Are there equal amounts of male and female nudity in movies?

Cafe Society
21

Grousser, I did pay attention to the rest of your post. That comment just struck me as being particularly biased.

You’re claiming that ‘society’ finds male bodies less aesthetically pleasing than female bodies. I would like to remind you that society is made up of approximately 50% women, most of whom find men more attractive than women. I don’t think your opinion of what society thinks is accurate, I think it is biased towards what heterosexual men think - an easy mistake to make, because until the recent past heterosexual males have been the most vocal about what they find sexually appealing. I was just trying to remind you that there are a lot of people who don’t hold that opinion.

You say that women who show their breasts in movies do it because they love to - have you thought that maybe some (if not most) of them did it because women are often told that if they don’t show what they’ve got, the part will go to someone else who will? Actresses have tough decisions to make in this regard - young men looking to get into Hollywood are not asked to make these decisions as often. Once an actor or actress has some sway with the studios, then you can tell whether they love to show their bodies to the world. You’ll find that many actresses use this influence to have the nude scene written out, or to hire a body double instead. I think this shows that when they have a choice, most actresses aren’t as keen on waving it all about as you seem to think.

You say that sexual roles need to be taken into account - I think sexual roles are a pile of crap, a carryover from times past, and they certainly aren’t some hard and fast rule that must be adhered to. There is a difference between sexuality and the organs we keep between our legs, and I don’t think we can divide the roles neatly down gender lines. Mens and women’s bodies are different, and Lamia has raised some good points about the difference between nudity for women and men, which I completely agree with. But to say that women should be nude more often than men so that sexual roles can be ‘respected’ just reinforces the idea that women are objects to be put on display, rather than individuals with sexual desires of their own.

You ask if women want to see more or if they want to win - you give only two choices there, and phrase it so that it sounds like some sort of competition, which it isn’t. What about a third option? I think women want to be respected as sexual beings, which means not being exploited (happening less often) as well as having our desires considered (also improving, but more slowly). In terms of Hollywood, this means showing a variety of nudity - male and female, titillating and meaningful, or even no nudity (wacky idea, I know :slight_smile: ) depending on the situation. I don’t think we get that variety yet, although moves are being made in that direction and I believe we will reach that point sooner rather than later.

(To change the subject a little bit: Ewan McGregor is doing his share to even up the balance in nudity. )

22

Wow, that response looked a lot shorter in the little textbox.

23

Just the A thru Ds: Willie Aames, Paradise, Christopher Atkins, The Blue Lagoon, Alan Bates, Women in Love, Tom Berenger, In Praise of Older Women and At Play in the Fields of the Lord, David Bowie, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Jeff Bridges, Rancho Deluxe, Gary Brockette, The Last Picture Show, Pierce Brosnan, Nomads, Simon Callow, A Room With a View, Jeff Conaway, Covergirl, Tom Cruise, All the Right Moves, Willem Dafoe, Loveless and The Last Temptation of Christ, Phil Daniels, Quadrophenia, Jaye Davidson, The Crying Game, Patrick Dempsey, Some Girls, Robert DeNiro, 1900, David Duchovny, New Years Day.

24

Are you going to make a list of movies with female frontal nudity, A through D, for comparison? It’d be useful…

25

Harvey Keitel displays his penis so others don’t have to. He carries the burden. But if you really want to see a lot of penises, try a Peter Greenaway movie.

It puzzles me why the MPAA seems to have become more prudish about nudity over the years. In the 1970’s and early 1980’s I saw quite a bit of nudity in PG movies (including Kelly LeBrock, full-frontal in The Woman in Red). Yet a couple of years ago, they gave an R to the Director’s Cut of Amadeus because of a brief scene with a topless actress. Ridiculous.

26

W=ell, there’s Red Heat (1985) which had them, and Red Heat (1988) which didn’t.

27

Julian Sands and Rupert Graves can also be seen running around naked for quite some time in A Room With a View.

Rupert Graves appears full-frontally again in Maurice, with James Wilby.

28

Walloon, The Man Who Fell to Earth, A Room With a View, Women in Love, The Crying Game, and Quadrophenia are all British films and so fall into the “foreign or independant” category. So do the Canadian Covergirl, Paradise and In Praise of Older Women. (Canada is arguably barely foreign, but they do have their own film industry that is distinct from Hollywood.) According to the IMDB 1900 was a joint French, Italian, and German production. Robert DeNiro may be a Hollywood star, but it’s not a Hollywood movie. Of the actual Hollywood films on your list, I have only seen The Last Picture Show and I can’t remember Gary Brockette’s character at all.

