Summary
Olivia Hussey, best known for playing Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, has died at 73.
Hussey passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones. Cast at age 15, she earned a Golden Globe for her role in the Oscar-winning film.
Later in life, she and co-star Leonard Whiting sued Paramount over alleged abuse during nude scenes, but the case was dismissed in 2023.
Born in Argentina, Hussey also starred in Jesus of Nazareth and Death on the Nile. She is survived by her family.
That was me. I think this discourse is important. Is every sex depiction necessarily porn? I don’t think so. I think sex can be depicted in art and media for other than pornographic purposes and it’s ok to do so. But it shouldn’t be done by assholes like Zeffirelli, let’s agree at least on that.
I never found the scene in R&J pornographic, it spoke to me in the way the narrative should go - young people fall in love and consume their relationship. I felt happy for them, but not turned on. If anyone IS turned on by some scenes, that’s ok too, everyone has different triggers I guess, and it can’t be helped. The fact that, let’s say, a view of an actress’s feet or an actor’s arms turns some people on doesn’t mean these things shouldn’t be depicted.
The actors did not consent. That’s the most important aspect of this and not a single sentence of your comment acknowledges the actual problem or the human beings that were impacted to create this.
The sentense that acknowledges it is the one about Zeffirelli.
I agree artist should not be allowed to force actors into things they don’t consent to. I also think scenes like the one in R&J should be allowed in movies.
Maybe I wasn’t clear that the initial problem came from the actors being minors. The scene would have been fine if they had been capable of consent. It’s fucked that Zeffirelli tricked them, even more so because we recognize now they couldn’t have knowingly consented to begin with. It’s similar to the backlash from the movie Cuties. I personally loved the message behind it and appreciated as an adult woman some of the struggles I dealt with at that age represented, but casting children for those roles was not ok.
I’ll add that while we didn’t have the same legal system when R&J was filmed, I apply my moral standards regardless. The same harm occurred whether it was legal or not.
So as long as you personally don’t find any titillation, explicit scenes in movies with minors having sex is acceptable? If I shoot full-on penetrative sex scenes with children in it but have John Donne poems read over it, add some avant garde camera angles and release it as an art film, there’s no problem?
How about if it’s a rape scene? Very explicit rape scene where a child is raped and you see everything. No porn there, so it’s fine to film an explicit rape scene with a child, right?
Those aren’t for pornographic purposes, so it’s sex-positive according to you.
I don’t think you understood what I was trying to say. I said I think child actors should not be exploited for artistic purposes. Ever. I think we both agree with that, right?
I don’t find anything wrong about depicting a sex scene with a minor as a character if it makes sense artistically though (which is the case of R&J). There are ways to film it without including unconsenting or minor actors (or both).
I think of art as a form of complex communication and I think it’s important to communicate even about hard, painful and taboo topics.
I also think porn is not a bad thing, so sex positivity is not connected to not being pornographic in my mind.
How does it make sense artistically? What other version of Romeo and Juliet has a sex scene like that in it? Do you think that is what Shakespeare intended considering all the roles were played by men but there were also very strict anti-sodomy laws? That wasn’t Shakespeare, that was Zeffirelli.
And I would also suggest that a story about two teens that fall into a toxic, codependent relationship that ends in their tragic deaths might not be the best place for teaching about sex positivity.
The film Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields involved her being nude and involved simulated sex, but it was also essential to the story and the story was intended to talk about a difficult subject, something that was a reality for the actual young girls who were raised in 19th century brothels, only to have their virginity auctioned off while they were barely pubescent, if pubescent at all. I would call that justifiable, both for the sake of art and for the sake of broaching a difficult subject. Shields consented and to this day she says it was the right decision. It’s not an easy watch, but I would say that is a justifiable situation.
There’s also the Jeremy Irons version of Lolita, which was a much more faithful adaptation of the book than the version Kubrick was forced to make to avoid censorship. You can’t tell that story without showing a child being raped and stay faithful to the novel. So, again, I support that.
But I really do not think the place to be making the argument of “sometimes showing children having sex on film is not automatically a bad thing” is in a thread talking about a film where children were exploited and, as far as I can tell, for no purpose beyond titillation. It’s the wrong place and time to defend it. Just like you don’t start talking about your target shooting prowess at the funeral of a gunshot victim even though target shooting is a harmless use of a gun.
I think basically we agree with each other. Using and exploiting children (or adults) is bad, depictions of sex can be done well and can be good.
The reason I feel differently about this particular movie is perhaps because I saw it without knowing anything about the shooting and it felt like a very good take on the story (including the sex scene - the fact they had sex was crucial even in the original play, no matter how it was portrayed at the time). The way Zeffirelli behaved makes me sick though.
Also I don’t view the story as being about a toxic codependent relationship, more like being about innocent horny teens betrayed by the power games and complete incompetence of the adults around them. They are really just teenagers trying to navigate their own new needs and feelings, just like it usually is at that age.
My comment about sex positivity was not meant to say all depictions of sex are or should be positive. I wanted to say sex positivity is needed for the society to view sex depictions as something normal, not necessarilly automatically pornographic or straight out taboo.
As for the overall direction the conversation went, well, the post was about the death of an actress and most comments were about her teenage boobs - that’s the internet for you.
I appreciate your view of Pretty Baby and Lolita - these are films that are quite hard for me to watch and I agree they’re great examples of movies with meaningful sex scenes. I also think many people would call them child porn without thinking twice about it (and they would be very wrong).