Case Studies
THE CASE OF THE NAKED ACTRESS
Lion’s Den Situation:
I’m a scriptwriter, and very new to Hollywood. After helping with a couple of smaller jobs, I got the break I’ve been hoping for: a movie for TV. It’s a great project, the perfect opportunity to get established. Everything was going okay until the third production meeting. Then the producers said we need to "get the lead actress naked." It doesn’t fit the story or the characters, and I don’t want to compromise my faith. Do I drop the job and risk not getting called again, or write it and hope for better projects in the future?
— N.F., Hollywood, CA
Christian Solution:
Our first response comes from Rob Loos, a television writer/producer in Studio City, CA who has developed and written programs for major networks and syndication. He has also co-produced the best-selling children’s love action/animation series, McGee and Me!
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to your question, because the rules in Hollywood are constantly changing—which is part of the challenge for the industry-involved Christian. If, for example, the screenwriter had "clout" he would stand a much better shot at simply telling the ratings-driven producer "no." But since our neophyte is still scrambling to get network-approved, should he throw a wrench in his budding career?
The producer in your question obviously believes that the script is "soft" (another word for "weak") in an area that typically brings in ratings, i.e. sex. On television "sex" is more like a need to add more "heat" (another word for "excitement") to the project. The smart young writer will then make the obvious connection that there may be other ways to add "heat" rather than just adding a sexy scene. And that’s what he’s got to do: find a way to make a plot more exciting to the producer (and ultimately the viewer) without having to rely on the same old bedroom scene we’ve all watched a thousand times in TV movies. The creative writer will come up with something that will add the needed zest, without having to do something as "predictable" as a bedroom scene.
(Do you follow the logic here?) No forward thinking TV producer wants to be caught doing "the predictable." Ugh! Ever since the avant garde look of "Twin Peaks" invaded our sets in 1990, its’s been verboten to even mention the word "predictable" in the presence of a network executive! So our smart young screenwriter uses that to his advantage and comes up with an exciting scene that isn’t the same old thing.)
By working with the producer to solve the problem, our young writer won’t be thought of as a trouble-maker, but as a problem-solver...and producers like those kinds of writers.
Creativity is a valued commodity here in Televisionland. If you can learn the craft of writing (note: you do need to learn what it takes to be a good writer), then you will have a powerful tool to handle even the most problematic questions that you’ll face with creative solutions.
Our next response comes form Bruce Campbell, who produced the feature film, Knowing Lisa, and lives and works in New York City.
Be as creative in your solution of the dilemma as you hope you are in your writing!
You could write them a great sex scene. Christians have lots of things to say about sex, and they’re much more interesting than all the cliches TV piles on. Cliches like, only truly attractive people make love, or sex is an unmixed pleasure and never complicated.
But artists are smarter than to believe that to depict sexuality is merely to show physical, fleshy love-making. That’s a dim, unintelligent understanding. Sex activity in the narrative arts serves the same purpose as cooking, bathing, or murder: it is a symbolic act.
The best scene will exploit neither actor and explicate both characters. Those are find achievements.
I think farce and burlesque are time-honored, handy, and aesthetically healthy ways of depicting sexual relations, too. Instead of being aroused, we laugh at our foibles and expectations. Another fine achievement.
In either case, become a student of the depiction of human sexuality in the arts before you write off this opportunity you have as a carnal trap. Live up to your calling. Engage. Stay, don’t flee.
Or you could not write them a sex scene. Maybe you think that the production circumstances will not ensure that your intended imagery would survive, that the results might abuse both the audience and the talent.
In that case, please breathe some air into your assessment of the situation, and let some basic principles of guidance apply. You presume it’s a golden opportunity. If you don’t like writing meaningful sex scenes—if it’s not part of your literary palette—and you are pursuing what you believe to be a calling, then it would be an offense to yourself to proceed. Back away from the plate. Undoubtedly, God has some other path prepared and waiting for you. God is always larger than your assessment of the situation. Lighten up.
In our cultural shortsightedness, we artists in the church cynically believe that worldly success means compromise, and that if we were on God’s true path, there wouldn’t be a challenge in it. Don’t buy it. God’s true path is a tumble, and the waiting world needs us, expects us—and will pay us—to be the very best we can be.
In The Lions Den, Marketplace Networks, Fall 1990, pages 4, 5
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