Viewership expected to drop dramatically
By Natalie Serafini, Nudist
HBO, against the earnest protestations of avid True Blood, Girls, and Game of Thrones fans, has chosen to rid itself of all nudity. The channel is enacting strict guidelines to ensure that nudity is either “tactfully censored” or not written into the shows at all.
“We’re tired of being known as the ‘classy porn’ place,” says spokesperson Randy Johnson. “This season, all of our shows are getting a fresh new family friendly feel.”
The guidelines allow for some nudity, but demands that bodies be blurred beyond all recognition. “We’re looking for a Vaseline-covered lens effect,” says Johnson.
HBO has produced many popular shows, not a few of which have been notorious for their full-frontal nudity and graphic sex scenes. The new guidelines will not only diminish the potential for nip slips, but will also seriously impede the filming of sex scenes. Although fans have threatened to boycott HBO entirely until the guidelines have been dispensed with, Johnson maintains that HBO isn’t concerned.
“We’ve got them hooked,” says Johnson. “Okay, so we tempted them initially with uncensored boobs on cable TV, but we’re confident they’ll keep coming back. I mean, how else will they find out what family wins in Game of Thrones, which—be sure to tune in!—is scheduled to return for a new season in spring 2014? People want the drama now, not the gratuitous boob shots.”
Nonetheless, there are rumblings of organizations dedicated to getting said gratuitous boob shots back on the air.
Clay Smith, the founder of HBOOBS (not an actual initialism, but an unsophisticated use of the word “boobs”), has personal reasons for fighting the censorship: “My girlfriend hates porn. Like, she won’t watch it with me, ‘would prefer that I not watch it at all,’ hates it. But she’s cool with us watching Girls because it’s ‘real.’ You can’t just take that away from me.”
Sandra McCormack, founder of Peen on TV (PTV) also feels strongly about the issue. “They literally just gave us a shot of Eric Northman in all his glory. With one hand they give, and with the other they take away. It’s not right. I will not stand by while my rights to seeing some man-sausage on TV are stripped away.”
Writers for HBO shows are also dubious about the introduction of guidelines. Game of Thrones writer, Shawn Lee, feels the changes will affect the quality of the shows. “You know, you’re writing, and you don’t know how to finish a scene, so you make the characters in the scene have an orgy. It’s much harder to write an orgy if all the characters have to be fully clothed.”
True Blood writer, Claire Saunders, agrees. “Sometimes material doesn’t read well, so you just add in that Bill, Eric, Sam, Jason, or Alcide happen to be nude in the scene. We write to our audience, and our audience wants some primo butt cheek every once in a while.”
Only time will tell if HBO will keep its fans on the basis of dramatic plots, and not the possibility of nipple action.
