Episode 463 - Sexposition is not a new thing
Jan 26, 2020
Sexpostion is sex plus exposition, it's exposition with sex on the screen. Tantz Aerine addressed the topic of sexposition in an article last year, but what we're doing here is talking about the reason it even exists, why it isn't a new trend, and why it probably won't last.
Topics and Show Notes
Basically, movies and TV shows always get more and more sex and nudity in them when broadcast standards are relaxed. Sex and nudity draw in viewers so they're always popular tools. Back in the 20s during the early days of Hollywood films had more sex and nudity, but then politics caught up with them, standards were introduced and that changed. This pattern has repeated over and over with every form of media delivery service and in every country (the introduction of video, porn films going mainstream in the 1970s, the rise of “art house” cinema, pay TV/cable TV etc).
The main reason for the current trend of sexy stuff in TV shows isn't a reflection of modern culture in general, rather it's because broadcast standards for streaming content are loose because they haven't caught up with it yet. The sex and nudity is there because they can get away with it, same as has always happened in the past when standards and the rest of culture hasn't yet caught up.
Some subjects we touch on are… a tangent into musicals, the sexposition heavy Australian TV sows Alvin Purple (1970s), Number 96 (1970s), Chances (1990s), Art house film directors like Almodovar and Fellini, and various brief mentions of modern TV that reintroduces the trend such as Deadwood, The Deuce, West world, The Witcher, and of course Game of Thrones.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to ACCIDENTALS: A gathering of titanic forces, powerful energies coalesce, let the epic battle commence. Dark times lie ahead for earth's mightiest heroes. This is an orchestral war anthem for superhumans! This theme would go perfectly over the opening credits of an A grade superhero film!
Topics and shownotes
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Links
Sexposition newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/dec/20/sexposition-do-not-google-that/
The third Wife (movie Tantz mentions) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7692966/
Transneptunian, a sexposition heavy comic by El Cid - (NSFW) https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/TransNeptunian/
Featured comic:
Shrouded RD - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/jan/21/featured-comic-shrouded-rd/
Featured music:
ACCIDENTALS - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/ACCIDENTALS/, by Boy Phaff, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Episode 451 - Fans who criticise are are good fans
Nov 4, 2019
“Toxic fans” is a bit of a catch cry now and that has seemed to turn into the idea that any fan who is critical of something or doesn't like it isn't a “true fan”, fans must should love everything. I find this a dangerously silly notion and one clearly driven by business interests with only a limited relationship to reality. It's quite similar to the idea that you're “either for us or against us”, the twisted idea of “patriotism” that says you must agree with and love everything your country and your leader does no matter what or you're a traitor.
Episode 450 - happy Halloween horror franchises
Oct 28, 2019
Tantz is dressed fabulously as a queen and I'm a skull faced monstrosity… I'm also wearing a costume, hahaha! Which you can see in our Patreon video ;) Queen Tantz Bathory and prince of horror Banes join me to talk about Horror movie franchises, what makes them work and what doesn't- as franchises rather than just a stand alone movie. The problems facing a movie series about horror are different from other genres and focus more on formula than just characters the way they do in most other types of film so it's an interesting discussion.
Episode 429 - Bad ends, not bad fans
Jun 2, 2019
This Quackcast was inspired by the fan reaction to Game of Thrones, a series that I haven't watched but Tantz and Banes have! Specifically it's about poorly written endings and gas-lighting fans rather than admitting to faults.
Episode 426 - Sidekicking
May 13, 2019
Inspired by Emma Clare's Friday newspost about supporting characters, today we're discussing sidekicks! Sidekicks are a useful character type that are used in so many different ways. They can be a specialised type of supporting character that are also a main character or they can be the main protagonist in some cases. In comics sidekicks came in during the early days as a way of giving juvenile readers their own insert character who they could identify with… Bucky Barnes, Jimmy Olsen, Robin etc. They had other functions like giving the hero someone to save, providing commentary, reaction and exposition. Later when that kind of sidekick fell out of favour they became superheroes in their own right.
Episode 425 - Pay-off or rip-off?
May 6, 2019
In this Quackcast we chat about set-ups. pay-offs, and rip-offs. To make your climaxes and endings more satisfying you have pay-offs for audience expectations: set them up in the story and pay them off at the end. If you fail to pay-off then you get a rip-off, it's pretty simple. Your audience will be really disappointed. That's not to say disappointing and unsatisfying ends to stories are wrong, not at all! Often those are fully intended. We're just talking about satisfying audiences, not “good” endings.
Episode 417 - Can we be better?
Mar 11, 2019
What is Social Marketing? Basically its word-of-mouth and viral marketing smashed together and weaponised: Marketing companies hijack hot-button social issues and hitch their client's brand to them in clever campaigns (“We can be better”, etc). The purpose isn't really to make a brand seem progressive, modern or new, rather it's another way of getting it trending on social media that's guaranteed to work, unlike the legion of hit or miss but mostly failed “Viral” campaigns. Whether people say negative or positive things about this issue is irrelevant to the marketer, as long as people are talking about the brand is all that matters. Free advertising is the goal, but it has a social cost.
Episode 403 - Eat yer serial!
Dec 2, 2018
This Quackcast was inspired by a newspost by Tantz. There seems to be this prevailing idea at the moment that serialised storytelling is better than episodic style stories. Tantz informs me that it's one of the many Twitterverse controversies! So let me explain what I mean here: Episodic story telling is when most of the story you're telling can be parcelled into the course of an episode: you can have a strong beginning, middle and satisfying conclusion in the course of your episode, whether that takes the form of a comic chapter, a page, a strip, or a half hour TV show. The Serial style has things stretching over multiple chapters or TV episodes. What we talk about in this Quackcast is that it's an utterly false dichotomy: You do not have to have either or, in fact most projects have elements of BOTH at the same time and it's a little foolish to think that one style could possibly be inherently superior to the other since they're just tools for telling a story. It is up to the creator to pick which one is right for their own work and the context in which it's going to be shown.
