I'm schitzo too [img]wink.gif[/img] ). Nudity I would be fine with, however. That's just my personal values. I wouldn't refuse to transfer a feature film because it contained sex though. When you transfer a film, you never know what the overall message of the film will be, so I guess that's quite tough. I guess in reality, I would transfer anything legal.

Ironically, my Linda Lovelace post was relevant to Super8, because that is the format many of the early films that saw her shoot to fame were on. They weren't transferred at all, but distributed as Super8 prints. Perhaps they couldn't get a transfer? [img]wink.gif[/img]

Anyway, love and peace to all,
Lucas

[chas_ucla]

About ten years ago I worked in mail-order for Vivid Video, then and now one of the biggest, if not the biggest adult producers of porn in the U.S. I met all the female stars at the time -- Hyapatia Lee, Christy Canyon, Savannah (r.i.p.), Tori Welles, blah blah blah. Anyway, I can assure you, no one was coereced into making porn. When they felt like quitting (like Jennifer someone did to have a baby or Tori Welles because she got bored) they did. No mafia dudes threatened them. The boss, Steve Hirsch, was a total businessman who only cared about profits, didn't even watch the films (very interesting guy).
As for the Lovelace thing -- there's a lot out there you can read about the real story -- Creation Books has a whole series of books on esoteric subjects relating to film and they did one on adult films. A lot of research went into this. According to most sources Lovelace only went on the anti-porn crusade after her career died. Shit, here comes the boss...

[Matt Pacini]

lightfeat, I'm certainly not suggesting that women aren't abused, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be limits of what can be shown on TV, etc.
In fact, I think TV is too racy as it is now!
I mean, now that it's eased up on TV in the U.S., it seems like every character on every show has to say "ass" at least once per episode.
It's like it's a rule for network TV now, and it's so contrived as to be ridiculous. If I had kids, I would probably be a letter-writing maniac to the networks about some of this.
I saw an intro to I think it was NYPD Blue, or whatever.. (one of the many cop shows) a couple months ago, and they opened with this woman walking around nude in her bathroom, barely, and I mean barely not showing nipple and hair. At one point, she's standing there, full-shot, covering her nipples with one hand, and her box with the other, as this kid walks in and gapes, seeing her naked.
They even cut to a shot from behind her, between her legs, looking at the kid!
I mean, you could see the inside of her thighs framing the picture.
I personally don't care, but I just don't think little kids need to be seeing this stuff, but my whole point is, I also don't think they should be seeing people shooting people and cutting their throats, and given a choice, I'd rather they saw the naked woman, you know?

I'm not talking at all about porn, because if there weren't any limits on anything, I have no doubt that within a few years, the major networks would be showing kiddie porn and snuff films at 8:00 pm, and would come up with some stupid political reason why it was OK (like Pete Townsend recently did to excuse his signing up for kiddie porn websites for example; "I'm only doing research to show how bad this stuff is!")

Anyway, my whole point was that simple nudity, or a somewhat graphic love scene in a movie, is considered more taboo than graphic violence, that's all.
I'm not excusing all porn, or saying women aren't abused in the world, etc.
Obviously they are, and obviously there is porn that is way over the top and sick.
It's just that the image of "evil men are forcing them to do this stuff' is just ridiculous.
Sure it happens, but I have no doubt it's probably down there in about the 1% or 2% range, but it's just so easy for women to claim to be victims for everything they do, and everyone buys it without needing any evidence at all.
I haven't seen Deep Throat, but I'd be curious to see if she really had any bruises at all.
And the last post makes a good point; how come virtually none of these women who cash in on their sexuality ever complains until after they cash the checks and are trying to "taken oh, so seriously" as one magazine article I read on the subject put it.

Matt Pacini

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 09, 2003 01:25 PM: Message edited by: Matt Pacini ]</font>