NEWS/L'EDICOLA DI LOU - C'è troppo sesso nelle serie tv? "Variety" lancia il dubbio (e trova risposte)
Article by
Brian Lowry ("
Variety")
"Asked about the trend toward “reprehensible protagonists” — a la “
Breaking Bad’s” Walter White, “
Boardwalk Empire’s” Nucky Thompson or “
Dexter’s” serial killer — Showtime Entertainment chief
David Nevins offered a surprisingly frank answer.“It’s license,” he told reporters at the TV Critics Assn. tour in
July. “Pay cable, you take license. Your licenses are sex, violence and
bad behavior.”
Nevins omitted the other obvious one — salty language, and those few
words (thank you, George Carlin) that still can’t be uttered on most of
TV — but otherwise, he was right. There are several less-ostentatious
attributes that differentiate pay cable in particular and to some extent
basic’s raciest hours from broadcast TV, including the expanded running
time of episodes, and nonexistent (or diminished) advertiser scrutiny.
But it’s sex, for better or worse, that frequently generates headlines
or provokes controversy.
Granted, part of that may have to do with sex and nudity providing a
clearer point of distinction from less liberated alternatives, as
broadcast networks brave more explicit violence in programs like Fox’s
“
The Following” or NBC’s “
Hannibal.” By contrast, the U.S.’ perceived
puritanical streak relative to Europe has always made explorations of
sexuality dicier, unless of course the material is being wielded as a
sitcom punchline.
Another incentive to flaunt some skin may be that frontiers regarding
violence have been shoved, some would suggest, about as far as they can
go. After the “
Red Wedding” on “
Game of Thrones” or the artful blood
splatters of “
Spartacus” (which, to be fair, knew its way around a Roman
orgy, too), it’s less a question of topping what’s been done than
simply finding creative ways to push the same buttons.
Historically, violence seldom triggers the level of outrage from the
usual suspects that sexuality does. The exception would be when
entertainment collides with real-life events like last year’s horrific
Newtown school shooting, which inevitably produces fleeting
hand-wringing but little concrete action from the entertainment biz and
others about contributing to societal violence.
Chasing the boundaries of TV sex involves something of a moving
target; seldom does a season go by without some newcomer braving
uncharted territory, or at least finding a way to put old wine in a new
bottle. HBO’s “
Girls,”
certainly, has drawn attention with its blunt portrayal of awkward
sexual encounters among twentysomethings, including a sequence last
season in which a male character ejaculates on his new girlfriend after
she specifically asked that he not. (An HBO spokeswoman had to explain
to nosy media outlets that the sequence was “nothing more than a use of
props.”)
Showtime has tackled the topic head on with “
Masters of Sex,”
a just-launched dramatic look at the career of real-life sex
researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson. The nature of those
studies are depicted in graphic detail, with more nudity and simulated
orgasms than you can shake a stress-test-wired dildo at.
“It was an irresistible topic for a premium television series,” Nevins says.
License also helps account for why cable programs regularly push
sexual bounds even in shows where the situations may be less than
organic or central to the premise — precisely because sex is something
that can poke at overstimulated nerve endings and arouse a response.
This casual inclusion of sex and nudity — almost in a “because we
can” manner — hasn’t gone unnoticed. Los Angeles Times critic Mary
McNamara, for example, chided esteemed dramas like “
Game of Thrones” and
“
Boardwalk Empire” a few years ago for their habit of setting scenes in
brothels, deeming it a gratuitous practice for the sole purpose of
showing female flesh. “Maybe it’s time to tone down the tits,” she
wrote.
On the other hand, a series like Showtime’s “
Homeland” has featured
sexual encounters but also gone weeks at a time without them, the
fundamental matter of thwarting terrorism trumping such dalliances and
offering little time to pause for them. (The new season does include a
liaison involving the central character’s teenage daughter, another
provocative area.) And full-frontal male nudity is definitely a more
common sight in pay TV shows than it was just a few years ago.
Tellingly, some of these graphic depictions of sexuality are being
overseen by women, including “
Girls” creator
Lena Dunham and
Michelle
Ashford, the showrunner on “
Masters of Sex,” which is based on a book by
Thomas Maier.
Yet the fact that explorations of sexuality aren’t limited to a male perspective isn’t universally hailed as progress.
“I think women can objectify women just as easily as men can,
unfortunately,” says Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for
the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State U., who
has studied TV employment for women — both in front of and behind the
camera — since the late 1990s. “Quite a bit of (that objectification) is
coming from the indie film world and seeping over into television.”
