Mallery+K’s+2016+OpEd+Article

__**Scenes that Embarrass Teens**__ Sex. It’s a part of life, I know, but it’s meant to be a PRIVATE part of life, not displayed on the big screen. Today’s movies and T.V. shows reveal way too many explicit sex scenes.

I’m not trying to sound like some conservative mom, but in all honesty they are really not necessary and don’t add anything important to the film. I have never come out of a movie theater and said, “Ya know, I think that a sex scene would’ve really added to the storyline.” No one says that! Hollywood thinks that by putting those sexy scenes in movies and shows that it will entice the audience, but it just makes me turn away or fast forward. Then I have to go through the hassle of periodically checking the screen to see if I got past all of the awkwardness. It’s just annoying and completely unnecessary. If producers were to really think about it, sex scenes can only be put in movies rated R or worse and that narrows down the audience drastically.

Children are one of the movie industry's biggest audiences. Just look at how well kid’s movies do in the theaters! Disney’s Frozen made $1,274,234,980 in the worldwide box office and was the top selling movie of 2013. Disney wouldn’t be as successful as they are without their faithful audience: kids (and m e and all my friends). Kids have power and they have those cute little chubby faces that make their parents give into to goingand seeing a family friendly movie rather than just having a date night. It’s sad, but most parents don’t get to be alone much, and they’re not going to watch an R rated movie with a 5-year-old around! It’s easier to cover a little kids ears when a bad word is said than to cover their ears, and eyes and while the parents are at it they might as well just put a blanket over the kid’s head and mute the television just to be sure.

 It’s not just children that are eliminated from the audience though, there are plenty of teenagers who don’t want to see that either! (Okay so there are definitely some that would, but those people are gross and have disturbing minds). Plenty of older people that I know don’t enjoy those “extremely intimate” scenes either; and c’mon what grandparents want to see that? Ew. No. So why don’t they just eliminate those scenes!?

 Scenes get deleted all the time, so I don’t see why sex scenes cannot be among them. Plus, I bet it would save the actors a lot of embarrassment and awkwardness having cameramen, lighting crew, makeup artists, acting coaches, extras, the direc tor, producers, and assistants all watching them have fake sex. That’s just weird. And the story lines never need those scenes to make sense or move along. Sex doesn’t add anything to make the movie better. If the director decided that it was absolutely necessary to keep the audience in tune with the story of the movie, then they could easily hint at it without giving viewers too much, and the intended audience would still understand what was going on.  One may be wondering why this what really bothers me in my life. Comments may be circulating through your head like, “Mallery, just don’t watch those movies” “If you don’t want to watch it then turn around” “It’s really not that hard to click the fast forward button.” But that is not the point. The point is that I have seen so many commercials for movies that I’m dying to see like //Rush // with dream boy Chris Hemsworth or //Silver Linings Playbook // with the all-revered Jennifer Lawrence, but I can’t. They’re rated R. And I bet both of them have sex in them too. Why ruin a perfectly good, solid, meaningful story with that one retched scene that puts the movie out of my reach?! Not to mention that even if my parents did let me watch these types of movies, they’d walk in at the most AWKWARD part. I just know it. That’s always what happens. I know it’s happened to every teenager obsessed with Netflix that watches // How I Met Your Mother //, or //Parenthood //, or // New Girl //. Somehow parents have this weird superpower where they walk into your room right when the couple is making out or getting really close to “doing it.” It’s terrible. Horrendous. So embarrassing. The worst,though, is when you’re watching a movie with your parents and one of “those” scenes just happens to be in the movie. Immediately your heart starts pounding faster as your brain is racing for something to say...something to break the awkward silence. You’re doomed. Completely doomed. It was so terrible, one time when I went to the movies with my mom to see the //Fault in Our Stars // and Hazel and Gus were on the hotel bed making out… my mom leans over and whispers “What’s this rated again?”

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; vertical-align: baseline;"> No teenager wants to face those awkward moments with their parents, so Hollywood would be doing us all a big favor if they would just cut them out! Please! Or at the very least, have a note flash up on the screen before the sex/making out scene “WARNING DO NOT WATCH AS A FAMILY. EXTREME UNCOMFORTABLENESS WILL FILL THE ROOM DURING THE FOLLOWING SCENE.” That’s all I’m asking.