Over the past few years we’ve seen a number of shows such as Game of Thrones coming in for criticism due to the imbalance between female and male nudity, but it seems that won’t be the case with Starz’s hotly-anticipated American Gods as showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green have revealed that the cable network encouraged “equal opportunity nudity”.
“‘Equal opportunity’ was the actual term,” Green tells Screen Rant. “They knew that there was going to be sexual content in this show, we were clear that our sexual content was always going to be uncuttable in the sense that it would be related to character and story and be presented as artfully as anything else. f there is a sex scene in a show or film that if you eliminated it, someone can still appreciate the emotional journeys of the characters, then it probably wasn’t done right – or at least that’s how we went about it.”
“Starz said upfront that they encouraged the male nudity because they didn’t want to take a hit on this show having female nudity but not male nudity,” added Fuller. “They were encouraging, [saying], ‘If you want to do more male nudity, we have no problem with it… if you’re going to do nudity, do everybody – not just the ladies.’”
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“American Gods tells the story of Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) as he is released from prison after the death of his wife. Upon meeting the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, he becomes the enigmatic man’s bodyguard, but quickly learns of a secret war brewing between the Gods of old mythology and the New Gods of today: money, technology and media. As Shadow travels across the country with Mr. Wednesday, he learns his employer is one an old Norse god recruiting help for the coming war before they slowly die off.”
American Gods will premiere on Starz on April 30th.
Originally published April 30, 2017. Updated November 30, 2022.
