Got your attention didn’t I? A couple of weeks back a friend of mine and I watched Old School again. Pretty funny movie, but I still don’t think it was as great as a lot of people believe it was… anyway…
The scene with the topless college girls comes up and a thought struck me (not the thought you may be thinking of). I realized that unlike the 80’s and first half of the 90’s, you really don’t see all that much pointless nudity or sex in films anymore. Sure, you get the odd boob shot like the one in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle or American Pie but thats about it.
Then I remember a conversation I had with another friend a while ago when The Girl Next Door started it’s ad campaign. I said to him “What’s the point of going to pay $13 to get into a movie just to see some woman take her clothes off when anyone anywhere can just hop in the internet to any one of millions of porn sites and see the same thing for free.”
Think about it. In 2003 Meg Ryan (smashingly beautiful woman) did her first nude scene in the film In The Cut. In 1995 that would have gotten HUGE media push… and the marketing department tried to capitalize on it by making sure everyone knew about it. But it had almost zero response and the film was a box office disaster (like most of Meg Ryan’s films these days). The nudity did nothing for the film. Why should it? You all can see all the nakedness you want online anytime.
So is that it? Is easily accessible porn on the internet the reason why fewer pointless nude and sex scenes are being included in feature films these days? Or am I way off base on this? What do you think?
