Hollywood is reeling from the sexual abuse and harassment scandal that brought down producer Harvey Weinstein as well as other players in the movie industry. So how can filmmakers stage sex scenes without actresses being touched inappropriately or otherwise sexually harassing them? Well, in an effort to avoid sexually exploiting women while still sexually exploiting them, studios and the actors’ union are drawing up rules.
You can read all about them in New On-Screen Sex Scene Rules Drawn Up for #MeToo Generation of Actors in Wake of Weinstein Scandal.
The new professional standards will include no nudity in auditions. Also, in these R-rated sex scenes (as opposed to overt pornography), actors should usually wear some clothing or “modesty patches,” since “extra underwear can be digitally removed during editing.”
Here are some of the rules:
- Actors should rehearse kissing scenes by “giving each other a peck” at first
- “No use of tongues” unless the director and both actors agreed in advance
- “No saliva mixing as it is abusive”
- “No nudity with genitals touching (always use patches or modesty barrier)”
- Producers should employ an “intimacy director” to protect actors on set
- Actors should be told in advance if they need to strip for an audition and may bring a “support person” along
Note the hypocrisy of trying to address the problem with legalistic rules, while missing the point entirely, remaining oblivious to the real issues.
With these rules, movie makers act so concerned lest they do anything exploitive and violate the performer’s modesty. And yet they still want to make movies that are exploitive and immodest!
They purport to care for the women hired to act in the film, but they want to persist in degrading women in general!
If nude scenes and salacious touching are exploitive, they are still exploitive even if they are special effects added “during editing”!
Hollywood is addressing how particular women are treated while still contributing to the cultural climate of sexual decadence that has victimized untold numbers of women.
Photo, filming scene from Dramaworld, by Jyeoni at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52494819
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