New System for Handling Films Marked as Adult
Recently, a lot of sexploitation and other classic exploitation and cult films have been removed from Letterboxd because someone on TMDB has been marking them as Adult. I think that the process of importing titles needs to be rethought, because it is drastically affecting my abilities to keep track of my lists and reviews, and it really hurts to see titles disappear after I have put effort into writing reviews and managing lists.
Something really needs to be done about this, because this has continued to be an issue since I first started using the site, and so far there has been no solution to these issues.
Turner Stewart
shared this idea
Let’s do this: can someone in this thread compile a list of “important/historically significant” adult films that should be on LB. Then we can see about adding an exceptions list to our importer that uses this list.
103 comments
-
J.
commented
It's now been almost 5 years since this topic was started, what's happening? There's not much to be added than what has already been more eloquently stated but this should be resolved sooner rather than later - it's incredibly frustrating not to be able to log some movies, not to mention the fact that certiain directors filmographies (Jess Franco, Joe D'Amato, Andrea Bianchi, Roger Watkins, Radley Metzger to name a few) are incomplete.
The hypocrisy in allowing certain sexually explicit films (Gaspar Noe's "Love", Lars Von Triers "The Idiots", Nagisa Oshima's "In the realm of the senses" etc. etc.), but still banning others which I assume are deemed "less worthy" because there is not a recognized name attached to them is quite sad.
-
Morbus Iff commented
Like most things in life, it all comes down to dicks.
-
Chris Freiberg
commented
The thing that annoys me about this issue is that there's lots of porn on Letterboxd already (nudie cuties were just as hardcore as porn could legally get in America in the early Sixties, same thing with pinku films in Japan or "erotic thrillers" on the shelves of Blockbuster Video). The hypocrisy of adding only "historically significant" hardcore films bugs me considering how artistically insignificant a lot of those softcore films are, not to mention how morally repugnant some of the stuff is, like all the pinku rape flicks that have entries on LB. I don't want to see any of that objectionable material gone from the site, so what's wrong with adding a little more? I wish you could just let everything not marked "video" in and be done with it.
-
Purple_Gh0st
commented
Just add an option for individual users to choose whether or not they can see adult content. The solution is simple!
-
hill89
commented
Checking in on this again. With Vinegar Syndrome becoming more and more popular, it's a shame that a good portion of their catalog isn't even on the site because of this arbitrary rule.
-
Michael
commented
I also think this treatment of supposedly adult films is quite problematic. What qualifies one film as 'adult', but not another?
So far I have stumbled only over one film that I cannot add to a list (*), and yet this matters greatly, out of principle. There are several entries missing in e.g. Jess Franco's or Radley Metzger's filmographies.
Are they supposed to be less important, or even lesser, than others? Who should judge this?(*) Radley Metzger's 'The Image' is missing from Letterboxd: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/67018-the-image
-
Anonymous
commented
LB deleted my diary entry of an adult title. Why not just allow adult titles? An "allow adult content" option would be great. But stop removing adult titles from the database.
-
Ruz_El
commented
Add me to the list, please.
Make it simple. Add "Would you like to see adult content" check box to the profile settings. Check it, you see adult titles, don't check it, you don't!
If the poster images are the issue, then don't display them. It's an easy compromise since it would eliminate the chance of people accidentally seeing graphic content, but those who watch adult can still track their films with the rest of their viewing the way the site is supposed to.
Allowing some titles based on being shot on film as opposed to video is splitting hairs at best, snooty at worst. Adult should be allowed, period, regardless if it was shot on film for theatrical release or is a compilation of scenes that debuted on the net. If it's a commercially released title with an IMDB page, we should be able to review and track it here.
-
Jesse Wroe
commented
Every single adult movie made for theatrical distribution meets the standard of "film."
Quality and artistic merit obviously don't matter as qualifications for being deemed "film" (or, if we must, we can just call it a "movie"). If we can have thousands of exploitation and B films in the database, there's no good reason not to include narrative hardcore porn.
These films are the subjects of scholarship and film criticism. The entertainment landscape was changed by them, ushering a cultural moment known as "porno chic." Audiences were interested in real sex as a subject.
This shouldn't be ghettoized just so some people don't have to feel uncomfortable.
-
Anonymous
commented
I really think there should be a criteria for this. Perhaps if they were shot on film? Narrative based? There's a HUGE part of film history that's being ignored by Letterboxd. IMDB lists adult films. So does Mubi.
-
Tom Arnold
commented
Any decisions made on this yet?
-
bttcinema
commented
How about 'Deep Throat'?
-
Anonymous
commented
@matthew buchanan thank you for including in this post the comment about the export file. I had done a lot of reviews on wrestling when it was allowed on this site and thought they were all gone. Finding the export I can now get all of that information back!
-
Anonymous
commented
yeah noticed a bunch of franco films and films released on vinegar syndrome missing on letterboxd. please add them
-
Anonymous
commented
Any news regarding this matter? I'm baffled that the Letterboxd personnel hasn't come to a firm decision yet. Isn't it time to stop beating around the bush, eh? Many adult films, as mentioned and described in detail below, are of as equal historical importance as any other. There's also quite a few Franco films that have been removed from Letterboxd. Come on, the man got an honorary Goya award...his work shouldn't be shunned!
-
Anonymous
commented
I 100% agree with NarpJay! Letterboxd really needs to allow adult titles into their database and just make their access optional for those who want them or not. The restoration work that Vinegar Syndrome in particular has done for adult entertainment titles is exceptional and it remains a major shame to not have any of those titles on the database for fans to log in their profiles.
-
NarpJay
commented
I also think this really needs to be addressed. A list of historically significant adult films isn't going to work well, because no one is going to agree what constitutes "historically significant."
In my opinion, it goes without saying that films from the theatrical era of hardcore should be included on Letterboxd. These were actual films, not just collections of hardcore scenes. They had plots, actual acting, location shooting, etc. Some were good and some were bad, but these were actual attempts to make a film.
The best solution as I see it is to do what IMDB does, and have a feature that allows the user to suppress adult titles or make them visible. IMDB has the default setting at suppress, and each individual user has to change their settings to see adult titles.
I know that pornography is an icky subject for a lot of people. But the fact is that it exists, and that pornographic film has existed for as long as film has existed. Letterboxd should reflect this.
-
hill89
commented
Please let 2019 be the year we have this settled.
-
hill89
commented
Still waiting on an update for this.
-
J
commented
I just watched and logged Roger Watkin’s Corruption last night. Definitely a hardcore film. But an important one. There are many other important adult films that I can’t log. This makes no sense. This doesn’t seem like a difficult issue to solve. Just fix it so others, like me, can log and review other important adult films.