Basic Instict 2 Flops At Box Office; Director Blames (Wait for it...) George Bush

Dave gets off a good rant.

Quoting the Hollywood Reporter:

Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."

. . .

Scribe Nicholas Meyer, who was an uncredited writer on 1987's seminal sex-fueled cautionary tale "Fatal Attraction," agrees, noting that the genre's downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.

"We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"

Dave notes that it's not the government blocking these films from being made. They are being made. They're just not making money. Why?

Well, first of all, there are few truly "erotic" movies. Most non-porn movies that promise "erotic" content usually deliver very lame sexual posings that don't look anything like actual sex. When you have sex, do you vogue while doing it as if there's a still-photographer near your closet?

Besides that, non-porn depictions of sex aren't erotic unless they're done with skill and smarts, two commodities Hollywood seems to have less and less of.

And I've been wondering this since the first Basic Instinct-- if you want to see a dirty movie, why not just rent a porno? Why screw around with half-assed attempts at filmed sex? I think the first Basic Instinct only did well because porn still wasn't easily available in many parts of the country, and there was still a resistance to it. But by now it's pretty much mainstream -- most mom & pop video stores have a dirty-movie section in the back, which makes them the bulk of their profits -- and the Internet provides this sort of thing for free.

It's not that there's less sexual material in America now. It's that there's a hell of a lot more, and anyone who wants a dirty little thrill can get the real thing rather than watching a cheesy "erotic thriller" with a not-aging-terribly-well Sharon Stone.

posted by Ace at 05:26 PM

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