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It's strange to me why it's so easy to show scenes of murders in movies, while love scenes or smoking are forbidden. in reality, we rarely encounter murders, but they are in every second movie.
is there any opinion on this?

It reminds me of George Carlin's joke about banning toy guns, but keeping the real ones.

Erm. What?
There are plenty of smoking and love scenes in movies.
Please elaborate.

You are watching the wrong movies.
Also, deaths move the plot along more than a bit of rumpy-pumpy. That's just filler (fnar).

Blame the puritan morality of the USA. Apparently it's OK to teach children that shooting someone is a good solution to all our problems, but that the human body is something shameful that should be covered up.

I think that European cinema is perhaps the opposite. You'd need to look at the ratings of violent vs "sexual" films in Europe and the USA to see. In the UK, I believe we're more tolerant of "bad language" and less so of violence in film and especially TV than in the USA. Not sure about nudity.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Blame the puritan morality of the USA. Apparently it's OK to teach children that shooting someone is a good solution to all our problems, but that the human body is something shameful that should be covered up.

This. America was founded by, and currently run by, prudes. I love a good action flick, but we do have alot of hypocrisy as far as our violence/sex censoring, which will hopefully start to be addressed as my generation takes over. Its like the breastfeeding controversy we have here. For some reason we have an issue with exposed people in America.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Blame the puritan morality of the USA. Apparently it's OK to teach children that shooting someone is a good solution to all our problems, but that the human body is something shameful that should be covered up.

This. America was founded by, and currently run by, prudes. I love a good action flick, but we do have alot of hypocrisy as far as our violence/sex censoring, which will hopefully start to be addressed as my generation takes over. Its like the breastfeeding controversy we have here. For some reason we have an issue with exposed people in America.

Yeah, but hollywood is ran by sex crazed not-puritans. We've got a pretty large thread discussing it right here.

Stereotypical American movie: a buffed guy kills baddies by the thousands, with big machine guns and/or explosions. There's a hot girl he sometimes gets to kiss at the end.
Stereotypical French movie: a hot guy goes through his mid-life crisis. Half the movie is shots of him smoking and drinking coffee at a parisian café, the other half it's him having sex with younger women he ends up fighting with. There's usually a bitchy ex-wife and a sarcastic friend too (to include the mandatory swearing).

So yeah, it mostly depends on where the movie comes from.

In spanish-cinema we had a phase called the "Uncover" ("El Destape"). During the 80-90's. It was after the Franco Dictatorship.
Basically, literally every spanish movie had some scene with a woman without a t-shirt, with her tits and nipples exposed. Most of the time it had no reason for that, but it was a "response" after 40 years of Franco's censorship.

It was as if a tsunami of nipples and boobs invaded the cinema after the dam of censorship ceased to contain it.

Traditionally, the US has been much stricter on censoring sex than violence. Part of it ties directly into politics, so can't go too deep there, but suffice to say that the same moral majority that decries depictions of sexuality outside of marriage are generally the same bloc that vigorously supports gun ownership, so the voices against violence tend to be more limited.

In terms of modern American cinema, both violence and sex have become highly stylized and commercialized, and movies often heavily rely on one or both to sell tickets, often in lieu of things like character development and plot..

Murders are rarely depicted directly, though, except in the horror and crime genres, where the act itself is generally depicted as party of the villainy (though some do revel in the gore and violence, and there are often troubling implications). In crime/mystery stories, details can be an important part of the plot. In more standard horror, it tends to be more atmospheric (though such acts may also establish certain themes or patterns of the killer/monster).

Smoking is not prohibited in American movies, and was was a staple of early cinema. In modern cinema, it has fallen out of favor, but is still commonly found in certain genres or with certain characters. The cigar chomping tough guy, or chain smoking nervous type are still very much alive.

 Galas wrote:

Basically, literally every spanish movie had some scene with a woman without a t-shirt, with his tits and nipples exposed. Most of the time it had no reason for that, but it was a "response" after 40 years of Franco's censorship.

