Under the Dome TV Series 20132015 cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Ironside TV Series 19671975 cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. All episodes Expanded View List View Upcoming Episodes Recent Episodes. Watch Here Comes The Boom Online (2017). This is the American Dad Wiki Episode Guide for the Fox animated television series. Every Show Should Handle Sex Like American Gods. On cable TV, we have become used to seeing a lot of sex and nudity on certain networks and in certain TV shows. Game of Thrones is the most famous of the lot, causing the term sexposition to be coined for how it paired important information with sex and nudity to keep the audience engaged. Sex is titillation, something forbidden or scandalous enough to get attention from an audience. But thats not how American Gods approaches it at all. A sex scene is correct for this show when the story doesnt work without it, said executive producer Michael Green at an interview before the show premiered. When its woven into the fabric of either character or plot. So its arguable that our most daring episodes are the ones with no sex scenes at all because they just werent necessary for the story we were telling. We didnt want anything to be titillating for its own sake, otherwise its just not this show. It would be so easy to think these American Gods scenes were for titillation if you simply looked at headlines about them. Theyve been called insane, the most explicit gay sex scene ever, shocking, and wild, all of which miss the point of how intentional and perfectly planned and placed they are. The context of the sex matters. These news articles may get into more detail, but the headlines scream of an obsession with the act, not the show. We wanted the show to be sex positive, and the titillating, exploitive aspects of sex are usually the more base ones where its a biological function of sorts, executive producer Bryan Fuller told us. And one of the things I am very fascinated with in American culture is the sex negativity. Sex negativity, or at least the idea that sex is still taboo and that talking about it should make us giggle, is evident in those headlines. Its why while Green and Fuller intended to make a show where the sex fit in seamlessly to the story, these scenes keep getting yanked out into the spotlight, and then re presented for mere titillation. And thats just wrong. The family of Katie Rough, seven, who was stabbed to death in a playing field near her home in York, have released a video tribute to her ahead of her funeral at York. About the Show. As Americas most fearless purveyor of truthiness, Stephen Colbert shines a light on egodriven punditry, moral hypocrisy and government. Garfield In The Rough Full Episode' title='Garfield In The Rough Full Episode' />The American reaction to sex in its entertainment, as opposed to depictions of violence, is strange and contradictory. And really, we wanted to depict that in different ways. Because sex is worship and sex is a grand joining with another person that you cant really recreate in any other circumstances. So its very important to us to focus on the positives of sex and extrapolate from there. You can see that idea in all three big characters associated with sex so far Bilquis, Salim, and Laura. Bilquis Yetide Badaki is a goddess of love who needs sex as worship. From the beginning of the show, we see her swallow people with her vagina during sex. Its impressive as a showpiece, yes, but it critical to remember that she needs this to survive. Compare Badakis vulnerability in the scenes surrounding the sex, to the goddess power and vitality during them. Badakis audition included the scene where she meets up with a man she found online, takes him back to her room, and swallows him whole. But the scene is still intrinsic to understanding the character. I think love is very active. Badaki loves the way American Gods has been presenting sex overall. The two have sex and the Jinn has flaming eyes and it appears they are in space, all visual cues to the transcendence of the experience. But just focusing on the explicitness of the sex misses the vital parts of what makes Salims story beautiful. The scenes before it, where Salim spends the whole day waiting in an office for a meeting that never happens, and when he confesses to the Jinn how hated he is by the family who got him the job, are equally important, too. It makes the connection Salim makes during his sex with the Jinn mean so much more. And the sex itself feel so much more meaningful, but for the character and the audience, because Salim is finally getting something he deserves from someone who cares about him. Theres something watching thatthe first few times, I got numb to it after a whilebut the first few times I teared up too because I was just thinking about all of the gay men who have this strange, stunted expression of their sexuality because of the overwhelming shame that they are forced to feel culturally, said Fuller, who is gay. Interestingly, the actors playing the parts were not, which meant talking them through the scene a great deal to get it right. Fuller had nothing but praise for the actors. We wanted this to be a sex positive experience, not only for the audience but for the characters. And both of them were such enlightened beings talking about how they wanted to represent even though they were representing themselves. The sex was still about the characters, and it means something to the characters beyond just a mere hotel hook up. He is a practicing and believing Muslim, said Green. So that it would be, in a way, a reward for worship and a life affirming, life changing reaction. Fuller agreed. Or there are death sentences for homosexuals, Fuller explained. We see their first meeting, where Laura goes home with Shadow. While they are attracted to each other, there is still something. And we actually discussed that scene on the day for longer than we shot it, with Craig Zobel the director of episode four. She and Whittle re choreographed the whole sex scene on the day in order to show that, from the beginning, the two characters have very differentand incompatibleideas about each other. We said,. Thats what I want you to do. I know that youre a gentle guy and youre respectful, but Im saying thats what I want. Sex is a large part of how we examine Lauras relationships. After the first sex scene where she goads Shadow into giving her what she wants, we also see the two together after theyre married. Browning continued You cut to a later sex scene with them and again, hes just being gentle and you see her bored. And I like that idea that maybe he wasnt so perfect. Maybe he was being his idea of a perfect man, but he wasnt being Lauras idea of that. Thats not what she wanted. These sex scenes, complicated by Lauras need for excitement and the resulting boredom, help explain why Laura would ask Shadow to rob the casino for her and why Shadow would agree. Which is how he ends up in jail, to protect her. Contrast that sex with the affair Laura has with Robbie Dane Cook. You are not threatening in any way to me. You are already here. So, this is a transaction between us. And I think you so rarely get to see that. Laura isnt a good person, but she knows what she wants, sexually, and here she gets what she wants. It doesnt make her affair okay, but it does deepen Brownings character, letting us know more about her. Browning also ended up echoing the same sentiment Green had said earlier, in an entirely separate interview. That they all think the sex scenes theyre participating in, along with the accompanying nudity, means something more than exploitation or titillation. It means something that sex isnt the defining feature of American Gods, but isnt also removed or shied away from. American Gods should be the blueprint for any show including sex. For example, while I love Outlander, season ones constant threat of sexual violence became exhausting to the point where the parts of the story that did merit explicit scenes became a bit lost. And, again, the makers of Game of Thrones have become infamous for throwing a bit of sex n nudity on the screen if theyre worried the audience is getting bored. Its also important to note that all of American Gods sex has, thus far, not included rape, a horrible trope that far too many series casually use to create drama. On American Gods, sex has been transcendent, boring, a form of worship, and even a transaction, the show has happily never stooped to this sort of storytelling. Everyone should be paying attention to American Gods and taking notes.