Last year Californication came out, and it was a huge success and I must admit I do enjoy the show. However, there was something that just about put me off watching it altogether. The odd thing is, it’s almost the same thing that attracted me to the show in the first place – Paula Marshall.
I like her as an actress, and when I heard she was going to be in it, I decided to watch. The thing with Californication is that there is a fair bit of nudity, and I had heard to expect the same from Paula Marshall. However when it came down to the final cut, she had CGI nipples?!? It was this that almost put me off the show altogether, had it not been for Madeline Zimas excellent nude scene to make up for it, I may have stopped watching there and then.
She must have known that there would be nudity required, so why would she take the role in the first place? But then why wouldn’t she do the nudity? She has done nudity in the past. Has she developed a horrible nipple deformity over the years? Maybe she had kids and grew a conscious or something like that, whatever the reason I can’t make sense of it.
As bad as all this is; I think its worse that the studio tried to cover it up with substandard CGI fakes.
Then there is Sin City, an excellent movie, based on the awesome graphic novel by Frank Miller.
First there is Nancy (a stripper, played by Jessica Alba), who doesn’t actually ever take her clothes off. Normally this is not a problem, in fact the only reason this is a problem is that in the novel Nancy is quite clearly naked. When so much effort has been made to keep the movie as close to the novel as possible, why let this slip?
Do we blame Jessica Alba? Maybe, I am sure the idea was presented to her, and she must have rejected it (granted she hasn’t done nudity before, but she basically showed the world her boobs with a see through top at some or other awards show a few years back). So maybe the studio should have pushed harder, even at the risk of losing her. She did an okay job, but was not irreplaceable.
That isn’t thing that really upset me about this movie. I guess it’s not actually the movie, but when the DVD was released they a green screen feature, where you could watch the movie as shot on the green screen (the one they use for special effects and stuff – excellent feature for DVD’s). It was sped up, so you couldn’t actually watch every scene, which I guess might have something to do with the amount of space on the DVD or something like that. However, in the speeding up process they managed to edit out all the Carla Gugino nipple scenes. Coincidence; you tell me?
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed both of the above mentioned films (okay, so one was TV), it’s just these little things really cheapen the end result. But moreover, and more along the lines of what I initially wanted to say, these are the exceptions. It seems that nudity has almost become commonplace in Hollywood, along with a certain amount of violence, swearing and drugs.
When you compare the films made today with films from a generation ago, as a general rule, there is more of everything. A film that was rated “R18″ only a decade ago would probably only be rated a “MA15″ today. What has changed?
More importantly, this isn’t just in film; it’s more a case of art imitating life.
Then again, perhaps it is really life imitating art — children today seem to be exposed to all these things at a much earlier age, and as such seem more at ease with sex, drugs, nudity and most especially language.
So where did it all start?
Can we go back?
Do we want to go back?
