This Brit actress said this:

[Desiremakesmeweak]

"I must admit I was a bit discomforted about being a sex object, because... although I did all the sexy look scenes and sexy look shots, I never DELIVERED... sex... in any of the productions. Which I consider, a shortcoming, really."

Okay, well I'm not going to say which actress this was, but she was and is a major icon and probably, well, CERTAINLY in fact, an icon of British sex symbols.

I only just saw and focused on this interview which was from a while ago, recently, but the cold irony of what she was saying is amazing and I think flew over the head of the interviewer which I don't criticise him for; it made me spin my head around two or three times at least before I was sure I was hearing it right.

And this actress certainly rose a few million miles from an already elevated position in my estimation - from the perspective of someone like me, at any rate, someone who releases ultra x-rated adult erotic fiction on Literotica. I found it a sophisticated point of view, to come from a mainstream actress, especially from such a very high quality mainstream actress. I think she really elevated sex and sexuality to a position of real meaningfulness as far as adult art is concerned. I think she treated it as seriously as its horizons of possibility mean for it to be treated and she laid down a huge challenge to writers and producers and directors.

 

[stickygirl]

It might help us to know who this is, although the same words could have been used by any number of actresses - and actors. Their discomfort has originated in the film studio offices where decisions are made for what sells, what passes the censor and so makes money. There have been plenty of worth while art films that were never made because investors need to make a profit.

It is the reason why big name actors will accept roles in low budget films because they want to do it and are not so interested in big bucks. The music industry is another area, but happily it is easier for musicians to promote themselves cheaply.

They would of course be crucified by the media for 'delivering sex' and could probably write off the rest of their career... the media is after all so good at looking after our morals for us

 

[njlauren]

It is interesting, there is a fundamental dilemma out there with sex and it hits both 'real' movies and porn.

While 'real' movies with plots and such, have moved boundaries from the days when bedrooms had to have 2 beds for a married couple and so forth, sex in a movie gets it an NC17 or worse fairly easily, while uber violence often is a pg-13. The idea of having real sex in a movie or even the kind of simulated sex they have on Showtime and such (i.e no penetration shows), is basically off limits, afraid of the puritans and religious right types and their government allies.

Meanwhile, we have porn movies, that quite frankly, even the best of them are not great movies in of themselves. I have been searching for porn that actually seems more real, like a movie, and even the best of it quite frankly isn't so hot, as porn, let alone being a movie. People complain about this, women especially say that the porn out there is animalistic sex aimed at men wanking off, so there is a market.

It seems to me if you could have a movie with real actors and plots and such, you could end up with something that pleases both. Yeah, it won't pass muster with the bible belt crowds who want to return to Ozzie and Harriet, but it seems to me like a movie as the actress described would be a crossover, that could get it both for being a movie and for the sex scenes that a couple could enjoy to spice up their sex life. There are a lot of actresses I would love to see in a real sex scene, starting from Angelina Jolie and ending with Helen Mirren

 

[sterculius]

Sounds like Helen Mirren.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Diana Rigg.

 

[sterculius]

Diana Rigg.

YES!! I loved Mrs. Emma Peel in "The Avengers"! Very hot!

 

[greystardust]

What an extremely sexual comment, so honest, so revealing - stops one in his tracks. I've searched it unsuccessfully desire, and I can't see the harm in you posting who it was. In fact I think it would be a compliment to her, please do.

Without knowing the identity (can;t be Mirren because she has produced, could it be Elizabeth Hurley?) or the context, the quote alone suggests such a powerful sexuality, that she wants, for the sake of sex as much as for the sake of art (is there a difference in this case) to liberate herself for her admirers.

She gets a 10.

Nice one desire

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

It's in the middle of the interview with BBC4's Mark Lawson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOWbGZjp04o

...And that should be the link there.

 

[greystardust]

Thanks for that desire

Thanks desire.

Her comment/observation, although subtle, was shared in a frank and simple way, almost unwittingly.

She also made an astute observation about feminism, its roots and its avenues. Within ourselves we are free, the only fetter (for feminists) is economic, and in my profession we were equal to men already...

On the broader issue of film, art and pornography, and the divide between the former and the latter, there are perhaps some exceptions. Romance was a 1999 movie in which Rocco Sifredi (award winning porn star) played a dramatic and sexual role comfortably. Below is an excerpt of interest from here http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Romance

The film was one of the first mainstream (as in non-pornographic) films to feature unsimulated sex. It includes Rocco fitting a condom over his penis, blowjobs, handjobs, bondage, masturbation and a childbirth scene. It can therefore be considered one of the pioneers of the Euroshlock resurgence in the 2000s. Critical reception was mixed. Some accused it of being boring and pretentious, some decried the graphic sexual content

Then also Helen Mirren as described in wiki:
while as the blonde hooker in Some Kind of Love Story she was "clad in a Freudian slip and shifting easily from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression, giving the role a breathy Monroesque quality" (Michael Billington, The Guardian)

And also there was a french movie entitled, "Baise moi" which involved explicit sex and explicit violence.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Thanks right back GSD.

It appeared, as you say, almost unwittingly spoken, but that was if anything, part of the very charm of it. As I said I had to watch the interview two or three times to really see whether she meant what she was saying and there is no question in my mind that the sincerity of an artist's - in this case an actor or actress's - work and the proposition that adult sexuality was an horizon still not fully or properly expressed on the stage or in film, was something she very truly meant to say.

What she said has had me thinking...

In terms of any story in the future that I might be working away at...

There has always been 'sex' in movies but when people talk about exploitative film and the way certain directors use younger women in sexual roles, over the long run the whole thing has served to draw attention and effort away from creating stories and roles and mechanisms that are appropriate for older, truly life-knowledgeable and mature-minded female film and stage people.

Almost every Hollywood movie that I can think of where there were roles along these lines the characters were hookers or troubled or psychologically questionable or in the day 'socially and sexually immoral.' That is not necessarily the same thing as creating a role that expresses adult sexuality - again it appeals to an exploitative and lurid motif.

I want to do something different from all of these.

Why should adult sexuality always be about 'a flawed thing?'

 

[greystardust]

well it's certainly a challenge

a real gem that, desire.

and worth exploring.

but, i suggest, not something that can be worked on, so much as stumbled upon - albeit through the exploitation of one's experience and gritty determination. (the smartest things i've ever said have not been intentional, and only become known to me when pointed out by a friend.)