HBO's John Adams

I gotta say I'm excited for this mini-series! I read the book by David McCullough and it was very VERY good. Paul Giamatti is playing the role of John Adams and I do enjoy his work. He was great in Cinderella Man and The Woman in the Water and from the bits and pieces I've seen/heard he's will not let us down in this role either. Laura Linney is playing the role of Abigail Adams (I thought Aby was a brunette!?!?). I'm not sure how I feel about that fit. To be honest, I think she's too pretty. My take on Abigail is that she was more "earthy". I"m willing to wait for an episode or two before I pass my final judgment (it's your role to blunder at this point, Laura... break a leg).

Now having said how excited I am about this project, I have to admit that I heard something today on POTUS (XM Radio channel something-or-other) that has me somewhat disappointed about this one of the episodes. Evidently the makers (director) has felt it necessary that it include a sex scene between Giamatti and Linney. First of all, even the thought of Giamatti in a sex scene is disturbing in and of itself, but even more to the point, WHY!?!? Why is it necessary to show a love scene between John and Abigail?? It wasn't in the book?? It wasn't in the original script (that's supposed to closely follow the book). Why does Hollywood think that everything needs to have sex scenes in order to be believable? Here's the scene as described by the director: John has been in Paris and separated from Abigail for a long time. They are very very in love (this is true) and the separation is painful for both of them. Finally, John makes it possible for Abigail to cross the Atlantic to be with him. The original scene evidently included John and Abigail acting the very proper Northeastern protestants that they were by greeting each other as "Mrs. Adams" and "Mr. Adams". John then gives Abigail a tour of their house in Paris moving through each room and floor until they end upstairs in the bedroom. This is the point were they make physical contact for the first time. This is also where the director decided it was "necessary" (his word, not mine) that they ad lib a love scene. He said in effect, "it's important that we know that people of this time had sex. It's important to the project that we have some moment of our founding fathers... um... well the third 'F' [giggle, giggle, smirk, smirk]." Ummm... I don't think I need that (and by the way, how crass and disrespectful can you be?). I assumed that since they'd had a lot of children that the fact they'd had sex was self-evident. In fact, if you read the book, it's incredibly obvious that they were madly in love with each other, but the expression of their love to one another, even in their most personal writings was tempered by the the "properness" of a New England society still steeped in puritan sensibilities and was based more on their admiration for the person than their infatuation with the person's parts (I mean, C'MON... look at how they dressed!!!). I think a much more appropriate scene would have been for John and Abigail upon reaching the bedroom, to reach out and slowly draw each other close while looking into each others' eyes and while starting to slowly smile, each knowing what was on the other's mind, slowly close the door on the camera leaving us standing on the other side. We all know what happens next. We don't need to be in the room with them when it happens. To do otherwise just disrespects the love that the Adams' had for each other and the privacy in which they held their intimacies. The "love scene" as described by the makers of this episode has much less to do with "it's importance" or "our need to view it in order for it to be honest and real" and much more to do with Hollywood's degrading (and I may say self-inflating but WRONG) presumption that we're all just a bunch of voyeuristic deviants and that need a movie to have sex and violence in order for it to be worthwhile. So sad, so sad The just don't get it.