Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it • Hacker News Board

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#241

Post by uberduper » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #52

Tiny point: "It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie restriction." I'm 6' and I've weighted 135-145 pounds for my entire adult life and I'm 50+. Being a guy, I never restricted my calorie intake. I'd expect there are women with a similar metabolism. Which isn't to say that a lot of skinny celebrities aren't dieting like mad to get this look. But probably some percentage aren't and the rest hate th…

I think people greatly overestimate how much effort is required to have a fit/muscular body type. 3 to 5 hours a week of good intensity weight training goes a really long way.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#242

Post by fisherjeff » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

Wow, did not see the McMansion Hell tie-in coming but my god it’s perfect. I will always be amazed when someone is able to bring such superficially (heh) unrelated topics together so cogently.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#243

Post by viraptor » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

brushfoot wrote: post #16

There are interesting ideas here. Personally, I find the War on Terror explanation a little far fetched. I think a more likely possibility is that movies started specializing. In the decades before the Internet, cinema was one place where the average person who didn't buy dirty magazines could glimpse more skin than in everyday life. Then the Internet came along. Suddenly pornography was in everyone's home. Soon it w…

> Sexual desire became something you could very easily take care of, to your exact specifications, in private.

That's a very shallow view. It as much takes care of your sexual desires as fries takes care of your daily nutrition. It's great if you have no real food available and can be a fun snack if you're still hungry.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#244

Post by conception » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:10 AM UTC

Watched Top Gun last night and was floored by this. Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis certainly were heartthrobs of the day, and not unattractive by any normal measure, but it was shocking how... “normal” they looked compared to today’s casts. Cruise with a unibrow and those teeth? Never.

It’s tremendously sad how this frog in boiling water came to be.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#245

Post by camjohnson26 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #134

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #81

Interesting essay. As a fan of cinema, I've noticed that there is a clinical deadness lately when it comes to representing real people. I don't agree with the conclusions of the essayist, but there's something there. Verisimilitude is gone. Real people are gone. In their place, there's a clinical, sterile plastic automaton put together by marketing departments. Even when there's nudity and sexuality, it feels like a…

Can you give examples of really good films of the past/recent past?

Some of my favorites from pre 2000 are Amadeus, Paths of Glory, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Gattaca, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, Trainspotting, The Elephant Man, and The Night of the Hunter

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#246

Post by throway98752343 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

> [Julia] was a bold-looking girl, of about twenty-seven, with thick hair, a freckled face, and swift, athletic movements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips. Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her.

> Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.

1984, George Orwell, 1949

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#247

Post by Ekaros » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

ziml77 wrote: post #154

toomuchtodo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poorly constructed economies predicated on ever increasing growth have no business existing. Economies will adapt (and should! it just means more economic drag to provide for seniors until the larger, older cohort has aged out and equilibrium at a lower population level has been reached).

It's disturbing to me that people think population must keep growing. If anything the world could stand to LOSE a significant portion of the population. Resources would be far less strained. If we built our economies on the expectation of continued population growth, then that just means there was a MASSIVE lack of forethought. But that doesn't mean the solution is to start pumping out more kids. Instead we adapt how…

Specially when it's clearly not true. Just look at population not in work in western countries, even outside the current pandemic situation. If we really needed more people wouldn't we have near full employment? Economy will adapt to less demand, though there will be likely pains, but money is just numbers anyway...

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#248

Post by tayo42 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #216

tayo42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of me wants to put the blame on the female side for the reduction of sex. Mostly because girls will be slut shamed for doing anything sexual. So girls hold it back. You can't blame them for being conservative in the society we live in. Stop telling the female half of the population that they need to be innocent virgins,sex is normal. The other excuses don't really resonate with me. Roommates? We were having plen…

This makes no sense because women today are more sexually free than they have ever been. In absolute terms women are still often slut shamed, but it's still less than in the past.

How far back does this millenials have less sex thing compare too? Today's women that grew up in the 90s yeah probably is more free then one from 50s and earlier. But compared to the 70s? I don't think it's farfetched to guess that society's feelings towards women sexuality have regressed since the sexual revolution of the 70s. Paris Hilton having a sex tape coming out was a huge deal, that's what millennial girls grew up with.

I don't mean to suggest that this is the only reason, I just think it contributes.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#249

Post by Izkata » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #81

Interesting essay. As a fan of cinema, I've noticed that there is a clinical deadness lately when it comes to representing real people. I don't agree with the conclusions of the essayist, but there's something there. Verisimilitude is gone. Real people are gone. In their place, there's a clinical, sterile plastic automaton put together by marketing departments. Even when there's nudity and sexuality, it feels like a…

> As a fan of cinema, I've noticed that there is a clinical deadness lately when it comes to representing real people.

> I don't agree with the conclusions of the essayist, but there's something there. Verisimilitude is gone. Real people are gone. In their place, there's a clinical, sterile plastic automaton put together by marketing departments. Even when there's nudity and sexuality, it feels like a paint-by-the-numbers thing and not storytelling.

Last year I got ahold of The Munsters, the black-and-white TV show from the 1960s, and noticed something odd one day when I watched an episode back-to-back with a modern unrelated show: What you describe with people also applies to props. In the Munsters' dinner scenes, the whole set - including the food - was significantly more interactive than anything modern I've seen possibly ever. It made the modern shows rather suddenly feel much more fake than I was used to.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#250

Post by fractionalhare » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #158

fractionalhare wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet there's a cottage industry of porn that specializes in serving you that kind of experience. Even if it's just packaged from existing movies and more "softcore" or something. Porn isn't gourmet or not gourmet, it can be whatever you want it to be. And if there's enough demand (and it's legal), people will make specialized porn to serve it.

Porn isn't gourmet or not gourmet, it can be whatever you want it to be. It seems like you're using something like the efficient market hypothesis without looking at the evidence. I'm not a huge porn consumer but I've seen enough and know enough of the industry to say you're basically wrong, at least wrong as far as any "cottage industry" for porn with decent production values, acting or "sincerity" goes. The key thi…

> But hey, prove me wrong. I'd love to see a counter example.

Based on another commenter's suggestion that you basically want "sex in movies that aren't about sex", it only took me a few minutes of googling to find sites which seem relevant to your interests:

- r/watchitfortheplot

- mrskin.com

It seems like you want porn which feels more organic and authentic than stereotypical porn. Sure the material in these sites wasn't expressly made to be porn, but it is porn in the way its packaged by these sites and subsequently used. And it's probably better that way, because it gets you what you're looking for in this case.