Friday, September 19, 2008

When primetime TV meets porn

Saving Grace
True Blood
What's up with TV nowadays? Once upon a time the only time we see this much sex and nudity was when we watched porn. From what I've seen of these shows (Saving Grace and True Blood) the only difference between them and porn (besides the story line) is that they don't show genitalia or close up shots of penetration scenes.

To be fair, at least there IS a storyline to speak of. However, I have found the sex scene not only disturbing but at times even unnecessary to the story.

Saving Grace
This series opens with Detective Grace Hanadarko (played by Holly Hunter) having sex. Afterwards it shows her parading around her house naked ... going to her bathroom and standing in front of her window to display her nakedness to her octogenarian neighbor ... purely for kicks.

Shortly after she meets Earl, her "last chance" angel, who attempts to guide her to redemption as the series continues. The first scene shocked me, but in context, I got it. It showed how her indiscriminate sexual relations with every Tom, Dick, and Harry plus her drinking binges will get her on the elevator to eternal damnation. What I find hard to accept is ... after that point had been made, why the producers (of which Holly Hunter is one of them) find it necessary to display so much nudity (full nudity) at each and every episode. It is as if they cannot shoot an episode unless a sex scene is somewhere in there. Is Holly, perhaps, realizing a fantasy of having her sexual encounters filmed and watched by millions?

True Blood
This series opens with a girl and guy travelling at night in their car with the girl (who is driving) giving her boyfriend a hand job. *blink blink* Ok, this I can accept because the action was implied but not really seen. Partway through the episode we see a woman sitting/leaning back on a sofa naked. The camera pulls back and we see a guy was going down on her. He is completely naked, too.

Then, they show a video where the woman was standing with her hands tied and hanging from a hook with a vamp doing her from behind. Shortly after, she does the same scene with the guy she was with.

Oh, but the REAL story is about a telepathic chick named Sookie (played by Anna Paquin) and a vampire named Bill (played by Stephen Compton) ... who, so far, don't have sex together.

So, I have to ask myself, what were all the sex scenes and full nudity for? Were they REALLY necessary to the story? Was there no way to show the scene without it going to that extreme?


You know what really bothers me?  My daughter is 16 and I make it a point to watch TV shows with her.  It's our "bonding time".  This means that when those 2 shows first came out we were watching it for the first time together and I had to explain to her what was happening.  A part of me wanted to cover the screen and deny what was happening in it but the rational part of me took over and I would explain what was happening so that she wouldn't wonder about it.

Perhaps in the U.S. all that sex and nudity and violence is commonplace for teenagers, I don't know.  But here, in our house, at least, it is troubling.

I previewed Saving Grace alone, so was able to spare my daughter from it.  I watched a few more episodes in hopes that it would get better.  The story improved but the nudity ... it's still there.

True Blood ... because of the new vampire hype (because of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books and movie) my daughter was intrigued by the series.  The 2nd episode still had sex scenes in it.  I'm hoping they disappear in the 3rd episode or, I'm sorry, but I will stop watching it.

It just isn't worth it if I get upset everytime I watch it.

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