Now, before I start on this, full disclosure: I don't watch TV, regular broadcast or cable. Life is too short. I do, however, pick up on some things from the BBC on Netflix (no, not just nature series). I've started watching London Spy, mostly because of Ben Whishaw; it's a fairly surreal series so far (two episodes), but one things that I noticed was a fairly explicit sex scene in the first episode between Whishaw and Edward Holcroft, who is perhaps one of the most beautiful men I've ever laid eyes on.
It struck me, thinking back to other BBC series I've watched, the the British have certainly shaken off the Victorian era, in their TV programming, at least. (One stand-out: Henry Cavill appears nude for a fairly lengthy scene in the first episode of The Tudors; there were also a couple of steamy scenes between John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd in Torchwood, which also included a fairly explicit gay sex scene in one episode.)
I've also seen clips of Mexican soap operas that included male full-frontal nudity.
I've never seen or heard of anything comparable on American TV, although as I pointed out, I'm not a watcher -- if it's not on Netflix, I probably haven't seen it.
But I have the disctinct impression that Americans are a bunch of prudes, at least as far as our mass media are concerned.
It struck me, thinking back to other BBC series I've watched, the the British have certainly shaken off the Victorian era, in their TV programming, at least. (One stand-out: Henry Cavill appears nude for a fairly lengthy scene in the first episode of The Tudors; there were also a couple of steamy scenes between John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd in Torchwood, which also included a fairly explicit gay sex scene in one episode.)
I've also seen clips of Mexican soap operas that included male full-frontal nudity.
I've never seen or heard of anything comparable on American TV, although as I pointed out, I'm not a watcher -- if it's not on Netflix, I probably haven't seen it.
But I have the disctinct impression that Americans are a bunch of prudes, at least as far as our mass media are concerned.
2 comments:
Thanks for pointing this out. I'd have missed it without your guidance. You're right both about the explicitness of the sex and, more importantly, the remarkable good looks of Edward Holcroft. It helps that the story is gripping and unpredictable, even though it did not end as I'd (admittedly unrealistically) hoped.
It could be worse, I guess, when you consider that countries like Indonesia and Malaysia are censoring movies just for having gay characters. Of course, at the rate we're going. . . .
(Footnote: About that explicit scene in Torchwood: It seems that Capt. Jack Harkness is a bottom.)
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