"Surprising Departure Causes Major Stir"
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Unwarranted Exposure: A Hidden Dilemma for Actresses
In an era where boundaries are constantly being pushed, a chilling reality emerges for artists - their intimate scenes, often intended for artistic purposes, find their way onto pornographic platforms.
Take Charlotte Poitras for instance, an ex-comedienne who has graced various screens but never engaged in on-screen intimacy. Yet, her image, particularly her nude body, surfaces on numerous XXX sites, with some even rating her physique. The 29-year-old writer expresses disappointment, "I lost job opportunities because of this. Employers would check my background and see that I was on porn sites. It harms my reputation."
It's a trend that XXX platforms specialize in - reposting intimacy scenes shot for television or cinema. Scenes initially broadcast in an artistic context become material for the consumption of pornography fans.
Guardians of the small screen are far from pleased. Tania Kontoyanni, president of the Union of Artists (UDA), remarks, "It's extremely disturbing. These are scenes that are already not easy to accept, and it's like these actresses are at the heart of a porn scene intended for who knows who."
The UDA and the Quebec Association of Media Production (AQPM) have teamed up to tackle this issue, identifying rights holders, and in some cases, dating back several decades. An actress, who chose to remain anonymous to protect her clients, expresses the feelings of many, "When I talk to them about a role with a certain degree of nudity, 100% of the time, the actresses respond: it all depends on the context, it all depends if it serves the story."
If you strip the nudity scene of its context, you distort it, violate the intimacy of a woman who made herself vulnerable on screen for the benefits of a project, to make the best film possible. Without context, it's no longer about a character, but about the actress's body.
The misuse of images is a global issue. Scenes from popular series and films like 50 Shades of Grey, Game of Thrones, Euphoria, or Basic Instinct are ripe for repurposing. A user has posted seven sultry minutes of Blue is the Warmest Color, a Palme d'Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, on a popular pornographic site; the scene, categorized under the keyword "lesbian," has received 35 million views to date.
While the UDA was aware of isolated cases related to their report, they didn't anticipate such widespread pilferage in Quebec, according to MKontoyanni. Even mainstream productions aren't immune. From Two Women in Gold to Simple as Sylvain, passing through the series C'est comme ça que je t'aime and 19-2, every Quebec production that shows a bit of skin is plundered by porn, which finds an audience there.
The problem isn't just limited to recent productions. Excerpts from the feature film Borderline have generated over 1 million views on different adult sites, and a lesbian intimacy scene from the series Unité 9 has been viewed over 500,000 times on one of the three largest XXX platforms in the world.
Legal and contractual measures can help performers safeguard themselves from unauthorized reposting. This includes copyright and right of publicity, non-disclosure and consent agreements, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices, contractual clauses, private agreements, content watermarking, platform reporting, and advocacy for legal reform. By combining these strategies, performers can better protect themselves from the unauthorized use of their sensitive content.
On a darker side, platforms with revealing names specialize in compiling on-screen rape scenes, we've found. Scenes of aggression from Noémie dit oui, a Quebec film from 2022 that denounces the torment of juvenile prostitution, have surfaced on several pornographic sites. The main actress plays a 15-year-old girl in the film. Scenes from the series Fugueuse accumulate millions of views on adult sites. The most watched montage on a popular platform, with 250,000 views, features the rape of a teenager.
The pornographic, sometimes violent, environment in which certain scenes are integrated stands in stark contrast to the efforts made on set in the wake of the #metoo movement. Advocates for change encourage industry-wide standards, support networks, and stronger legal protections to help forge a more secure environment for performers.
- Celebrities and artists, such as Charlotte Poitras, face challenges in the social-media era, as their intimate scenes from television or cinema are repurposed for entertainment and pornography consumption.
- The misuse of images in pop-culture, like scenes from 50 Shades of Grey, Game of Thrones, Euphoria, or Basic Instinct, is widespread on social media and pornographic platforms, damaging the reputation of actors and actresses.
- To address the issue, organizations like the Union of Artists (UDA) and the Quebec Association of Media Production (AQPM) advocate for legal and contractual measures such as copyright, non-disclosure agreements, digital takedown notices, and watermarking to safeguard performers from unauthorized reposting, especially in cases of vulnerable content like rape scenes.
