Spring Break
Lights, Camera, NC-17: The evolution of sexy movies
Doug T. Graham/Verge Reporter
Issue date: 2/20/09 Section: The Verge
Gratuitous sex, full frontal nudity and Olympic caliber sexual performances do not make a sexy movie, according to Entertainment Weekly and their "50 Sexiest Movies Ever" list.
For the top spot they chose "Out of Sight" (1998) starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, which contains none of the nudity and explicit content that some would associate with a sexy movie.
Other notable non-nude films earning high marks were the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt 2005 flick "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and 1992's "The Last of the Mohicans".
Two of the movies, "Bull Durham" (1988) and "A Walk on the Moon" (1999) are branded with "brief nudity," less than five seconds of exposure.
Only two movies in the top 10 of EW's sexiest movies list contain any amount of explicit sex. Both 1981's "Body Heat" and "Y tu mamá también" (2001) feature it, and of those only "Y tu mamá también" received any acknowledgement by the Academy. It received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, which was mildly controversial at the time given that the film was intentionally unrated because the studio heads feared to receive an NC-17.
Throughout the 81-year history of the Oscars there has been only one Best Picture winner with an X rating: 1969's "Midnight Cowboy."
Political science professor Kevin Anderson said that "Midnight Cowboy" was so shocking because it had a more realistic portrayal of sex than other movies of its time.
"If (the movie makers) have a couple kiss and then they fall on the bed and we fade to black, you could do that, but its been done a million times," he said. "In order to set yourself apart you have to make the scene longer and more graphic."
The film's X rating was a sign of the times, it contained only four instances of nudity and each of them for under five seconds and it was later re-released to theaters with an R rating, after it had won the Oscar.
In the '70s and '80s, porn distributors would self-assign the X rating on their products as a way to drive interest, some even going so far as to suggest triple the sexual content as other films with XXX. By 1990, the X rating had developed such close ties to the porn industry that the MPAA created the NC-17 rating, which was promptly trademarked so porn studios could not put it on their products without first consulting the MPAA.
An example of NC-17's failures would be what happened to "Saving Private Ryan." Anderson said that when "Saving Private Ryan" was first screened it was likely to get an NC-17 rating because of its graphic portrayal of real war conditions.
It was the first movie of its magnitude where scenes were cut specifically to avoid being branded with an NC-17 rating. The studio's decision to treat NC-17 as if it were box office poison soon became common practice in Hollywood and NC-17 has suffered because of it.
The X rating was not the first time the decisions of the pornography industry made an impact on mainstream film. In 2005, before Sony's Blu Ray format had beat out Toshiba's HD-DVD as the successor to DVD, the entire industry waited on porn for where they weighed in. Some porn studios had a problem with Blu Ray's quality, claiming it was too high and would reveal the blemishes and makeup of their performers that could be hidden in DVDs.
For the top spot they chose "Out of Sight" (1998) starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, which contains none of the nudity and explicit content that some would associate with a sexy movie.
Other notable non-nude films earning high marks were the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt 2005 flick "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and 1992's "The Last of the Mohicans".
Two of the movies, "Bull Durham" (1988) and "A Walk on the Moon" (1999) are branded with "brief nudity," less than five seconds of exposure.
Only two movies in the top 10 of EW's sexiest movies list contain any amount of explicit sex. Both 1981's "Body Heat" and "Y tu mamá también" (2001) feature it, and of those only "Y tu mamá también" received any acknowledgement by the Academy. It received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, which was mildly controversial at the time given that the film was intentionally unrated because the studio heads feared to receive an NC-17.
Throughout the 81-year history of the Oscars there has been only one Best Picture winner with an X rating: 1969's "Midnight Cowboy."
Political science professor Kevin Anderson said that "Midnight Cowboy" was so shocking because it had a more realistic portrayal of sex than other movies of its time.
"If (the movie makers) have a couple kiss and then they fall on the bed and we fade to black, you could do that, but its been done a million times," he said. "In order to set yourself apart you have to make the scene longer and more graphic."
The film's X rating was a sign of the times, it contained only four instances of nudity and each of them for under five seconds and it was later re-released to theaters with an R rating, after it had won the Oscar.
In the '70s and '80s, porn distributors would self-assign the X rating on their products as a way to drive interest, some even going so far as to suggest triple the sexual content as other films with XXX. By 1990, the X rating had developed such close ties to the porn industry that the MPAA created the NC-17 rating, which was promptly trademarked so porn studios could not put it on their products without first consulting the MPAA.
An example of NC-17's failures would be what happened to "Saving Private Ryan." Anderson said that when "Saving Private Ryan" was first screened it was likely to get an NC-17 rating because of its graphic portrayal of real war conditions.
It was the first movie of its magnitude where scenes were cut specifically to avoid being branded with an NC-17 rating. The studio's decision to treat NC-17 as if it were box office poison soon became common practice in Hollywood and NC-17 has suffered because of it.
The X rating was not the first time the decisions of the pornography industry made an impact on mainstream film. In 2005, before Sony's Blu Ray format had beat out Toshiba's HD-DVD as the successor to DVD, the entire industry waited on porn for where they weighed in. Some porn studios had a problem with Blu Ray's quality, claiming it was too high and would reveal the blemishes and makeup of their performers that could be hidden in DVDs.
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