Indie film, of course, continues to explore sexual themes. But the
license exercised in pay cable — closer to the feature arthouse than the
broadcast networks, certainly, but still a relatively mainstream medium
— comes at a time when studios frequently soften sex in major releases,
feeling the heat to avoid R ratings and thus expand the box office
potential of their major releases.
In addition, some critics point to a double standard at the ratings
board, saying sexual content is more likely to push a movie into a more
restrictive tier, whereas wholesale violence and mayhem can still earn a
PG-13 designation.
Dunham cut her teeth in independent film with her breakthrough movie
“Tiny Furniture” before bringing “
Girls” to TV. And while the show has
generated intense media scrutiny, it’s actual ratings remain relatively
small — offering a reminder that attempts to probe sexuality haven’t
always been met with open arms by viewers.
“
Tell Me You Love Me,” a 2007 drama that delved into the romantic
lives of various couples, is one of the rare HBO series that didn’t
survive into a second season. Creator Cynthia Mort opted not to do more
episodes after changes were sought when management shifted at the
network.
“It was a polarizing show,” Mort explains. “The honesty I needed to
portray sex, as it related to intimacy, made everyone uncomfortable.”
Mort adds that she still sees a troubling double standard in terms of
sex and violence, contending the way some shows incorporate sex simply
to feel “edgy” is akin to another form of violence. “I still find it
hard to believe,” she says. “Everything’s acceptable when it comes to
violence.”
For her part, Ashford described herself as “oddly sort of prudish”
about showing nudity on her new Showtime series, suggesting that the
underlying goal on “
Masters of Sex” was to approach the subject in an
honest, non-glamorized way, while acknowledging some of the baggage that
such a depiction entails.
“I found it very daunting because of the tropes that have built up
surrounding sex through all the years of watching movies and
television,” Ashford says, citing the sex scene in the movie “Don’t Look
Now” — considered shocking for its rawness 40 years ago — as a
touchstone.
“I decided no matter what we did, we had to have the story pulling
through every sex scene. … We don’t present a really glossy, idealized
version of sex, either.”
The expansion of outlets producing original programming for a premium
audience has only heightened both the pressure and opportunities to
deal in “various forms of transgression,” as Nevins puts it. In regard
to sex, they range from Starz’s “
Da Vinci’s Demons” and “
The White
Queen” (two bodice-ripping period pieces) to DirecTV’s “
Hit&Miss,”
which starred
Chloe Sevigny as a transgender assassin, equipped with a
prosthetic penis.
HBO, meanwhile, plans to shoot a pilot titled “
Open” co-written by
Ryan Murphy, who took basic-cable sex to the edge a decade ago with FX’s
“
Nip/Tuck.” An advance description from HBO has promised the new show
will offer a “provocative exploration of modern sexuality,” as filtered
through a handful of characters.
More frank and graphic sexuality can raise concerns for some actors,
and in the case of pay cable — which other than a proscription against
erect male genitalia, operates largely without clearly delineated
parameters — leaves producers to go by their gut instincts. It’s a long
way back to “
NYPD Blue,” when producer
Steven Bochco and then-ABC
Entertainment chief Robert Iger (now Disney’s CEO) found themselves
drawing naked people on a sketch pad, trying to determine how precisely
far their camera angles could venture.
“
Masters’ ” Ashford says the show has shied away from frontal male
nudity simply because it’s shown so rarely that to include it “feels
like it’s making a statement,” and thus risks taking viewers out of the
drama.
In terms of performers, Ashford notes that
Allison Janney, who plays a
recurring role as the provost’s unhappy wife, originally didn’t want to
do nudity — and even included contractual language to that effect, with
Ashford saying, “That’s fine; we’re not hiring you for that.” But later
she changed her mind, the producer says, because she knew it was not
salacious. “We try to be very respectful. You don’t want people to be
uncomfortable in any way. … I can’t imagine pushing nudity for its own
sake.”
Of course, the assumption that “sex sells” is by no means a slam
dunk. While Showtime went with the name “
Masters of Sex” in what Ashford
calls “an obvious ploy to get people in the door,” initial ratings on
Sept. 29 were modest (admittedly on a very tough night, with “Breaking
Bad” concluding its run), despite overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Although “
Masters of Sex” can boast a high degree of authenticity,
more-informed viewers may notice the conspicuous lack of physical
resemblance between star Michael Sheen and William Masters, who was bald
and not terribly attractive. Sheen contemplated shaving his head,
Ashford, notes, but the idea was quickly vetoed.
“We’re trying to do the real deal here,” she says, “but this is still television.”
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