SEXIS WRONG

Violence as
the New Porn
Cecilia Tan
I sat in a dark theater recently, at first stifling my mounting
arousal, then lounging back, languid, giving myself over completely
to the images on the screen. I know what you’re wondering—you
want to know what I was watching. Was it the
theatrical re-release of Deep Throat? The latest from Jenna
Jameson? It couldn’t be modern porn, because all “those”
theaters have been torn down, haven’t they? Yes, they have.
I was limp in my chair from a PG-13 action movie.
Another indicator: Bare breasts, once de rigueur, are now out.
Remember that Steven Seagal film Under Siege, where he
plays the Navy cook who single-handedly saves the battleship
from terrorist takeover? The meaningless but necessary
boob shot appears when a stripper pops out of a cake.
That film came out in 1992. In 1997 we had the coed shower
scene in Starship Troopers. Here’s another one from that
year, Universal Soldier, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. To
shoehorn some boobs in here, the plot calls for our hero to
use the computer...at a strip joint. What better way to get
some girls on film?
The world of films is the world of dreams, the world of the
cultural hive mind ingrained in our brains. Freud knew this,
and so did the Dadaists, and so does every
Hollywood executive who wants to cash in on
our subconscious needs. And, man, do I have
needs. But fads, political correctness, and our
ultramodern gestalt move quickly; what the audience
wants, and what they can get, changes
in a short time. What is taboo one year can be
commonplace five years later. The opposite is
also true—what was once commonplace, even necessary, in
a film, is now shocking.
If we use the James Bond franchise as a barometer, it’s amazing
how little actual sex takes place in the current films as
compared to earlier films in the series, given that Bond is supposedly
a womanizer. Beyond the standard hottie silhouettes
in the opening credits and the usual innuendo-laced dialogue,
the Bond franchise has gotten remarkably chaste about what
it will show. Then again, perhaps Grant Morrison had it right
in The Invisibles graphic novels, in which a character says of
the Bond filmic oeuvre: “Every scene is a sex scene.” More
on that in a moment.
Now tell me, when was the last time you saw some gratuitous
titties in an R-rated action flick? I actually searched using
Perhaps Grant Morrison had it right
in The Invisibles graphic novels,
in which a character says of
the Bond filmic oeuvre:
“Every sceneis a sex scene.”
some of the Christian right’s movie review sites (like ScreenIt.
com), and disappointingly, I could find no nudity complained
about in the dozens of recent action flicks I looked up. They
moan about fishnets and a short skirt, so you can be sure any
actual breasts that appear would be catalogued. The only R-
rated action flick released from May 2004 to May 2005 that
had any nudity in it was Sin City (most of it was germane to
the plot, and really, what else would you expect with a title
like that?). None in Sahara, Hostage, Constantine, Blade: Trinity...you
get the idea. It looks to me like the free boob shot
has disappeared.
Why? It’s not that the filmmakers are going for a PG-13 rating.
If you’re going to have an action movie with a lot of asskicking,
you’re probably going to get slapped with an R rating
anyway. Why not sex it up with more skin? I can think of three
reasons.
VIOLENCE AS THE NEW PORN 185