Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sex Doesn't Sell


Euro Phone Sex Channel
Originally uploaded by chuck_heston
It's The Crappy Shows Stupid.

We are in a period of public puritanism but private sinfulness.” By private sinfulness Kaplan meant the voracious American consumption of pornography, typically on the internet.


Oh Great. Now its not going to be stealing copy written material anymore. It will be how do networks compete with online porn.

The most controversial of the new cable series coming America’s way in the autumn will be HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me. The show is about four couples, ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties, who are all seeing the same psychotherapist. Critics who have seen previews are calling it the most sexually explicit drama ever shown in America. According to the startled TV critic for Time magazine: “The sex scenes are so graphic – organs, angles, fluids – that it’s led some viewers to wonder if the actors are, in fact, doing the deed on screen.” The series features a number of well-known television and theatre actors, including 67-year-old Jane Alexander, who is shown naked and having sex with her TV husband.

But do the actors in Tell Me You Love Me really “do it”? Although HBO and the producers have deliberately left the matter unresolved, no doubt in the hope of attracting prurient viewers, Michelle Borth, who plays Jaime in the show, insists: “We are not porn stars. Our job in any scene is to do it authentically. The sex scenes in any of the episodes are a pretty integral part of the story line.” Intriguingly, perhaps as a sop to conservative critics, all the characters are married or in committed relationships and do not have sex outside those boundaries.

HBO is, disingenuously, claiming to be surprised that critics have focused on the show’s sexual content. “The decision we made wasn’t to push the envelope, but to be honest about the language of intimacy,” says the network’s Carolyn Strauss


How about something where people are naked and aren't dead. Or in emotional distress. I wish they go get some those naked people shows from Europe.

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