Sometimes Porn Movies Cut Out Zombie Scenes for the Same Reason
For years now, some of Calico’s friends have been telling her she simply must watch AMC’s zombie show The Walking Dead. Of course, some of these same friends recommended reading Fifty Shades of Grey, which Calico put down after reading eleven pages and hasn’t picked up again in the eight years since it was relegated to the shelf, so she hasn’t been exactly eager to act on their zombie show advice.
This doesn’t mean Calico can’t write about the show, of course. After all, not knowing the first thing about a subject has never stopped her from having strong opinions about it before; why should it start doing so now?
Besides, Calico finally has a reason to write about The Walking Dead: Namely, it showed up in her Google news alerts because the word “sex” was in an article about the show.
Why did the word “sex” show up in a headline about The Walking Dead? Did someone experience sexual harassment on-set? Is there a debate in the media concerning zombie sex vs. zombie gender? Is there a new spin-off production in the works called The Fucking Dead?
As it turns out, the makers of the show filmed, but subsequently cut from an episode, a sex scene. If nothing else, this news got Calico interested in The Walking Dead for the first time — and, as always, led her to asking additional questions.
Why was the sex scene pulled? Was there an awkward call to AMC’s “standards and practices” division involved? Do zombies even have sex? These and other questions are explored in Cal’s latest post, “Sometimes Porn Movies Cut Out Zombie Scenes for the Same Reason.”
by Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com, Porn For Women Movies
Read On…
I must admit, I’m not really big on zombies or zombie stories. (I do enjoy nerdly dissections of zombie-related questions, however – especially those centered on the different challenges presented by confronting slow zombies vs. fast zombies, but that’s a whole other story.)
Among the many zombie-related movies, TV series, novellas and self-help books I’ve never consumed is AMC’s The Walking Dead. And since I’ve never watched a single episode of the original, I also have never watched its “after shows” and spinoffs, like Talking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, or the upcoming docudrama that takes a deep dive the problem of undead men who won’t take no for an answer, Stalking Dead.
Still, thanks to the trusty Google news alert I set up to alert me to articles with ‘sex’ in the title, I do know one thing about The Walking Dead: An actress has revealed that a sex scene shot for the show was cut from the broadcast version of the episode.
The Highly Confusing Dead
Since I’m not planning on watching the show any time soon, I can safely brave the potential spoilers to provide my crucial perspective on whether this sex scene getting cut was perfectly understandable, regrettable self-censorship, or some kind of conspiracy involving AMC, Washington politicians and lobbyists for ‘Big Dead.’
According to Lindsley Register who plays a character named “Laura” on the show, she shot a scene in which her character has sex with “Eugene” (Josh McDermitt). By way of background, The Express explains “Laura is one of the former antagonists in the series and she was a member of the Saviours…. She followed Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) but after Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) left Alexandria, she became a member of the leadership council.”
You know, for a post-apocalyptic show about zombies, there sure seems to be a lot bureaucracy involved. Do they actually shoot zombies on this show, or just hold meetings, create subcommittees and issue resolutions calling for zombie “fact-finding” missions?
“There has been some tension between Eugene and Laura, and at first she saw him as insignificant,” the Express explanation continues. “However she ends up trusting Eugene as a member of the Saviours, until he causes them to lose the war.”
Wait, what? Who went to war with whom? Did the losers become zombies? Or did they lose to the zombies? I’m not even 200 words into this article, already I’m hopelessly confused – and they haven’t even mentioned the sex scene yet!
“Due to the time jump in the series the extent of their relationship is unclear.”
Oh great – that helps.
Or maybe it does help? If the “extent of their relationship is unclear,” maybe the producers thought it would be a bit odd to show them having sex? Actually, if anything, showing them having sex seems like it would help clarify the extent of their relationship, so I suppose that’s probably not it.
Goddamit Express, throw this zombie show non-watcher a bone here!
Fear – But Don’t Distract – The Walking Dead
Skimming further through the tabloid’s bizarre mini-paragraphs, I eventually find what I’m after: “the actress said the scene was cut as it would have been too much of a plot change.”
“It would have been too much of a subplot distraction from what was going on,” Register said. “So maybe from a story perspective, it just didn’t work.”
On the one hand, it’s sort of disappointing to make my way past a bunch of weird, UK-focused clickbait and banner ads just to get a “maybe” explanation. After all, I’ve never even seen the show, much less been featured on it for years, and I came up with several reasonable ‘maybes’ of my own, no problem.
On the other hand, she has a point. I mean, apparently the show’s writers are already asking the audience to keep track of things like council meetings, wars, zombies and either zombies who sit on city councils, or city councils who lose wars to zombies, or possibly to other city councils, thereby becoming zombies themselves. Asking them to absorb the implications of sex between two people who have a very vague relationship might be pushing the tattered, decaying envelope a bit too far.
My Verdict: NOT Self-Censorship
The good news is, upon further inspection, I don’t think this sounds like a case of self-censorship on the part of the show. It’s not like they got flooded with angry letters from people asking them not to sully the show’s pleasingly extreme violence and family-friendly gore with something gross like partial nudity. They just decided something as wildly unusual as people having sex had no place in a straightforward show about warring zombie councils and undead bureaucratic infighting.
As someone who has spent most of her adult life working in and around the porn industry, I can tell you this sort of thing happens all the time in reverse, too. For example, just the other day, I was talking to a director of an upcoming gonzo porn flick called Naughty Night-Shift MILF Nurses Vol. 87 and he told me while originally planned to have a scene in which a trio of zombies run through Dr. Bone’s office right as he’s railing Nurse Nelly from behind, he later decided it would distract – both conceptually and literally – from the closeup of Nelly’s gaping butthole.
See? Far from being self-censorship, these are merely the sort of artistic choices directors have to make every day. Other famous examples include George Lucas removing the interspecies orgy scene that was originally scheduled to appear after the medal ceremony in Star Wars and an aborted cameo appearance by Dracula in Behind the Green Door.
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