Sex is Alright; Deal with it

In his essay Sex and the Cinema, Edward Jay Epstein writes, “The absence of sex--at least graphic sex—is key to the success of Hollywood’s money making movies.”  However, I think that sex plays a bigger role than Epstein gives credit too.  Sure there are movies that just so happened to not have popularity boom and have sex in them but it works both ways.  That is just how it goes not every movie will become the next best thing.  Some people go to movies just for the sex.  Why do you think the porn industry is so big?  Not only that but Epstein argues that stores like Wal-Mart use non-offensive movies to lure customers into there stores and because of it they make a pretty hefty chunk of change.  What I don’t understand is that is how this is possible.  You will see advertisements every single day promoting something along the lines of sex.  If this strategy did not work than I am pretty sure companies would not use it.  Also there are usually two different types of the same movie if rated R.  There is the theatrical version and the unrated version.  The movie may be still rated R for violence or language or what ever but the parts that are usually the most cut out are the sex scenes.  If you do not want to watch the sex scenes simply watch the theatrical version or simply fast forward.  My final thought is that I would bet more than anything that the same amount of people would know what you talking when you say a movie like National Lampoons or American Pie instead of Shrek or Up.  This is because they are popular.  Not only that why do they keep making more of these types of movies if they are not making money?  Don’t you think they would learn after awhile? Something does not add up!