Padre: Where's everybody's clothes, Michelangelo?
Michelangelo: It's humanism, you're not supposed to-
Padre: Do you think a room full of religious worshipers want to hold holy mass in front of a wall where everybody is au naturel?!
Michelangelo: I did not consider this.
Michelangelo: It's humanism, you're not supposed to-
Padre: Do you think a room full of religious worshipers want to hold holy mass in front of a wall where everybody is au naturel?!
Michelangelo: I did not consider this.
— Studio C, "Graffiti Artist"
Suddenly all the shapes that were moving in the darkness came together to make a single obscene image which dominated the whole room. And the song was over.
"Priceless!" said the Clevers. "Too stark! Too virile."
... "I—I don't think I understood it," said John....
"In other words," said the singer, "you are not yet able to distinguish between art and pornography!" and advancing toward John very deliberately, he spat in his face and turned to walk out of the room.
"Priceless!" said the Clevers. "Too stark! Too virile."
... "I—I don't think I understood it," said John....
"In other words," said the singer, "you are not yet able to distinguish between art and pornography!" and advancing toward John very deliberately, he spat in his face and turned to walk out of the room.
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [of "obscene material"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
— Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion, Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), emphasis added
As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
To be smut
It must be ut
terly without redeeming social importance
To be smut
It must be ut
terly without redeeming social importance
Movie directors say NUDITY is about ART. But then, why are women NUDE in movies three times as much as men? Or in Game of Thrones six times as much? That doesn't seem like art. Unless "Art" is the name of a gross gym teacher.
— A Vid Angel ad that deconstructs this trope
"If it's in focus, it's pornography, if it's out of focus, it's art."
— Billy Kwan, The Year of Living Dangerously
"It's called hentai, and it's art."
— Stanley Hudson, in a Deleted Scene from The Office (US)
Then the lights came on
It was all obscene
Bend back, give head
It's not pornography
If you do it with light
Then it's art, you see
If you do it with a twist
It was all obscene
Bend back, give head
It's not pornography
If you do it with light
Then it's art, you see
If you do it with a twist
—The Knife, "One Hit"
Sprocket: Still peddling mainstream muck to the masses?
McBain: Yeah. Are you still Head Projectionist at the Thrust-And-Grunt Emporium?
Sprocket: If you mean, am I showing tasteful erotica to a select adult clientele...the answer is yes.
McBain: "A select adult clientele?" They buy their raincoats at the candy bar!
McBain: Yeah. Are you still Head Projectionist at the Thrust-And-Grunt Emporium?
Sprocket: If you mean, am I showing tasteful erotica to a select adult clientele...the answer is yes.
McBain: "A select adult clientele?" They buy their raincoats at the candy bar!
Possession of nudity in all forms makes you a pervy loser worthy of mocking and ridicule. (Unless it's an oil painting, a sculpture, or soft-focus photograph, then that's *art* and therefore perfectly acceptable. But you're not permitted to be aroused by that in any way.)
March: So you made a porno where the plot was the point?
Amelia: I made a statement! And yeah, yeah; my statement contained nudity!
Amelia: I made a statement! And yeah, yeah; my statement contained nudity!
Blackadder: And what play is this?
Mossop: It is a piece we penned ourselves, called "The Bloody Murder of the Foul Prince Romero and His Enormous-Bosomed Wife".
Blackadder: ...A philosophical work then.
Keanrick: Indeed yes, sir. The violence of the murder and the vastness of the bosom are entirely justified artistically.
Mossop: It is a piece we penned ourselves, called "The Bloody Murder of the Foul Prince Romero and His Enormous-Bosomed Wife".
Blackadder: ...A philosophical work then.
Keanrick: Indeed yes, sir. The violence of the murder and the vastness of the bosom are entirely justified artistically.
Kyoko: They are not porn! They just contain tasteful depictions of lovemaking between characters in love! Is that so wrong?!
Enigma: Right or wrong doesn't matter when the first twenty pages of a book contains two dragons doing the horizontal limbo!
Enigma: Right or wrong doesn't matter when the first twenty pages of a book contains two dragons doing the horizontal limbo!
The intellectuals can forgive you appearing nude in a film, but not for throwing a punch.
The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
— Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger, majority opinion, Miller v California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) (citations omitted)
