Mr. Skin’s Pseudo-Porn Debases Film Industry

I am sure that none of you visit websites like this, so let me tell you what “Mr. Skin” is. The website mrskin.com searches through movies to find scenes where celebrities are naked or just being “sexy.” While it is not officially categorized as a porn site it still has very inappropri­ate material on the site. If this sounds familiar, it is because Knocked Up used an idea very similar to this.

It has recently come to light that Mr. Skin does not do as much research as once thought. Recently, the site stated that many production companies actually told them about the scenes, and asked them to rate them on their website, advertis­ing their movies with their ac­tors’ sexuality. In an article in The New York Times, interviewer Andrew Newman wrote that “[T]he movie studios not only tolerate Mr. McBride but also court him by sending advance screeners of DVD releases.”

Honestly, I am not sur­prised about this discovery. Of course the production compa­nies would want their movie featured, and any publicity is good publicity, right? If they are able to feature their actor displaying his or her body on screen, it does not shame the publisher, just the actors, and who cares about their shame when you can make an extra buck?

That is not to say that I think that nudity should be banned from movies. I do not believe in censorship in any way, whether it is swearing or nudity or religious references. That is fine. But when you start featuring only the nudity, and discard the writing and artistic view, then you basically create a porno.

And that is what Mr. Skins is: a porn site. A site filled with nothing but naked celebrities, a couple of seconds’ worth of nudity in a film. Nothing about the story. Nothing about the ac­tor and his or her ability. Noth­ing about anything. Just tits and ass. People do not go to Mr. Skins to discover interest­ing sex scenes in good movies; they go to masturbate.

Is this what our society has become? A society that glorifies porn, and whose movies have become nothing but a vehicle to pedal the naked bodies of our elite? That is what it seems to me. Everywhere I look now I see movies with horrible writ­ing, bad acting and no merit making millions in the box of­fice because people want to go watch their favorite actor na­ked. It sickens me to see people who once required the pinna­cle of entertainment search­ing for pornographic images within a film. But hey, sex sells.

Or does it? Look at Star Wars, a movie that has lasted generations and graced the minds of millions. But it did not rely on sex to drive the audiences in (I am not count­ing Return of the Jedi). In fact, with the exception of Harrison Ford, none of the stars are even that attractive. Instead, story drove the film into our hearts. It has staying power. The mov­ies with nudity do not. You go watch the movie, then look up the sex scenes online the next day. Or you do not even go to see the movie and just watch the sex scenes.

Is this going to be our im­pact on cinema? Films based on sex? Story lines being pushed away for pointless sex? Until producers stop pushing the sex in a movie through things such as Mr. Skin, our film industry will continue to downgrade in quality. We will have fewer and fewer films to praise as time goes on. Our film culture will become so pathetic that mainstream films will ba­sically be soft-core porn Think about that the next time you open Mr. Skin on your Web Browsers.