Thursday 24 May 2012

Hits And Misses In The Nudity Debate

Hit & Miss bares some interesting questions about nudity on television, argues The Guardian's Mark Lawson. Nudity on screen can often seem unnecessary or gratuitous – but Sky Atlantic's new drama suggests this isn't always the case. A drama producer who has worked in both television and radio once said that the great benefit of working on the wireless was that there was never any hassle from actors or audiences over nude scenes. Apart from strong language, nakedness is the most frequent complaint in TV feedback forums and, in both cases, the objection is that these elements are unnecessary or gratuitous. The difference is that whereas opinions on language are largely generational – the more recent the viewer's birth-date, the less likely they are to be offended by swearing – objections to nudity are more widely shared because of changing attitudes to women on screen, often influenced by feminism.

In this context, one of the striking aspects of new Sky Atlantic drama Hit & Miss, Paul Abbott and Sean Conway's compelling drama about a transgender assassin played by Chloe Sevigny, is that it contains a moment that attempts to make the case for a full-frontal nude scene that is dramatically crucial and completely non-gratuitous.


Sevigny's character Mia, who is undergoing hormone treatment prior to the final transformative operation, stands naked in front of a mirror. The unusual complexity of this image is that the viewer is seeing male and female nakedness simultaneously, being shown genuine breasts and a prosthetic penis.

It might possibly be objected that this scene is prurient – offering up a transgender patient as a sort of freak-show – but Mia is explicitly a character tracking the transformations of her body and it is relevant to the narrative for the audience to know what she has under her clothes at this stage: the information pays off in later scenes when her long-lost son surprises her in the bath and a local lothario tries to grope her between the legs. Abbott and Conway are surely right – and Sevigny seems to have agreed – that the reveal was necessary.

Most dramas, though, can't claim such an easy absolution. In British cop shows of the 1970s and '80s, it sometimes seemed almost obligatory for the central detective to be interrupted during love-making by a call-out to a crime-scene. As he heaved discreetly out of bed – often conveniently wearing boxers or even trousers – his big-busted girfriend would walk, in the foreground of the shot, naked past him to the bathroom. Lawson's memory suggests that The Sweeney was a particular offender.

Greater sensitivity to the exploitation of women has reduced the popularity of such shots, although one contributor to the Guardian's letters page reported that he had stopped watching Homeland after episode four because of the frequent female nudity. The correspondent found these shots of women's bodies "misogynistic" and accused reviewers who admired the series of either ignoring or privately revelling in this woman-hating parade of flesh.

Lawson's view was that the other qualities of the series (acting, shooting, writing, plotting) were enough to overlook the inequalities of its costume policy. And the far greater quantity of female than male full-frontal scenes in screen drama results from something more complicated than just male chauvinism in the production process.

The standard compositions of TV sex scenes – the woman, with her breasts showing, on top of the man; or the man on top of the woman, whose breasts are showing – follow from the widely acknowledged theory that sexual arousal in men has a more dramatic visual indication than for women, and the regulatory and legal convention that erect penises are seen only in pornography or, more recently, 18 certificate movies. So, on television, if an actor is shown walking fully-naked towards a bed before a passionate love scene, application of the editorial guidelines raises distracting issues about his enthusiasm for the relationship.

But, while this excuse is true, it does also encourage lazy direction. The fact that an actor can't be shown fully naked during sex but that an actress can doesn't mean that the latter has to be. It is possible to film bedroom scenes while protecting the modesty of both participants – and certainly Homeland would not have suffered from a lower nipple count. Hit & Miss, however, fascinatingly fleshes out the debate over how naked bodies should be shown.
Read more on this article...

Saturday 12 May 2012

Showing Faith In Grace


Last month, Showtime revealed that it was casting a 'major female role' for the sixth season of Californication with an eye towards creating a spinoff for the series. Writer-executive producer Tom Kapinos is said to have created a new professional groupie character, named Faith, who will feature prominently and possibly form the basis for a subsequent stand-alone show. She’s a beautiful American in her mid-to-late 20s, and described as "what happens when an innocent young Catholic school girl is exposed to the evils of rock and roll and falls heads over heels in love with the music and the men who make it." Faith has been on the road with various bands for years and is considered a muse by some elite artists. Though she has a fondness for sex, drugs and rock and role, she remains quite religious. Think a modern-day Penny Lane in Almost Famous on a spiritual quest to reconcile her extreme behavior with her conservative background.

Injecting new characters into an existing show is one of the preferred methods lately to attempt a spinoff, such as NCIS and Bones introducing characters for NCIS: LA and The Finder, respectively. Entertainment Weekly suggests the Californication plan is more unique since Faith is expected to play a significant role next season rather than just appearing in a one-off 'backdoor pilot'. At this early stage, the spinoff is by no means assured. First the producers will have to cast the right actress, then the role must connect with viewers.


The first part of that equation has now been addressed, with Maggie Grace signing on for an extended run. Grace is perhaps best known for her role as Shannon Rutherford on the first two seasons of Lost, in addition to her appearances in Taken, Knight and Day, Lockout, The Fog, Suburban Girl and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 & Part 2. Grace will also appear in the upcoming Fox series, The Following opposite Kevin Bacon. As Faith, she will befriend David Duchovny's Hank Moody early in the sixth season and if you've ever watched the show then you know that it is a very safe assumption that they will wind up as lovers at some point. Grace's stint on Californication is slated to run for nine episodes and the fate of the potential spinoff hinges upon how eagerly the audience embraces her.

You would imagine that the male half of the show's audience will be sold immediately upon the character's planned introductory scene; namely, a "dream sequence in which Faith is being 'eaten out' by Jesus. Slowly- naked save for a little cross of gold around her neck- she rejoins the land of the living, an 'angel beneath the sheets'. The detailed character description then describes Faith, still naked, as having a pretty long conversation with a nameless rock star, before she "gets him to cum, he writes a song and then she gets out of bed. Naked and beautiful. Walking inspiration." The musician watches her, hypnotized by Faith's 'intoxicating combination of sunshine and sin'. Unsurprisingly, given the character and the show, the role requires both tasteful nudity and simulated sex.

It should be noted again, in the interest of balance, that introducing a recurring character on a show with the intention to possibly spin them off into a new series is not as definitive as a traditional planted spinoff. For instance, the producers of Fox’s House explored the idea of a spinoff starring Michael Weston’s recurring PI character on the medical drama but ultimately opted against it.

Californication season six will debut in early 2013 on Showtime.
Read more on this article...
 

Copyright 2007 ID Media Inc, All Right Reserved. Crafted by Nurudin Jauhari