MovieChat Forums > The Merchant of Venice (2005) Discussion > Teacher's Dilemma

Teacher's Dilemma

posted 10 years ago by Ezrateach
14 replies | jump to latest

After reading the play with my English class, I would love to show this movie to my students because the story is so well told and the performances so good. I know they would understand and appreciate the play even more. So why oh why did they have to have so much nudity? There's no way I can show this without at least some parental protests, and I wouldnt really blame them. The film would be just as compelling without all the topless scenes; certainly they could've set the scenes in locations other than bordellos. It's a shame since the producers had to know Merchant of Venice is standard fare in many schools, and the film would thus get a much wider audience if it had a PG-13 rating and could be viewed in classrooms.

[–] 7Train 10 years ago

Rated PG in UK, but R by MPAA just for some brief nudity? What the @$ck?

[–] Suzume-san 10 years ago

Don't women in American have breasts?

[–] ljspin 10 years ago

Yes, women in America do have breasts. And, yes, those breasts are often shown on television, as anyone who has watched "Jersey Shore" can attest. However, it doesn't matter what is shown in movie theatres or on television. What I show in my classroom must be above reproach. If anyone would complain about something I showed to my students, my job and my reputation would be on the line.

I know it may sound rather Puritanical, but that is how things are here in the States.

[–] Suzume-san 10 years ago

Yes, very Puritanical, and very weird. Must be tough. What happens if you take your class to the theatre? Does someone have to go and see the play in advance, to make sure there are no naughty bits?

Re the film, yes, I see that's awkward for you and your colleagues, but you can't expect designers and directors to craft their creations with this odd little corner in mind. They are making for a general audience in the big wide world, and in this case, making marvellously. Voluptuous, decadent Venice is so deliciously portrayed!

Some years ago the BBC did a complete Shakespeare series; fairly budget, some very good actors but minimal sets and effects. These would be probably be OK for your sniffy parents - plenty of killings, of course, plenty of passion, lust, murder, treason, civil war and so forth, because Mr Shakespeare put them there; but no nipples. I think they're still generally available - have a look on Amazon.

Glad to hear that American schoolchildren are studying Shakespeare, anyway - what age are they?

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[–] couzijn 10 years ago

Land of the Free? Home of the Brave? ha!

We're talking about the human body here, for gossake!

[–] LordLustworthy 10 years ago

The 1980 British TV version is good if you can get a copy.

Arab-American Heroes: Suq Madiq Munchma Quchi - The Colbert Report

[–] xandastic 10 years ago

On the up side, if you told your students "I'd really prefer to show you this version, but alas I cant: there's too much nudity," then you could thereby guarantee that about half your class would watch a film of a Shakespearean play at home that night.

[–] syntinen 10 years ago

[–] jackgriffin1-1 9 years ago

Of course women in America have breasts. They just don't have nipples.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] harveythepooka 8 years ago

I'm an American and in high school teachers showed both Romeo and Juliet the 60s version and 1984 which have nudity. As I recall 1984 has quite a bit of nudity. If you want you can skip over the nudity, but I remember my teacher saying we are all adults and we can act like it, but things might be different this days, I went to school in the late 90s.

[–] mjjmolina 7 years ago

Not sure if this is relevant to you anymore or not since three years have gone by, but have you ever considered maybe showing a censored version of this story to your class in order to remove the nudity?

I read in the Trivia that the director had to edit the kiss between Antonio and Bassanio out of the movie for a Television Broadcast, surely the breasts were edited out too. Perhaps you could find a TV broadcast copy somewhere. Perhaps on Youtube?

If that doesn't work, I'd suggest making your own copy of the movie and edit it out yourself. It's not as hard as it sounds. You just need to use a movie maker program, I believe windows comes with one. You'll be able to splice every frame of the offending scene right out. You could even replace it with simple text and images letting everyone know what was going on in that scene.

You could also do the same as above but use a photo manipulator to blur or blot out the breasts, but I think that might take a bit more effort and require a bit more time.

Then again, maybe you could write to the producers and ask them to sell you a cleaner copy? I have no idea if that would work, but worth a shot.

Although, even if you bought the movie legally, there might be some legal problem with altering it? But if they let you play whole movies in class, and I remember that teachers could do that, then I don't see a problem with this.

Anyway, good luck. I enjoyed this movie very much and would have loved to see it when I was in school.