Gina Gershon, no stranger to onscreen bondage and nudity (seen here in the lesbian bondage romance Mafia caper movie "Bound") is helming a Harem series project on the Starz network.
According to a report in the New York Magazine website, Gina Gershon is helming a new series set in a Turkish (Ottoman Empire era) harem and starring a slave girl to be show on the Starz Channel.
Potentially, this is GREAT news. Starz is the channel that is currently showing the Spartacus series, which I believe has done absolutely the best job of handling slavegirl nudity and sex of any movie, TV series, etc., in existence. If any network is capable of developing a show that can fully flesh out the superheated sex fantasies that harems have engendered in people since the 1800s, it's Starz.
However, the series also has a feminist theme, as it covers a period when the harem became so influential over the sultan that it was called "The Reign of Women." Now, the last movie that dealt with this theme in a feminist fashion was the blood-curdlingly awful movie Harem starring Natassia Kinski. Harem was notable for lacking sexiness, nudity, plot, drama, or interesting characterizations.
I have no idea what we'll get from the Starz Harem, the fact that it's from Starz gives me hope, the feminist theme reminds me of the Kinski Harem and dashes cold water on those hopes. Ideally, I don't really think there's a conflict between sexy, naked slavegirls and feminist themes, but things tends to work out otherwise in the real world.
I'm sure of one thing: if Starz forgoes the naked slave girl sexiness, the series will be a ratings flop. People have come to expect edgy themes, nudity and sex from premium channel TV series, and a harem theme promises a lot of that. Break that promise, and they are doomed to low ratings.
Gershon looking naked and slavegirlish in the film "Showgirls." A sign of things to come?
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