Same to late 80s Soviet movies. Naked women present without need just because "we can".

 jmurph wrote:
Murders are rarely depicted directly, though, except in the horror and crime genres, where the act itself is generally depicted as party of the villainy (though some do revel in the gore and violence, and there are often troubling implications). In crime/mystery stories, details can be an important part of the plot. In more standard horror, it tends to be more atmospheric (though such acts may also establish certain themes or patterns of the killer/monster).

It depends what you call murder. It's very common in movies/tv shows to see the "good guys" kill a bunch of "bad guys". I mean, how many times do you see a hero storm in an enemy base and shoot every guard he sees? Of course the bad guys had weapons, and sometimes fired at the hero first (not always), but it's still very disturbing to see someone portrayed as a hero shoot people without a hint of hesitation.
Just look at Star Wars; what do you think will be the headcount in the upcoming film? I haven't seen the trailers, but I bet the good guys will kill a bunch of people, and it will be shown on screen as something perfectly normal, just like we see in pretty much every movie.

fresus wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Murders are rarely depicted directly, though, except in the horror and crime genres, where the act itself is generally depicted as party of the villainy (though some do revel in the gore and violence, and there are often troubling implications). In crime/mystery stories, details can be an important part of the plot. In more standard horror, it tends to be more atmospheric (though such acts may also establish certain themes or patterns of the killer/monster).

It depends what you call murder. It's very common in movies/tv shows to see the "good guys" kill a bunch of "bad guys". I mean, how many times do you see a hero storm in an enemy base and shoot every guard he sees? Of course the bad guys had weapons, and sometimes fired at the hero first (not always), but it's still very disturbing to see someone portrayed as a hero shoot people without a hint of hesitation.
Just look at Star Wars; what do you think will be the headcount in the upcoming film? I haven't seen the trailers, but I bet the good guys will kill a bunch of people, and it will be shown on screen as something perfectly normal, just like we see in pretty much every movie.

Most of our videogames, storys, movies, books, etc... consist in a bunch of good guys killing a ton of bad guys. I don't see a problem with that. Is cathartic. Theres always room for more serious videogames, movies, books, etc... that show the "reality" of war, how theres no good or bad guys, and present all parts of a conflict in a more symphathetic way, etc...

Because smoking is bad and sex is porn, but killing the bad guys is good.
Don't think too much about movies. Most of them are created just to entertain, not to make you think about moral questions. Of course just slaughtering 'the bad guys' is morally questionable if not outright evil, but fighting scenes bring tension and excitement to your movie, which is why they are so common.

Smoking has undergone a huge social change; going from something that was commonplace to the point where everyone did it. Heck the old cinemas used to have a foggy haze from all the people smoking whilst watching the film.

However as society has changed smoking has slowly shifted into a less and less popular thing. I suspect anti-smoking drives have also made it un-appealing to have your lead character smoking through the film. So you keep it on the "cigar chomping general" but by and large its gone.

It also really depends on what kind of story you want to tell with your movie. For instance you wouldn't put sex scenes in any of the Star Wars movies, although you could argue that the films could have depicted less killing.

Quite frankly I dislike sex scenes in most movies, because they often seem out of place to me, and distracts from the plot of the movie. And I have no need to see those scenes depicted in detail either. I have no desire to find out how someone looks naked, and I don't understand why anyone would choose to undress in the middle of a movie for any reason. I'm never naked unless I'm taking a shower.

I'm as annoyed as anyone else over how female characters frequently end up covering their chests during or after sex scenes. Which often leads to the actress clinging to a bed sheet, or just never remove her bra, although that's more of a sitcom thing, I guess.

Thing is those (women in bed covering up etc...) are as fake in sex as shooting is fake in most films. You go from Bond or Starwars where there is no blood; to crime dramas where wounds are sometimes shown, but only on a dead body or in simulation. Even then most bullet holes are holes rather than the full exit wound of a huge chunk of flesh torn out.

Indeed a more realistic kind of shooting is often only seen in quasi documentary war films (of whch there are few) or something more "bloody" like a Tarantino film. Indeed the way we describe them we don't even really want real killing on screen; the majority of people want the no guts approach.

Heck even in fantasy writing we get the same; many an author will slice someone up; few will go into the gritty description of spilling bowels an such.