29

Aidan Quinn, Reckless, Kevin Bacon, Wild Things, Tim Robbins, The Player, Jan-Michael Vincent, Buster and Billie, Richard Gere, American Gigolo and Breathless, Viggo Mortensen, The Indian Runner, Sean Patrick Flannery, Powder, James Woods, Curse of the Starving Class, Robert Forster, Medium Cool, Scott Glenn, The Baby Maker, Lou Milione, Six Degrees of Separation, David Naughton, An American Werewolf in London, James Spader, Supernova (video version), Tony Goldwyn, Love Matters, Don Johnson, The Harrad Experiment, Ed Harris, Swing Shift, Richard Harris, Tarzan, the Ape Man, Bruce Willis, The Color of Night, Kyle MacLachlan, Blue Velvet, Eric Stoltz, Naked in New York, Harvey Keitel, The Bad Lieutenant, Daniel Day-Lewis, Stars and Bars, Rob Lowe, About Last Night, Michael Margotta, Drive, He Said, Dennis Hopper, Tracks, Kenny Moore, Personal Best, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator.

30

And a BIG thank you to Walloon!

:: rushes off to video store ::

31

Since you’re making the trip, I’ll recommend Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine. I had a friend in college who owned it on DVD, and it quickly became a women’s dormitory hit thanks to multiple shots of Ewan McGregor naked from the front, back, and side, plus Christian Bale and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in various stages of undress.

Todd Haynes is an American director but the film was a joint US/UK production, and according to Haynes the leads (Scottish, Welsh, and Irish, respectively) all seemed much more comfortable with doing nude gay love scenes than the American actors he’d worked with in the past. He didn’t mention how American actors feel about nude scenes without the homoerotic component, though.

32

I think there’s more female nudity, partly as a result of the much greater amount amount of female near-nudity which, IRL, you can see just about everywhere in summer. Think about it. If you go down to Ocean Front Walk in Venice California, on an August Saturday afternoon, you’ll see many of the women wearing little shorts, halter tops, tiny bikinis, and other revealing attire. While most all the guys will be in basketball-length trunks and XL t-shirts. It’s a stark double standard that’s gotten stronger over the past 10 years or so. It’s as if a man isn’t supposed to exhibit himself because that would be “gay” ( in either the real sense, or the pejorative sense which has been discussed elsewhere on the Board). Frankly I hate it. I’m a guy and think it would be a lot more comfortable in hot weather if we could nearly strip down the way women can. But there’s definitely an aversion to the male body out there, that comes from several factors. First, men are acknowledged to be more visual; i.e., it seems we like looking at women more than they like looking at us, second most straight men are probably secretly afraid they’ll go gay if they look at a naked man on screen for too long, and third, a lot of men’s bodies ARE unattractive, reflecting the lesser degree of pressure on us to keep them in good shape. So I think these things are reflected in movies.

33

Heh heh. You may be on to something here. They may not be motivated by a fear of suddenly “going gay” per se, but some men do seem to find the thought or sight of another nude man very unpleasant. Male partial nudity that’s intended to be comedic, like a guy mooning someone, is usually “safe” for macho audiences, but more serious or sexual scenes might not be. I never saw Wild Things so for all I know Kevin Bacon’s nude scene really was unusually unappealing, but I remember hearing guys talk about it as if it were the single most revolting thing they’d ever seen in their entire lives. Seemed a little silly to me, since I knew some of these same guys enjoyed gory horror flicks.

Women rarely seem to have the same sort of reaction to the sight of nude women in movies. They may not always like it, but their displeasure tends to manifest itself as annoyance rather than disgust. So I wouldn’t blame Hollywood for concluding that female nudity, if not too obviously trashy or exploitative, won’t alienate too many female viewers but male nudity may turn off male viewers in more ways than one.

34

Kevin Bacon nekkid in Wild Things. Warning: :wally

35

Spectre and Lamia: well, now we’re cooking. Is is comforting to know I’m not the only one thinking along those lines (Woman: he’s a cute actor, don’t you think? Man: what??? I don’t know if he’s cute. Don’t ask me that question. Gross.)

What is up with that? I must know.

And, Walloon, I’m watching all those movies the time my SO is out of the house, thanks!

36

“It”, not “is”

insert “next”
I must stop posting so late at night!

37

I have to call “bullshit” on this one. I’m a guy, whenever I go to the beach all I wear is a pair of swim trunks, largely because for me a lot of the fun of going to the beach is getting out in the surf and snorkeling. But I also spend a lot of time just walking around looking at shells and women.

Granted, I don’t wear thongs any more after that unpleasant mass blinding incident (it’s really unsettling to hear so many people screaming “My eyes!” “My eyes!”) but really, I don’t feel at all encumbered by a pair of comfy bathing trunks, and anyway given the way little fish nip at whatever’s hanging out when I snorkel, I wouldn’t WANT to be swimming with my dangly bits exposed.

I don’t care much what people think of what I look like on the beach, I’m basically there to have fun.

38

Man Walloon, you’re really on the ball! (Er…heh heh…yes.)

But gosh, looking at that picture I can’t think what all the fuss was about. I heard such shock and horror when that film came out that I half expected poor Kevin Bacon to have some sort of hideous deformity, although why he’d agree to do a nude scene if that were the case I don’t know.

39

I think it’s fairly well accepted that males tend to get more aroused by visual stimulus than females. This has been borne out by psychological studies, anecdotal evidence and the fact that theres a whole LOT more porn aimed at guys than women on the web.

40

Women are better looking naked.

It’s a fact.