I was quite young when I saw Walkabout for the first time and survived the experience unscathed!

I agree, the shielding of children from what is viewed by (usually) a minority of adults as corruptive has spiralled way out of hand in recent decades. Looking at some of the films from the 1970s which managed a PG rating is really an eye-opener.

Walkabout, for anyone who hasn't seen it, is a beautiful, haunting film, perhaps one of the best of the 1970s.

The controversy of "Walkabout" wasn't the nudity, it was because Jenny Agutter was 17 at the time the movie was made. Back then the age limit for being nude on film was 16 in Britain, but because of this movie the age limit was raised to 18. In the United States, films like this can no longer be made anymore since the 1982 ruling of the Supreme Court states that something does not have to be obscene to be considered child pornography. Only movies before 1982 escape that definition because in the U.S. definitions, rulings, and laws aren't retroactively placed nor enforced.

Innovator--

You might want to research the film director/photographer David Hamilton. He published a book in the 1990s (?) featuring many posed photographs of subjects under age 18; it was sold by Barnes & Noble. This was challenged in the American court system and was found to be legal. The gist of the ruling was that photographs of people under age 18, in an artistic (non-sexual) context, was not illegal in and of itself (the issue of consent, of course, also comes into play, and would depend on if the subject(s) were legally emancipated and/or had the consent of their parents/legal guardians, which Hamilton had for his book). This has been extended to film (the 2001 British film, "The Hole", for example, is legal in the U.S., even though it features a topless Keira Knightley [in a very brief scene], who was 15 at the time of filming). Do not go strictly by the release date of a film, as filming often takes place a year or more before release. Also, I saw your topic about the 2017 film "Ava". The actress was apparently born in 1998 or 1999 (online sources are a little sketchy on her year of birth) but the film was shot in 2016; so I am not at all sure she was 18 at the time of filming.

@northcoast said:

Innovator--

You might want to research the film director/photographer David Hamilton. He published a book in the 1990s (?) featuring many posed photographs of subjects under age 18; it was sold by Barnes & Noble. This was challenged in the American court system and was found to be legal. The gist of the ruling was that photographs of people under age 18, in an artistic (non-sexual) context, was not illegal in and of itself (the issue of consent, of course, also comes into play, and would depend on if the subject(s) were legally emancipated and/or had the consent of their parents/legal guardians, which Hamilton had for his book). This has been extended to film (the 2001 British film, "The Hole", for example, is legal in the U.S., even though it features a topless Keira Knightley [in a very brief scene], who was 15 at the time of filming). Do not go strictly by the release date of a film, as filming often takes place a year or more before release. Also, I saw your topic about the 2017 film "Ava". The actress was apparently born in 1998 or 1999 (online sources are a little sketchy on her year of birth) but the film was shot in 2016; so I am not at all sure she was 18 at the time of filming.

That's why I said probably just turned 18 when she filmed Ava (or the questionable scenes). If she was born in 1998 she'd be 20 sometime this year if not already.

I did do research, that's how I found out about the 1982 ruling.

As for David Hamilton's "Age of Innocence", the charges were dropped in state courts of Alabama and Tennessee as it was found that it did not violate the state's own laws on Child Pornography (though in Tennessee a consensus was made to keep the book out of reach of children), and it was never tested in the higher courts (so there has never been a specific ruling on the book as of yet). The court did rule in one that the state should have prosecuted the publishers and producers of the book, not the purchaser of the material. The publishers have not been arrested for it (as they're in England) and David Hamilton killed himself (amidst the allegations) before a case could be made against him.

As for "The Hole", I'm not sure what British law is on Child Pornography other than they raised the age limit because of the release of "Walkabout". I guess consent of legal guardians would be a key word with the British courts.