If you were a child in the 70's - the film industry was doing some remarkable things. The old "studio" system was out, women were starting to get into executive levels in film. The marketing was more exciting than today because you could easily determine what was 'forbidden', you picked up on and couldn't wait to be old enough to see these films for yourself.
Well the "grown up" part came in the 80's when I was old enough to experience the VHS boom and live on my own. The Los Angeles based "Z" Channel solved all those "grown up" problems for me and here's another one of their "Night Owl Films" I got to see. I was just out of my teens and just experiencing 'the world' when I first saw this original film Emmanuelle. Yeah, my mouth hung open in shock during my first watch of this. I NEVER saw or heard of nice women doing ANYTHING like this even though it was 10 years old when I saw it for the first time. Yes, this was the "world of porno" to me. But it was also the world of 'memory'.
I grew up in New York/Philadelphia/New Jersey areas and before political correctness in marketing, the radio station WABC in New York ran advertisements for almost ALL movies opening or playing in New York City. There are ones I remember so vividly because they were done SO well such as "Midnight Cowboy", "M*A*S*H", "The Lords of Flatbush", "Myra Breckenridge", "The Exorcist", "Jaws"...and yes even: "Deep Throat", "The Story of O", and "Emmanuelle"! In these radio ads, you could TELL something was going on and you wanted to SEE them. (Well, as a child you're curious to see ANYTHING like this!) The ads were regular ads, but the voice over was more sexy, deep and at the end the announcer stresses: "...rated X for mature adults only. Now playing..." Kinda interesting for a 9/10 year old. But I wanted to see these films. As time marched on, I sorta forgot about some of these but thanks to moving to Los Angeles and the "Z" channel 10 years later... I did.
After the initial shock of seeing this 'soft porn' (I can call it soft porn now since I've seen regular adult movies/X rated porn against this!), I watched it on the Z Channel and every time it came on (maybe 2 or 3 times) -- and it hit me: Emmanuelle WAS the 70's. And in conversations with others about these soft core films of the 70's Emmanuelle was film's answer to the freedom of sexual expression for women.
Emmanuelle was the "poster woman" of the 70's - young, pretty, married a rich older man -- and was bored out of her skull. She got into a journey of sexual expression without consequence that - at that time - women may have wanted to do, but Emmanuelle ... did. This was not so much a titillating soft-porn movie for men ... as it was a film of showing sexual liberation for the housewives (and not prostitution like 'Belle du Jour') of the 70's who presented freedom as more than just equal pay for equal work. Women fantasized for equality in the bedroom exploits just like men too. Of course they didn't all rush out to do it then, but Emmanuelle did.
Nowadays Emmanuelle's life is a commonplace for many women (except for the conservatives who want to ignore it) and before the onset of real sexual diseases as one of the consequences without protection. But again, this is a film - a film of liberating and freedom for women of the 70's who were just finding their voices as the world was changing to see them as a viable and equal part of it.
Well the "grown up" part came in the 80's when I was old enough to experience the VHS boom and live on my own. The Los Angeles based "Z" Channel solved all those "grown up" problems for me and here's another one of their "Night Owl Films" I got to see. I was just out of my teens and just experiencing 'the world' when I first saw this original film Emmanuelle. Yeah, my mouth hung open in shock during my first watch of this. I NEVER saw or heard of nice women doing ANYTHING like this even though it was 10 years old when I saw it for the first time. Yes, this was the "world of porno" to me. But it was also the world of 'memory'.
I grew up in New York/Philadelphia/New Jersey areas and before political correctness in marketing, the radio station WABC in New York ran advertisements for almost ALL movies opening or playing in New York City. There are ones I remember so vividly because they were done SO well such as "Midnight Cowboy", "M*A*S*H", "The Lords of Flatbush", "Myra Breckenridge", "The Exorcist", "Jaws"...and yes even: "Deep Throat", "The Story of O", and "Emmanuelle"! In these radio ads, you could TELL something was going on and you wanted to SEE them. (Well, as a child you're curious to see ANYTHING like this!) The ads were regular ads, but the voice over was more sexy, deep and at the end the announcer stresses: "...rated X for mature adults only. Now playing..." Kinda interesting for a 9/10 year old. But I wanted to see these films. As time marched on, I sorta forgot about some of these but thanks to moving to Los Angeles and the "Z" channel 10 years later... I did.
After the initial shock of seeing this 'soft porn' (I can call it soft porn now since I've seen regular adult movies/X rated porn against this!), I watched it on the Z Channel and every time it came on (maybe 2 or 3 times) -- and it hit me: Emmanuelle WAS the 70's. And in conversations with others about these soft core films of the 70's Emmanuelle was film's answer to the freedom of sexual expression for women.
Emmanuelle was the "poster woman" of the 70's - young, pretty, married a rich older man -- and was bored out of her skull. She got into a journey of sexual expression without consequence that - at that time - women may have wanted to do, but Emmanuelle ... did. This was not so much a titillating soft-porn movie for men ... as it was a film of showing sexual liberation for the housewives (and not prostitution like 'Belle du Jour') of the 70's who presented freedom as more than just equal pay for equal work. Women fantasized for equality in the bedroom exploits just like men too. Of course they didn't all rush out to do it then, but Emmanuelle did.
Nowadays Emmanuelle's life is a commonplace for many women (except for the conservatives who want to ignore it) and before the onset of real sexual diseases as one of the consequences without protection. But again, this is a film - a film of liberating and freedom for women of the 70's who were just finding their voices as the world was changing to see them as a viable and equal part of it.