5 ms·
It is always fascinating to me how different sex in literature, cinema, etc. is treated in the USA compared to Europe. My favorite example is the movie "The Fa
by jansan 4y ago
It is always fascinating to me how different sex in literature, cinema, etc. is treated in the USA compared to Europe.
My favorite example is the movie "The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain" (which btw is awesome). It has an "FSK 6" rating in Germany, which means it is free to watch for children six years or older. In the US it is R rated, which means children unter 17 have to be accompanied by an adult to watch the movie. The reason for the R rating is that one of the characters, Nino, is working in a sex shop, and in one scene Amelie enters the shop and you can see Nino applying price stickers on adult toys, which in the US seems to be dangerous to the soul of teenagers, while Europeans would not even think about this for a moment.
- H8crilA 4y agoI remember she was getting banged in one scene, which the narrator commented something like "sex - Amelia tried it, meh". Maybe the scene was cut entirely.
- jansan 4y agoDuh, you are correct, there was a sex scene. Maybe the most harmless sex scene ever created in cinema history, but there was one and I forgot about it.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 4y agoWasn't there another scene where the proprietor of the coffee shop had an orgasm and was screaming? And also some sex talk I remember. R might have been too much but I don't think pg13 would be unreasonable.
- jansan 4y agoYes, also nipples.
- muwtyhg 4y agoWasn't there a montage of orgasms as well?
- manuel_w 4y agoThe one with Amélie was certainly very harmless, the other ones were a bit more spicy. Yet this shows the difference in thinking between America and Europe. Warning, NOT SAFE FOR WORK: For context here's the sex scenes in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6wqunhUVWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6wqunhUVWo (I checked the guidelines, it doesn't mention anything adult related. Hence that should be okay here.) Judge for yourself.
- watwut 4y agoFor added fun, check out how much Germany censors violence in the movies. They sometimes cut out whole action scenes from action movies.
- short_sells_poo 4y agoI think both of these are wrong. For Germans violence seems to be a bigger issue than sex, while for Americans sex is a bigger taboo than violence. Both of these are completely misguided (IMO) moral policing and disempowering of the population. Both say: people are not capable of making a sound moral choice on their own, they must be protected from seeing things that could negatively influence their character. That being said, if I were to pick between these two bad policies, I personally think sex is a vastly less morally objectionable topic. On one hand you have an activity that (between consenting people) is pleasurable and is essential in propagating the species, while the other is generally undesirable to everyone involved.
- trasz 4y agoProblem is, American media doesn’t just show violence, it glorifies violence, whereas perfectly normal behaviors are being censored out. This of course has a rather obvious explanation, but HN prohibits mentioning it for political reasons.
- dahfizz 4y agoI think you have the causality backwards. In both cases, the publishers are trying to maximize profit. A movie full of violence won't sell as well in Germany. It isn't want Germans want to go see. Vice versa for Americans and sex. Culture dictates what kind of media is desirable, not the other way around.
- short_sells_poo 4y agoI don't dispute the cultural aspect, in fact that's a center point of my post. But Germany does have (to the best of my knowledge) a special rating board that even used to enforce censorship in games. E.g. games sold in Germany had to have blood removed. Again, the cultural aspect is core to the entire thing, but nevertheless the overarching theme is that both countries apply a sort of self censorship.