Je Ĵaŭdo 22 Majo 2003 09:24, Jimmy Wales skribis:
Kurt Jansson wrote:
BTW, is it just prudery that I seldom see nudity in american movies, or are there laws against it? If so, this might become a similar problem.
America is the porn capital of the world, so I'm not sure what kind of movies you're watching. Other than broadcast television and radio, which are censored through the means of licensing, there are basically no restrictions on nudity in movies in the United States.
The movie ratings system in the United States is a voluntary self-censorship regime managed by the industry itself. Nudity tends to be limited in general-release films (as opposed to porn ;) because we're also a country of prudes and puritans.
Nudity generally leads to an "R" (restricted) rating or higher, which severely limits the audience: most theaters and rental outlets, following the voluntary rating system, won't allow underage kids to see those films without adult supervision. Some outlets may not show R-rated films *at all,* particularly in small towns. Since the most profitable segment of the movie-going audience is teenage boys, an R-rated movie is less profitable than a film that can get a lower rating and receive a bigger share of the teen audience. So, the industry tends to favor films that don't quite hit the R.
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPAA_film_rating_system for more details on the ratings system and its history.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)