Lots of tongues wagging this week about how Viggo Mortensen’s naked knife fight in Eastern Promises heralds a new era of male full-frontal nudity on screen. (Exhibits B through D: Emile Hirsch’s nude scene in Into the Wild; Ang Lee’s NC-17-rated Lust, Caution, and over on HBO, that casually explicit handjob on Tell Me You Love Me.) But before you get too excited about this rising trend, remember that we hear similar talk every few years. Back in the early ’90s, indie dramas were showing us every inch of Harvey Keitel, Bruce Willis, Jaye Davidson, and Harvey Keitel again. At the end of the decade, we were seeing a lot of Ewan McGregor, Kevin Bacon, and (in prosthetic form) Mark Wahlberg. Each time, however, the trend would deflate after a few movies, and there would be no penis talk for a long while.
Why the up-and-down cycles? It’s not the actors; every time I’ve interviewed an actor and the subject of full-frontal has popped up, they’ve all said they’d be willing if the script demanded it. So either the filmmakers are squeamish, or audiences are. (Or both.) It could be that we’re conditioned (by four decades of female nudity in mainstream films, not to mention the entire history of Western art) to view female nudity as beautiful and erotic and male nudity as awkward and ridiculous. (See Borat.) Will we become more comfortable watching actors go commando if filmmakers make it more commonplace? Are you eager, PopWatchers, to see your favorite actors in the altogether, or would you just as soon have them keep their packages wrapped?
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The double standard that does not die. I say parity in nudity.
If the script and story justify the nudity and it’s not gratuitous, then there’s nothing wrong with female or male nudity.
I say: Bring on the weiners!
You used the wrong form of “too” up there…it should read, “But before you get TOO excited about this rising trend…” The pun still works, though!
I think male frontal can be distracting because we’re not used to seeing it (and frankly, they’re not the most attractive parts of the anatomy, gay or straight), but I think that with time and audience exposure (no pun intended)they can become a bigger part of the picture (again, no pun intended).
The issue’s that most women aren’t that into seeing a weinus.
Per Elaine in Seinfeld, the male body is more utilitarian than anything else. Thus, the ladies seem to dig on pecks, buttocks and built dudes,which is what most movies show when they got the nudie men on.
Personally, I don’t care one way or the other. I like it when they show a hottie starlet in her birthday suit (and a lot of folks agree with me. How much $$$ did Halle Berry get to show off her goodies in Swordfish?), but haven’t heard from any woman a line like “oh, I wonder what Hugh Jackman’s got under the hood”. If it’s what audiences demand, I say let it happen.
Oh, and Susman, you forgot to mention Tim Robbins who went commando in The Player.
Studios cater to an overwhelmingly strong male box office presence. (i.e. 300 fared better than The Nanny Diaries). Studios for the most part like to put on the screen what guys want to see, and that does not include a face full of dong.
Bring on the men! I’ve seen enough breasts to last me a life time…it’s time for women to have something else to look at.
Hmmmm. I don’t know, 50 foot tall wrinkly bits might leave some folks traumatized.
Because I’m a feminist and strong believer in equality, I’ll say this: BRING ON THE WEINERS!!!!!!!
But it’s Aragorn!!!! Ewwww….. I’d never be able to view LOTR the same way again!!
Show it all!!!
Viggo’s already bared it all in Sean Penn’s 1991 The Indian Runner. It’s nothing new to him.
I’m all for the desensitizing of our culture to the natural condition of nudity. We’re ridiculous.
I’m a straight guy who is a filmlover and I say, “Bring it on”. Why the heck should we shy away from ANY form of nudity? It all seems rather silly to me. If the plot calls for it then run with it. Oh, and let’s hope that the MPAA brings on their “Hard R” which will hopefully remove the theater owners prejudice against mainstream, adult fare. I find that both ridiculous and censorial in nature and hope that the two factions (MPAA and NATO) can reach an agreement sometime soon.