 Zingraff wrote:


Quite frankly I dislike sex scenes in most movies, because they often seem out of place to me, and distracts from the plot of the movie. And I have no need to see those scenes depicted in detail either. I have no desire to find out how someone looks naked, and I don't understand why anyone would choose to undress in the middle of a movie for any reason. I'm never naked unless I'm taking a shower.
.

For me, the problem is not with sex scenes but with romantic sub-plots. Really, I don't know how many good movies have become mediocre because they force a useless and stupid romantic sub-plot that only lowers the coherent developtment of the characters involved.

Weirdest censorship I became aware of when I moved to the US was the bleeping of "God" in the phrase "God Damn".

Blow a guy's head off, but don't take the Lord's name in vain!

 Galas wrote:

 Zingraff wrote:


Quite frankly I dislike sex scenes in most movies, because they often seem out of place to me, and distracts from the plot of the movie. And I have no need to see those scenes depicted in detail either. I have no desire to find out how someone looks naked, and I don't understand why anyone would choose to undress in the middle of a movie for any reason. I'm never naked unless I'm taking a shower.
.

For me, the problem is not with sex scenes but with romantic sub-plots. Really, I don't know how many good movies have become mediocre because they force a useless and stupid romantic sub-plot that only lowers the coherent developtment of the characters involved.

A fantastic example being The Hobbit film.
It's true though, trying to tick-box make films tends to fail. Starwars and Jarjar as the comic relief is another.

In many films in the end the hero remains with the corpses of the enemies killed by him around with a feel of the winner. Then the police come and do nothing to him, he just goes home. No investigation.

“Leave anything for us?”

“Just bodies”

 Galas wrote:

Basically, literally every spanish movie had some scene with a woman without a t-shirt, with his tits and nipples exposed.

Wait what?

There are plenty of moves with tits, guns AND violence and sex scenes.

what exactly are you guys watching?

 Desubot wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Basically, literally every spanish movie had some scene with a woman without a t-shirt, with his tits and nipples exposed.

Wait what?

There are plenty of moves with tits, guns AND violence and sex scenes.

what exactly are you guys watching?

Yeah, bash the poor spanish guy that doesn't has english as his first lenguage Fixed.

Yeah i figure its funny though.

If we ignore the craziness that is the MPAA (literally a self-devised made-up group of people who arbitrarily choose what to rate films...really bizarre institution) it's pretty simple. US big-budget films are essentially diluted to be the highest-grossing, least-offending films they can manage to earn big dollars.

This is only big-budget box office films though, as the best stuff to come out on film lately is all of the more private and somewhat smaller budget stuff (direc to Netflix movies, Hulu movies and Amazon Prime etc.). There's plenty of wonderful movies out there, but if you go by big name films in the US you just won't see much nudity or sex --- even less so now with the huge (and oddly sudden) interest in Hollywood sex scandals and massive all-consuming feminism, etc. It should scare most big budget producers from backing anything that's too exploitative (read: seen as exploitative by anyone...at all...even a little bit).

 Galas wrote:
It was as if a tsunami of nipples and boobs invaded the cinema after the dam of censorship ceased to contain it.

This statement made my afternoon. Exalted!

 Elbows wrote:
If we ignore the craziness that is the MPAA (literally a self-devised made-up group of people who arbitrarily choose what to rate films...really bizarre institution)

I wish we could do away with the MPAA. After seeing the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated I can't help but see the entire group as a sham.

Yep, the MPAA is...more or less not a real thing. It's insane that it has such pull over a massive industry.

This isn't a new observation and has been around for awhile. There is a documentary about the MPAA and the ridiculousness of how films are rated.

There was something said once about if you kiss a nipple it is rated X but if you cut off a nipple it is rated R. Anything homosexual gets hit pretty hard as well generally. A man and a woman kissing can be as low as G where as two males is almost always rated R.

European films are considered "boring". But what is interesting in the hollywood style senseless scenes of shooting, pursuit, fast flicker of frames under annoying music? This can only excite a small child (which does not necessarily see a kill, you can show them just fighting). For a normal person, it's just annoying flickering without a normal plot. Rarely there is an explanation for what is happening, for example Hell or High Water has it