Some Things Can Be Kept Private, And Some Things Shouldn't

One of those peculiar traits of media, at least in the United States, is how it seems to be more acceptable to show violence than sex or physical displays of affection. You can show someone being tortured or decapitated, but no naughty bits.

I think of it in regards to comics most often, probably because I read more people writing about comics than I do movies or TV, so I've seen more discussions of it in relation to superhero comics than anything else. Wolverine can kill fifty men on panel, just hacking his way through them, but intimate moments are off-panel, or obscured by shadows or convenient hair or whatever. And this isn't a post about wanting more fucking in comics or whatever. If it's appropriate to the story you're telling, then sure, go for it. Don't pull a Mark Millar and throw it in there just to be "mature". I was just thinking about the whys of it, in my typical lazy way (meaning I don't want to do any actual research). I know there's a Comics Code - although I'm not sure what companies are still paying it any mind - and movie ratings system and so on. But something informs the decisions on what's labeled as OK or not in those systems. Not to mention the ratings have grown more lax over time.

Meaning they might stipulate characters can't be seen to ultimately profit from criminal or immoral acts, meaning they have to get some sort of comeuppance by the end, and that's because they don't want people getting notions they might get away with criminal acts. Obviously people have been thinking they'd get away with criminal acts for as long as the idea of "criminal" acts have existed, because people having been trying to pull shit forever, so it's kind of a case of locking the barn after the horse ran off with your wallet, blew it all on drugs in the Big City, and ultimately died of an overdose in a slimy alley somewhere, but I can see the line of thought.

It seems like, with a show of affection - doesn't have to be sex, can be kissing, hugs, whatever - that's a personal thing between those people. Even if they're in public, it's still between them. You or I watching, we're being the voyeur. Maybe it's just me, but I'd feel awkward stopping and staring at two people kissing in a park or at a restaurant. It feels rude. Even with a story, where we're dealing with fictional characters and we're the audience, meaning the whole thing is being put on for us, it still feels intrusive. Maybe because you want the audience to care about the characters one way or the other, so that they at least seem like real people.

With violence, I think there needs to be a witness. Someone other than the people directly involved to know the whys of it. Whether someone is abusing power, or acting in defense of others. Because people, fictional or real, will justify their actions to themselves and others if there isn't anyone around to call them on it. Sometimes it's deliberate lying, other times they convince themselves what they're saying is really how it is. Granting that witnesses bring their own biases, that even with witnesses it may not change the final outcome, and that as an audience to a story we are completely powerless witnesses (we can call bullshit did it doesn't impact what happens within the story). Still, it's something that shouldn't be left in the shadows, where anything could happen and be buried or dismissed later.

I doubt anything like this went in to the thought processes of the people who control this stuff. It might only fit with my brain, though.