violence, nudity and cursing in films

Violence, nudity, and swearing won't make me not watch a film, but I do have a tolerance threshold. I don't care for alot of blood and gore, no matter who the victim is. Nudity is fine, but I don't want to sit down and watch a film with a steamy sex scene in it with my in-laws (just saw Sex and the City2 with my sis-in-law and 60yr old mother in-law *shudder*) Cursing? well I can swear as well as any sailor..and probably teach him a few new ones, so whatever on that one.

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I don't think it's so easy to just say that movies added in sex, violence and language as a response to TV. To me, that's a short-sighted look at the reality of the situation which occurred in the 1960s. You've got to remember that films had been operating under a form of self-censorship from the mid-1930s (the Hays Code), and it was only a matter of time before reality would have to rear its ugly head and be displayed on screen.

Scripters, directors and actors all agreed that it was difficult and uncomforable NOT being allowed to express more realistic actions and attitudes in the movies. For god's sake, they had to turn their head to kiss their wife and sleep in separate beds just because the Code said no evidence of any hanky panky to protect the kids. Of course, it didn't protect the kids. They just asked Mommy and Daddy why they were weird and slept in the same bed. Technically, Hollywood didn't have to compete with Broadway but there one could find much rougher dialogue and more realistic sexuality than you could show in movies. That's one of the reasons why people complain about all the film adaptations of plays being watered down.

The rise of foreign films being shown in the U.S. and their effect on up-and-coming Hollywood directors cannot be underestimated. The violence in a 1950s Japanese movie was often striking and brutal, and the French and Italians started having mudity in films in the same decade! (Although if truth be told, European and Asian films have always had snippets of nudity, especially in the form of photographs on walls and mirrors, etc.) Filmmakers such as Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) and Mike Nichols (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate) kept pushing the envelope in American films, just as the British directors had done earlier in the 1960s with rampant depictions of lust, abortion and other no-nos in films such as Tom Jones and Alfie. All of this came to a head when it became clear that movies, for better or worse, were "growing up" and to try to enforce a toothless censorship code on movies in the middle of the 1960s when you could watch TV news and see real people dying in Vietnam or doing drugs on the street corner was just plain silly. Hence, the ratings of the MPAA came into effect. Go ahead and show what you want and we'll restrict it after the fact rather than before.

Now, what's occurred in the 40 years since the rise of the MPAA is another story and will be left, at least by me, for another time. I just wanted to make sure that there was some context put into part of the discussion, at least as far as historical perspective.

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Excellent post, mark.

All valid arguments, Mark. But didn't scripters, directors and actors want to express more realistic actions and attitudes in the movies in the 1930s, 1940s, early 1950s? Weren't there more sex and violence in foreign movies back then, and weren't US directors watching those post-war European and Asian films? So why didn't those influences not result in an earlier blossoming of sex, nudity, and violence, or why weren't they delayed until the 1970s, say? Was it just coincidence that the breakthru came just when movies were worried about the drop in US movie attendance and the rising popularity of TV? I suspect most owners of movie theaters really didn't give a damn if movies reflected reality--they just wanted movies that would bring back audiences. And sex, violence, and profanity did. To ignore that aspect is, I think, to badly underestimate the box-office influence.

That may be very true. And yet Native Americans and Blacks have long complained that the movies have created a poor image of their people, so they must think film has the power to spread negative thoughts. Are psychos watching a slice and dice film more immune to that influence than people watching The Searchers or Birth of a Nation or Superfly?

Even if it doesn't create psychos(and I basically agree with you there) do we really want psychos to be more creative???? And how many nudges does it take from those and other sources to send a disturbed or sick mind down that path? What may be a movie for one person could be a road map for someone else.

First off, many of the best foreign directors migrated to work in the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s. I'm sure that somebody was watching foreign films back then, but most of them never played in the U.S. The rise in TV viewing occurred in the 1950s and films "blew up" [enlarged] everything to compete with TV by the use of various widescreen formats and 3-D during that decade. It eventually caused some people to find Hollywood even less-realistic because they were turning out a large percentage of soap operas which were centered around themes of sex and violence, but their opulence seemed to make them deal with the subject in a somewhat less-than-realistic manner. Even so, the mid-'50s movies mostly did booming business as America was going through a technological and financial renaissance in general. The 1960s brought about a desire for reality. It was the decade of multiple assassinations, Vietnam, the beginning of mistrust of government and the counter culture. All these occurrences led to a dramatic change in the way movies were made; at least far more than TV popularity did, I believe.

