Learn English – Did the term “money shot” originate in the mainstream film industry

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The Wikipedia entry on money shot indicates that the phrase originated in the film industry in general, not just in pornographic films.

Originally, in general film-making usage, the "money shot" was simply the scene that cost the most money to produce.

By contrast, Collins indicates it originated in the porn industry. To be fair, that entry only talks about the pornographic meaning of "money shot".

Where did it come from? Did it exist before the porn meaning arose? Did the porn industry take an obscure term and make it more popular?

Best Answer

According to the The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English it is a new AmE expression which probably originated in the pornographic industry in the late '50s.

  • US, 1957 noun a scene in a pornographic film or photograph ofa man ejaculating outside his partner. Perhaps because it is the one show that justifies the cost of the scene.

Also the following extract from the The New York Magazine appears to suggest that the origin is from the pornographic industry:

  • Steve Ziplow, in his "Filmmaker's Guide to Pornography," noted in 1977 that "there are those who believe that the . . . money shot is the most important element in the movie." The staid but resolutely unblushing Oxford English Dictionary, cites this climactic phrase as an American colloquialism for "a provocative, sensational or memorable sequence in a film, on which the film's commercial performance is perceived to depend; (specifically, in a pornographic film) one showing ejaculation); . . . (also, in extended use) a crucial or pivotal moment, event or factor, especially in another art form, as a novel."
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