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I was not expecting this piece to mention McMansion Hell, but I was expecting it to mention how the Chinese market has caused movies to cut back on edgy films.

I was not expecting this piece to mention McMansion Hell, but I was expecting it to mention how the Chinese market has caused movies to cut back on edgy films. Or how the international market in general has made movies cut back on dialogue. Or it could have mentioned sex has moved into HBO and streaming and away from film. The article isn’t bad, it just describes a trend without ever doing the basic role of a reporter: follow the money.

NoboruWataya 3y ago
> Or it could have mentioned sex has moved into HBO and streaming and away from film. This was my initial impression. No sex on TV? It's a meme that HBO's most popular shows are full of it. Normal People is another recent example of a TV show that did not exactly shy away from intimate moments. "Follow the money" is right, and the author seems to think that movies in the 80s were full of sex scenes for some reason other than a guy in a suit making a decision that a sex scene would increase revenue. Nowadays porn is on-demand and free so it probably doesn't add as much value to a Hollywood blockbuster. Maybe I'm just a prude but I find most sex scenes to be awkward and shoe-horned in anyway. Why do we need a sex scene in a movie about a crime-fighting superhero anyway? Maybe characters in modern movies are having sex, just... off camera?
NeoTar 3y ago
To quote the Family Guy theme-song: "It seems today that all you see, Is violence in movies and sex on TV" So this pattern was being noted at least as far back as 1999.
- badpun 3y ago
  It has been noticed since the sixties, when comstockery was abolished.
brabel 3y ago
I found the whole thing only applies to American blockbusters. I watch small budget films all the time and there's sexuality oozing most of the time, specially in European movies. If I have any complaints about those movies it's actually in the other direction: it seems that every time a character looks at another who is their love interest, they immediately hook up and kiss passionately, start taking off clothes after barely a few seconds, and suddenly find themselves having intercourse :D - not that I don't like watching it!! But I don't know, at least for me, it took a whole lot more effort than that to get to that point (and now, being a married man for many years, sex is very, very rare which is why I write in the past tense, hehe).

NoboruWataya 3y ago

> Or it could have mentioned sex has moved into HBO and streaming and away from film. This was my initial impression. No sex on TV? It's a meme that HBO's most popular shows are full of it. Normal People is another recent example of a TV show that did not exactly shy away from intimate moments. "Follow the money" is right, and the author seems to think that movies in the 80s were full of sex scenes for some reason other than a guy in a suit making a decision that a sex scene would increase revenue. Nowadays porn is on-demand and free so it probably doesn't add as much value to a Hollywood blockbuster. Maybe I'm just a prude but I find most sex scenes to be awkward and shoe-horned in anyway. Why do we need a sex scene in a movie about a crime-fighting superhero anyway? Maybe characters in modern movies are having sex, just... off camera?

NeoTar 3y ago

To quote the Family Guy theme-song: "It seems today that all you see, Is violence in movies and sex on TV" So this pattern was being noted at least as far back as 1999.

badpun 3y ago
It has been noticed since the sixties, when comstockery was abolished.

brabel 3y ago

I found the whole thing only applies to American blockbusters. I watch small budget films all the time and there's sexuality oozing most of the time, specially in European movies. If I have any complaints about those movies it's actually in the other direction: it seems that every time a character looks at another who is their love interest, they immediately hook up and kiss passionately, start taking off clothes after barely a few seconds, and suddenly find themselves having intercourse :D - not that I don't like watching it!! But I don't know, at least for me, it took a whole lot more effort than that to get to that point (and now, being a married man for many years, sex is very, very rare which is why I write in the past tense, hehe).