I admit that most of my argument comes from the gut, but I have an interesting study which addresses the large effect which television has had upon theatre attendance, although it concludes that television was not the major factor in a decline in attendance. It also has some techno-speak and weird graphs, but near the end there is one excellent graph showing the percentage of the U.S. population who went to the cinema weekly. That graph is easy to read and understand. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to reproduce it here so you'll have to use this link.

It shows a decline at the beginning of the Great Depression and then a steady rise from the mid-1930s through the end of WWII. Then there's a decline until 1953 when new technologies made movies seem bigger and more special. Another drop began in 1957 with the increased number of homes with TV sets and this continued until about 1965 where it basically shows the attendance rate leveling off at about 9-10%. Up through 2000, it shows no major fluctuations, although the entire 1970s and the mid '80s are definitely shown to have the lowest percentage of attendance. It may seem strange, but the era of the "Birth of the Blockbuster" did bring many people to a few specific films, but in general, attendance was down during that allegedly significant time.

From the internet (not me):

In 1922, in the wake of the Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle scandal, the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association was formed, with William Hays at its head. Hays' first act was to ban all of Arbuckle's films. He made it clear from the beginning that the private lives of the stars were as much his concern as their on-screen exploits. For the next eight years, Hays fought an uphill battle against depravity in cinema. In 1930, though, the industry adopted the Production Code, known as the Hays Code, or simply the Code. In theory, every film made in the U.S. had to be approved by the Production Code Association. However, America was deep in the thrall of the Great Depression, and the studios feared bankruptcy if they showed only the safe, moral films which the Code would permit. Until 1934, then, the studios flouted the Code at every opportunity. Prostitution, crime, and even homosexuality found artistic outlet in the American cinema. In 1934, though, the economy improved, Congress grew more vocal in its threats to impose federal legislation on Hollywood, and the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to boycott Hollywood films. Joseph Breen, a former journalist, took over the administration of the Code.

Me speaking: While they may seem tame by modern standards, for its day some of those early thirties movies are pretty racy, including a Barbara Stanwyck movie that was heavily recut after it's initial release, which included scenes of her father forcing her to have sex with customers.

I suspect that, like most changes in life, it was a combination of both the evolvement of films as you suggest and the box-office push to get more movie goers back into the theaters. The French films may have been more artistic in the 1950s, but I know at the time we were going to Bridget Bardot films for the T&A titillation rather than the deeper meaning of film philosophy and development. You couldn’t see Bardot’s or anyone else’s naked hip on your TV screen back then. (Couldn’t even see it in most small town movie theaters where they tended to edit out most skin shots to a fleeting peek.) Underwear ads on US TV back then put bras on plastic dummies for show, back when on French TV there were lovely women modeling bras and panties, like you now see on US TV, too.

Both film and TV have changed a lot over the years, partly because of better technology, partly because of more sophisticated actors, directors, and audiences, and partly because of increased competition for the entertainment dollar.

I hate censorship, but of course I have my limits. Sometimes too much of it causes me to be sick, but if the outcome of it is a work of art, so be it. I do hate over the top sex- scenes and swears every other word but violence I'm okay with. Maybe because Kill Bill is my favorite movie, but I don't know

Personally... Gore, blood, steamy sex scenes, violence only makes me angry when there is no reason for it. If a script has a woman being beat and raped by her husband or perp, than it better be a bloody good movie with an underlying theme.

Most violence in films are so out there, that unless you were a 10-12 year old you know it's so fictitious it shouldn't really register as realism. Though at times a movie comes along when you start to think...only slightly, should this be seen by anyone? But as the previous poster wrote, "I hate censorship"....for adults.

It has to be used smartly, for effect, not as a crutch. Seeing a sex scene or gore that some producer just wanted to whimsically throw in deflates a movie. Watching the same scenes done as artistry is different.

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i think if you dont like the cursing/ nudity dont watch, Ill watch just about any movie that i think looks or sounds good.

Personally if it blends with the story line and the way the film is being portrayed to us the viewers, then i think its fine. But if its just irrelevant and pointless then i don’t think it should really be in the film. Of course things like swearing make the film seem more down to earth and more like your average life. But if its every other word i wouldn’t really want to sit through a full 1 30 to 2 hour movie in all honesty. Otherwise let it be to be honest, its all of our daily lives. As for violence and nudity, similar thoughts, if their relevant then go ahead otherwise don’t overdo it. Just my opinion though :P

hmmm, i have no problem with it. of course it depends who im going with though

As long as it's not gratuitous and helps the film make its point instead of undermining it.

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C'mon, sex and cursing is a reality in our life's. It only makes movies spicier.

heck half of this is starting to get to regular cable tv that I see...so in movies its nothing special anymore it's almost expected now a days