The difference is that in Japan there is no religious camouflage of the kind you see below:
***** Christian Mag Praises Britney Spears
Wednesday, December 13, 2000
LONDON - A British Christian magazine has taken a bold step in the effort to promote virginity, by extolling the virtues of Britney Spears.
The monthly glossy Celebrate features the singer, who has been keen to proclaim her virginity, and her religious faith, despite a string of raunchy videos and outfits, including the infamous school uniform.
The editor of the magazine, the supplement to the Church of England Newspaper, an unofficial independent weekly discussing Church affairs, said the paper often featured celebrities who professed their faith publicly, and the issues of sex and image and religion were ones it wanted to explore in the magazine.
'Pop Thrives on Sex'
"There has been a lot of reaction in the U.S. by the fundamentalist wing, criticising her for the image she portrays," Colin Blakely told Sky News Online. "She's a pop star, the pop world thrives on this image of sex, so she's catering for that."
Britney has been criticized by some in the church for preaching virginity while still flaunting her sexuality.
But she has defended her art. "What's the big deal? I have really strong morals and just because I look sexy on the cover of Rolling Stone doesn't mean I'm a naughty girl," said the 19-year-old. "I'd do it again. I thought the pictures were fine."
'Not Ashamed of My Body'
"I'm a Christian, I go to church, but Mom taught us: 'Don't be ashamed of your body, it's a beautiful thing.'"
"I find a lot of comfort and strength in knowing I can talk to God and He's listening. That's the way we were raised, and my family still goes to church on Sundays. I don't think I could ever look at how lucky I am and not think that God had a hand in it."
The article coincides with an advertising campaign to promote celibacy among young people. It tries to persuade them not to be swayed by peer pressure and machismo - most people who claim to have had sex at a young age are probably lying, it says.
<http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/121300/britney_church.sml> *****
The commodification of sex and sexuality is much more straightforward in Japan than in the U.K. & the U.S.A., for better or worse.
Now, _American Beauty_. In American movies, if a character indulges in a sinful act or even thought, the character tends to die or otherwise gets punished (or redeemed only through death or punishment). (During the days of explicit censorship through the Hays Code, etc., the deaths or at least sufferings of sinful characters were practically mandatory.) The narrative of _American Beauty_ punishes Lester for wanting to have sex with Angela. Since the narrative's instrument of punishment is portrayed as a repressed homosexual & homophobic character, the audience can very safely have their sinful cake and eat it too. Lester, after all, doesn't act on his desire, & he gets killed besides; the killer turns out to be the sort with whom heterosexuals do not identify, so straight viewers don't have to take responsibility for Lester's death (even though Lester dies to protect their "innocence," so to speak); and straight viewers don't have to feel that homophobia is the problem of their own, the problem of the sexist & homophobic military, etc. -- it's the problem of the "repressed homosexual."
Visit <http://www.fromscript2screen.com/vault/americanbeauty_1999.html> to see what in the script of _American Beauty_ didn't make it to the screen. Two sex scenes were cut prior to production: a "flashback scene of Colonel Fitts having an affair with another soldier in Vietnam" & a sex scene "between Lester and Angela."
Yoshie