Please feel free to move this if it’s in the wrong place.
As the title says, is acting in theater/film prostitution? This is something that has bothered me for some time. A while back there was some protests when Transformer actress Megan Fox stated “When you think about it we actors are kind of prostitutes, we get paid to feign attraction and love. Other people are paying to watch us kissing someone, touching someone, doing things people in a normal monogamous relationship would never do with anyone who’s not their partner." But in what way was she wrong in making the comparison? is there a difference between sharing a strangers bed for money and sharing/exploiting intimate emotions and human moments with multiple strangers for money? Historically and, still in many places around the world, it seems the actor/cirkusperformer/singer/dancer has been a sort of pariah because of his/hers profession. Is the actors job immoral? If not, why?
Related thoughts are: Do we commodify and exploit human emotions in movies (and indeed in all arts)? And do we inevitably end up commodifying the people on screen, the actors/actresses?
Input GREATLY appreciated, since this bothers me like hell!
Acting is only prostitution if you’re acting like you’re having sex for money.
Seriously, what’s important is why prostitution is prohibited (where it’s prohibited). If you could make an argument that Megan Fox (for example) is exploited the way an unemployed woman picked up by a pimp is exploited, you might be on to something. The general idea is that it’s better to take away prostitution as an option rather than have some of the poor feel compelled to participate. I think making that comparison to acting is kind of, well, stupid. But then, it is Megan Fox we’re talking about.
The porn industry is what you really want to look at. The difference between that and prostitution back in the professional porn-star days really was minuscule. Now with the internet, so much of it is amateur or user-submitted content that even that may soon be a moot point. Or, maybe we’re all pimps now.
Alfred Hitchcock supposedly said, “Actors are cows.” Neither he nor Megan Fox are correct. Acting, at least theatrical acting with which I’m familiar, is a very demanding craft in which the actor must project a believable character to a widely disparate audience while, at the same time, keeping a grip on the reality of himself. It’s said that Lee J. Cobb left Death of a Salesman after less than 50 performances because of the mental stress playing the part of Willie Loman put on him.
Screen actors face a different problem. A movie isn’t shot in sequence and it’s a much ‘closer’ medium than the stage, so the actor relies on facial expression, vocal quality and physical tension (in a dramatic role)–not to mention sex appeal, charisma and the ‘chemistry’ between the film characters. Some of this is enhanced by camera angles, lighting and background music. That doesn’t make it any less demanding than theatre, however. It’s just a different sort of demanding.
Historically, women’s roles were played by boys and/or young men, mainly because of the life style of the theatre at the time. Later on, in the 19th century in particular, female actors were castigated because of the life style and the costumes. And a lot of them were ‘loose women’–not really prostitutes but not really the ‘chaste but chased’ heroine, either.
In a way, your question brings up a similar one to me. Doesn’t every one who trades his time in any job for money prostitute his/herself? Aren’t there times when they have to ‘pretend’ they’re enjoying with they’re doing even when there’s negative ‘chemistry’ between them and their boss or another co-worker? The thing is, it’s a job. If it’s too difficult to do for personal reasons, get out of it.
That’s not why prostitution is prohibited, at all. If it were a case of protecting an employee from exploitation, labour laws would serve to protect the prostitute (as they do in Holland, for example, where registered prostitutes get health checks, have a union, and so forth). Young boxers aren’t protected from physical exploitation by unscrupulous managers by banning boxing, Victorian England didn’t ban millworking because so many children were terribly exploited - they just tightened up labour laws.
Exploitative practices are regulated, not banned; the only argument for banning is if everyone in the industry is exploited, by the nature of the work - that no-one voluntarily chooses it as an option - as in slavery. This is plainly not the case with prostitution, besides the human trafficking aspect which is illegal regardless of whether the victim is forced into prostitution or other bonded labour. Prostitution is prohibited because of cultural morality, plain and simple.
As for acting being prostitution? No more than being a storyteller is being a pornographer. Stories, myths, legends are all integral and vital components of a society’s identity, and for the media of theatre and film, actors are needed. I think Ms Fox needs to work on her dissertation a little.
That’s because millworking and boxing aren’t considered inherently exploitative professions in this country. The idea is that a man being ‘forced’ into boxing because he’s poor is not being exploited, and a woman being ‘forced’ into the sex industry because she’s poor is- which is in turn grounded in our cultural attitudes towards sex and violence. Attitudes which aren’t likely to change, by the way, as long as states are required to maintain standing armies in order to survive.
Precisely so. That’s how prostitution is taken to be.
Why is that plain? There’s a whole un-discussed underbelly of slaves who were more than content as slaves, so you can’t base it on choice.
Cultural morality is the reason why prostitution is considered exploitative, yes. For that matter, that’s the reason why slavery is considered exploitative, too. It’s not as though some scientist or mathematician in the 19th Century made some fascinating discovery about slaves that settled the matter, you know. People talk like ‘cultural morality’ is something we should do away with, but it’s not that simple. If prostitution became just another job in this country, then a woman could be denied unemployment benefits for refusing to work in a brothel. I’m sure the vast majority of prostitutes in the United States don’t want to do it. Now- I’m ALSO sure that the vast majority of assembly line workers and ditch diggers and short order cooks don’t want to do that, either. But there’s a lot of ramifications for deciding they are equivalent.
I’m not saying cultural morality should be done away with, at all - I’m all in favour of it. But it does change; the role of women in society today is (at least here in Europe ) very different to how it was 100 years ago, as is the way sex is viewed. And morality as a whole, in fact. Hence the view in Holland that legalising it was a better way to protect the women involved in it. There is still an illegal prostitution industry, though; mostly on the human trafficking side of things. But that is covered by labour and immigration laws, rather than making the act of selling sex illegal.
As for being forced to work as a prostitute - well, if it wasn’t seen as something culturally wrong, there’s no problem, right? But I don’t believe that anyone can be forced into any job regardless of the risks or a possible clash with their morals. Could a muslim be forced to work in a pork butcher’s? Can your benefits be stopped if you refuse to join the fire brigade?
Right. As long as what you believe the only danger to women is disease and unfair wages, and not the moral degradation of being whores, there’s no problem! But simply observing that cultural norms change doesn’t leave us with any grounds to call those changes progress-not even the examples you cited of slavery and women’s rights. I’m glad to hear you like the present in Holland better than the past…but it ALMOST at times sounds like you’re comparing cultural standards to some unchangeable moral absolute and making a judgment.
I don’t know, is there?
“Anyone?” I guess we’re talking about a bunch of different countries in a bunch of different economic situations. I suspect the answer to this would depend on how much money a given Government has to dump into feeding and housing people that are refusing to work (for one reason or another), and what the unemployment rates are. If, in fact, the present state of affairs is that a woman can’t be forced to take a job in a brothel, I see no reason why that state of affairs would be guaranteed in this economy. If you’re refusing to work at a brothel, and party line is that selling sex is no different than selling tomatoes, where’s the grounding for legislating a difference other than echos of stigma?
Yeah, prostitution implies sexual intercourse for money, so I wouldn’t categorize an actor as such unless [s]he were acting in a particular type of film.
I think a better metaphor would be more along the lines of an exotic dancer, or stripper. However, in that sense, I think we are all ‘dancers’ in some respect, regardless of profession. The only difference is in which marionette pulls your strings.
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) very different to how it was 100 years ago, as is the way sex is viewed. And morality as a whole, in fact. Hence the view in Holland that legalising it was a better way to protect the women involved in it. There