After it's premier on Channel 4 two weeks ago, Homeland became the latest US programme to provide viewers with a more "realistic" show, by being more explicit.
Following trailblazers such The Wire, The Sopranos and Deadwood which also feature strong scenes of sex, profanity and violence in order to tell their stories, Homeland started off on equally impressive terms. After learning of a terrorist threat within the US military, we soon catch up with Claire Danes' character 10 months later. Here we see her after a night out, and we soon get a taster of what's to come when she cleans her fanny with a flannel.
Viewers' were equally excited, with Jeff Martin from Portsmouth saying "It was brilliant, to see a female character do that in the opening 5 minutes, well I'm hooked." Sheila James was equally as supportive "Danes does a stellar job in portraying a woman cleaning her vagina after a night out". Armchair critic, Jim Proudview, observed "Television has come along way since Andy Pandy. Back then you would never see Looby Loo wash her vag."
Some however said that despite a promising start, the show didn't maintain the standard. When Damien Lewis' character had sex for the first time with his wife, after 8 years of living isolated in a hole, some felt the consumation wasn't explicit enough. Paul Winsgrove from Grantham said "You couldn't quite tell how traumatic the experience was for his wife. Although she was visibly crying and Lewis was mechanically and violently having sex with her; I wasn't sure she was even being penetrated. I mean sure we got some tits, but a few pubes wouldn't have gone amiss. Game of Thrones is far more realistic."
Showtime, the programme's creators responded saying "If we could show the vagina being penetrated by an erect penis, we would. Sadly some people in America aren't progressive enough to accept groundbreaking television. Questioning the morality of a white US war hero is about our limits. Sure he'll eventually end up not killing anybody deemed "innocent" or a member of Congress; however we're lucky that American's are willing to accept Blacks/ Hispanic/ Asians as "traitors" to their country. *cough* Corporal Walker."
