One of my favorite, if not my favorite movie genre is the romantic-comedy or dramady. I just love a good love story, especially one that has some depth and has well developed characters—interesting characters with lives and issues outside of the will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together hook. A movie that does that well is “Love and Basketball.” This movie wasn’t just about the main characters’ relationship, it also proffered the question of how Monica fit that relationship into her overall goals for her life.
But let’s face it, a huge reason a lot of people watch romantic comedies is for the sex scenes. I remember when “Sex and the City,” which is basically a romantic dramady in TV show form, ended and was going into syndication on TBS. Many women were in an uproar that they would be taking the “sex” out of “the city” to air it on that basic cable channel. Now the “cleaned-up” version airs on E! and it’s no big deal that nudity revealing sex scenes and even some cuss words have been taken out. Come to think of it, there’s probably a whole generation or two of women who’ve only seen the basic cable version of the show.
I started watching the show on HBO, but I didn’t always have that channel, so I watched the majority of it on TBS when I lived in Atlanta. Although I didn’t have cable while I lived there, basic or otherwise, TBS was free and available with an antenna, so I watched it. Even though I came to enjoy the TBS version better than the HBO version, for a show titled “Sex and the City,” there wasn’t as much sex as one may think. As a matter of fact, there were quite a few episodes with no sex at all like my current favorite “A Woman’s Right to Shoes,” which is about old friends from school whose lives went on different paths once they grew up: one took a more traditional route and became a wife and a mother, and the other the main character Carrie, is single and childless. Tension arises when Carrie goes to a party at the mom friend’s house and her shoes that she was made to take off upon entering, came up missing. There’s more to the story, but I don’t have time to try and come up with a way to describe it succinctly. But the point is, this was a sexless episode…or so I think, it’s been a minute since I’ve seen it.
Still, as a Christian, it raises questions about whether or not a show like this is appropriate viewing. For me the answer isn’t so clear cut. I think it would depend on the person…Or, maybe I’m just saying that because I love the show so much and I want an excuse to watch it. In general, however, I would say it’s probably not the best show for a Christian to consume. When I think about the lifestyle that God calls us to in the Bible, there are themes in that show that just don’t align.
In every rom-com I write there are no sex scenes and no nudity. If I would ever be so blessed to have a movie I’ve written playing in the theatres, my goal in telling the story is not to get people sexually aroused. We don’t need to see people simulating the act to know that it happened. Furthermore, I don’t want actors having to be naked to get a part. I believe it was Charlize Theron who once said in an interview that she doesn’t do nudity because she’s never seen an instance in a movie when it was necessary. I totally agree. You can tell the story just fine without it. That’s not to say I won’t tackle the themes of sex and even promiscuity, it just means that sex outside of how I believe God intended it to be (within marriage) won’t be glorified.
Now if you read my movie scenes I love post on “Boomerang” you may be saying wait a minute, weren’t you just touting Robin Givens character Jacqueline in that post? And yes, yes I was. But the thing is, I find that character fascinating and even admirable not because of her promiscuity or casualness with sex, but because of the anomaly that she is in cinema (at least the cinema that I’ve seen). For the deviation that she is from the typical woman you see in the movies or in real life for that matter. You usually have the woman crying over a man, wanting a man that doesn’t want her, wanting a man that doesn’t treat her right, brokenhearted to the point it’s effecting the quality of her life. I guess I admired the fact that she defied that stereotype. In defying that stereotype she defies the societal socialization of women in general.
The interesting thing to me about a character like that is what had to happen to her for her to be that way. That is something I explore a bit in one of the movie scripts I’ve written. But to be clear, I don’t think that Jacqueline’s lifestyle is healthy for a woman or a man. Yet at the same time I don’t want to be judgmental about it either. You can disagree with something, and even think something is wrong, without making a judgement on the person themselves. Basically, I’m not out here trying to condemn nobody to hell. I just know that I won’t be there. I remember Creflo Dollar once said when you get to Heaven you’re going to look around and be surprised and some of the people that’s there and surprised at some of the people that’s not there. Nobody knows anyone else’s relationship with the Lord. But as for me and my writing, you ain’t gon find no nudity, no sex scenes.
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