Alright, being a normal red blooded male human (or at least that is my present incarnation.) I do have a fondness for the female form.
However, a line has to be drawn somewhere. My preference would be in the film industry.
I am not saying get rid of nudity altogether, but don't just put tits and ass in a movie in the hopes of getting a larger audience. Consider some of the classic movies of all time, such as Casablanca, Key Largo, any of the Bogart and Bacall movies actually.
You never saw an inch of skin, yet, her sex appeal was not to be denied. It did not take nudity to give her that, but talent, and the fact that she was a classic beauty. Even in her old age, Lauren Bacall was something to behold.
The same is true for other movies, as the industry moved out of the two beds in the bedroom, to one bed in the bedroom, there still was no need for nudity. The classic kiss with a fade to black was enough... it even got a couple of movies banned in Boston.
With the sixties, we saw more skin, but it was not until the late sixties did we see any nudity, and that was from the waist up. While it was appropriate in some romances, and other movies, some movies had extended scenes of women's breasts which seemed to have nothing to do with the story, or plot. A good example was the movie "Bridge at Remagan," dealing with the battle to capture a key bridge across the Rhine river.
For some reason they decided to put a topless french girl in one scene with George Segel.
In the early seventies, we saw the passionate, yet strategically covered love scenes, followed in the middle seventies by the brutal rape scenes, and the first blood and gore slash fests.
I have to admit that one of the beast war movies of all time actually has very little combat footage, I am referring to '12 O'clock high.'
The movie dealt primarily with the strain of air combat over Europe and what it did to the air crews as well as ground crews of a bomber group. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly.
I do not find it all comforting that in order to be entertained in this country, we have to resort to nudity, rape, violence, blood and death. Yet, it should not really surprise me much. It seems that we too are following the same course as one of the greatest republics in history, the Republic of Rome.
In the beginning, art was based on classical Greek tragedies. Before the fall, there was the blood and death of the Colosseum. Rome fell to the barbarians, added with a series of weak or corrupt rulers.
If the entertainment that our society so craves is any indication, our fall is not long away.
