When it comes to filming sex scenes for movies, productions will sometimes opt to film it as an ‘unsimulated’ sex scene.
I.e, the two actors involved are actually going at it.
While this very rarely happens in the US due to pornography laws and union rules, this used to be a slightly more common occurrence.
It is considered by many to be unethical to expect actors to go to that length just for a film.
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There may be some debate over the validity of this but everyone can probably agree on one thing - doing an unstimulated sex scene and then contracting an STI from that is awful.
But that is exactly what happened to one Hollywood star in a deeply controversial film, and he actually sued because of it.
Melvin Van Peebles is the star of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, where he also acted as writer, producer, and director, and starred in the movie alongside his son Mario.
The movie, released in 1971, is an action thriller film self-funded by Van Peebles.
It focused on a poor Black sex worker fleeing from the police after helping out a Black Panther, and was made for just $150,000 in 21 days.
It went on to make $15 million and was selected in 2020 for cultural preservation by the Library of Congress as being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’.
The film was given an X-Rating, which led to the tagline of ‘Rated X by an all-white jury’.
Van Peebles, despite the other successes of the film, was shockingly left with gonorrhoea he contracted from a co-star on the movie.
He ended up applying to the Director’s guild for workers compensation, claiming he was ‘hurt on the job’, and won.
He then used this to buy more film.
Van Peebles told NPR in an interview replayed in a memorial broadcast following his death why he cast himself in the lead role in the film: “Well, number of reasons. First, I needed someone with a large understanding of cinema who had a number of years of experience.
“And the people that had that number of years' experience in the cinema generally were not of the street ilk that I needed, one.
“Two, those that were wanted him to have more lines. He said six lines in the whole movie.
“They had been taught that lines equal the size of film, a size of a part. Do you follow me?”
On getting the film in cinemas, it was a massive struggle due to the low budget and X-Rating, despite the excitement for the movie built by Earth, Wind, and Fire doing the soundtrack.
He told The Times: “Only two theatres in the entire United States would take it – a bingo house in Detroit called the Grand Circus and a little theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. The Grand Circus usually dug about $5,500 a week. We did $7,500 the first night.”
Van Peebles died in 2021, with Variety deeming him a ‘legendary actor’.
Topics: Film, TV and Film
Michael Slavin