Safe sex? Nobody does it worse than James Bond

Bond News - 02-10-05

Medical researchers have accused Hollywood of glamorising unsafe sex, singling out James Bond for criticism for failing to use a condom during his amorous encounters.
The academics spent hours noting down the sex and drugs content of 200 of the biggest box office hits of recent years, and became especially animated over examples of failure to use a condom - reports The Times.

They counted six episodes of unsafe sex in Basic Instinct, not including one scene in which a character is murdered in bed with an ice pick. Most cinema goers were unsure whether he was wearing a condom at the time.

Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the research team identifies films such as Basic Instinct and Die Another Day, the most recent James Bond movie, as prime offenders. The study found an almost universal absence of the use of contraceptives.

However, characters were rarely shown to suffer the consequences of their actions, such as sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.

Dr Hasantha Gunasekera, the leading author of the paper and a research fellow in children’s health at Sydney University in Australia, said: “The study showed there were no references to important consequences of unsafe sex such as HIV transmission, spread of sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancy.

“The social norm being presented in movies is concerning, given the HIV and illicit drug pandemics in developing and industrialised countries.”

In Die Another Day, released in 2002, there is no reference to contraceptive use in the sex scenes between Bond, played by Pierce Brosnan, and the leading female characters played by Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike.

In all the films that the researchers analysed, they found that the 1990 love story Pretty Woman — about a romance between a millionaire and a prostitute — was the only one to broach the subject.

Gunasekera said: “Pretty Woman was the only movie with the vaguest reference to condom usage. Julia Roberts’s character gives the character played by Richard Gere a selection of condoms to choose from early in the movie. We then assumed a subsequent sex scene was protected sex.”

The report also criticises films for portraying cannabis and other recreational drug use with no harmful consequences.

It draws parallels between the portrayal of unsafe sex and the potential harm to public health caused by glamorous film stars smoking on screen.

Some research has suggested that children may be up to three times more likely to try tobacco if they regularly watch stars smoking on screen and that films can be a more powerful influence than cigarette advertising in pushing young people to take up the habit.

Earlier this year the British Board of Film Classification reacted to this concern by announcing that when certifying films it would give greater consideration as to whether smoking was portrayed in a glamorous light.

The academics’ report calls on directors to take a more responsible attitude to filming sex scenes. “This may exert a significant competing influence to the safe sex and ‘just say no’ messages propounded by public health officials,” it says.

“The motion picture industry should be encouraged to depict safer sex practices and to depict the real consequences of unprotected sex and illicit drug use.”
The researchers deliberately avoided films aimed at children and family audiences or movies made before the Aids epidemic in the 1980s.



They identify the 1999 psychological thriller The Sixth Sense, featuring Bruce Willis, and the 2000 adventure film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, as being free of harmful portrayals of sex and drugs.

Some experts believe that it is misguided to expect the cinema to convey public health messages. Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University, said: “There is a danger of confusing propaganda with entertainment and art.

“There is an unhealthy tendency to subjugate films to the dictates of raising public awareness. To confuse these two roles will just create bad art.”

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.

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