And tentacles! 
Whoa, there. I’ll reluctantly accept the charge of saying “this is the way things have always been”, but I never said, nor do I think, that it’s the way things should stay. If and when a woman does go into business producing the sort of nude materials she finds appealing, I have no problem whatsoever with that. Mind, I probably won’t be interested in watching it myself, but then, I’m not interested in a lot of the things targetted at guys, either. There’s plenty of room in the world for different tastes.
As for buying power and deciding whether to see a particular movie, there are a lot of guys who will go to a movie just to see a particular actress naked. If you’re saying that you’re not willing to see a movie solely to see a particular actor naked, then that looks to me like you really aren’t as interested in nudity as the above-mentioned guys. Ultimately, in any industry, the decisions are made by the customers. If men will decide to see movies based soley on the female nudity in them, but women will not decide to see movies based solely on the male nudity, then guess what? There’s going to be more female nudity than male nudity.
I mentioned earlier that Velvet Goldmine became an underground dormitory hit among women at my college. I am quite certain that it was not the film’s artistic merits that made people interested. Girls wanted to see it because it had Ewan McGregor dancing around naked. I know, because I heard plenty of exchanges like this:
“We’re watching Velvet Goldmine tonight, wanna come over?”
“I dunno, what’s it about?”
“Uh, it’s about this journalist doing a story on an old glam rock star.”
“Oh.”
“It’s got Ewan McGregor in it.”
“Oh?”
“And he’s naked.”
“How naked?”
“Pretty darn naked.”
“I’ll be there.”
The only criticism I’ve heard of the film from friends, other than “it was kind of confusing”, was “That other guy [Jonathan Rhys-Meyers] was really hot too, but you hardly got to see him naked at all.”
Unfortunately Velvet Goldmine did not do well at the box office, perhaps because it was marketed as a rock and roll murder mystery movie (an odd choice, as there is no murder) and women didn’t realize there’d be hot naked guys involved. But I think it stands a decent chance of eventually making a lot of money in video/DVD rentals and sales, and that won’t be because people are desperate to hear Ewan McGregor sing “TV Eye”.
I’m sure I would feel a lot better about the world of I shared your faith in the capitalist system, but that’s a debate best suited for another forum.
As much as some might wish to equate the exposure of female breasts and a male derriere, it doesn’t hold true. The simple fact is that there are more regions of a woman’s body that society frowns upon being exposed publicly than is true of the male anatomy. As a result, if a woman and a man are both clad only in a pair of shorts, the woman is (semi-) nude but the man is not.
I think that part of the reason there is much more female nudity in movies is that fact that there are fewer complications involved in breast exposure than in nudity below the waist. When an actor (male or female) is walking around bottomless, much more care has to be taken with lighting, camera angles, motion and poses to avoid the exposure of the still taboo genitals. Sure, I know, that’s what careful editing is all about, but still, it presents fewer problems for the director, camera, and actors.
Just a theory.
Mmmmm…naked Ewan…
And my personal favorite:
Yeah, take it off, yeah!!!
(I’m so glad this was bumped!)
Most of the examples of penis shots that have been given do not occur in sex scenes (Kevin Bacon walking out of the shower etc.). A lot of the female nudity occurs in sex scenes (nudity during sex- makes sense). While the characters are involved in sexual activity it makes sense that the guy would be erect. If you show an erect penis, you lose the “R” rating and head straight into NC-17 while without the erect penis you could possibly have gotten away with a PG-13. Thus, in sex scenes it’s just much easier to show female nudity than male.
Also, a penis is just really difficult to light. There’s all kinds of wrinkles and folds that cast shadows and being thus poorly lit it just doesn’t photograph well.
That said, I really do appreciate when the ol’ John Thomas does show up on film. Makes me want to stand up in the theater and shout “Bravo”. I think it’s really silly that we’re so hung up on sex and even more silly that we directly associate nudity with sex. Nudity is NOT sex, it’s JUST NUDITY!
Jake Gyllenhaal said in an interview that he turned down a role in the new Bertolucci film because he would have been required to show his penis. LOSER! LOSER! LOSER! I can never take him seriously as an actor now. I mean this was a Bertolucci film! A director who has always exercised the utmost artistic integrity in his filmmaking! A director who has given us some of the greatest films of the last 35 years! This wasn’t some bullshit exploitation piece. Jake Gyllenhaal, you are a LOSER!!!
How could we forget that timeless brilliantly evisceral moment in the remake of Lolita when Frank Langella ran down the hallway, and a purposely tilted camera preceeded him, as his robe fell open and his unerect tallywhacker flopped to and fro for a few seconds before he ran past the camera?
Kizarvexius raises a good issue. Choice of angles and lighting and choreography is kind of important. I shot a rough seduction scene once with Debra Karr Unger and James Russo. Debra wasn’t wearing any underpants. There was an angle shot very low to the ground, tilted up. He’s pushed her against the wall, and as he kisses and fondles her, she slides down to the floor, leaning against the wall. We blocked it with her in a big fuzzy bathrobe, then got ready to shoot. They did the kissing the fondling, then she slid down.
Um… I will not get into graphic detail, because I feel it’s impolite - but she wasn thoroughly exposed. I let the shot finish ( one gets fired for calling “Cut” unless someone is in serious physical danger, or you run out of film ). Then I went to my female D.P. boss, and we had a very quiet little talk. She spoke to Debra, who turned both knees to one side as she slid down. Sexy shot, lots of leg and hip, until her torso and face slide into the shot, and nothing inappropriate. When we finished that first take, and I was so …surprised, Bonnie my first assistant looked at my face when I pulled my eye off the eyepice and said, "what? what’s wrong? ". I whispered something like, " Uh, I just got an eyeful !! ".
Such is life. The movie was rated R anyway. And, the seduction scene was pretty boring.
Cartooniverse
You’ve been discussing movies, but television is making headway with nudity. Case in point- NYPDBlue. Sure, it’s on at 10 PM now instead of 9 (I’m almost positive it used to be on earlier than it is now, anyway.)
Most eps have the notice in the lead-in that “This police drama contains adult language and partial nudity…” and sometimes they don’t include the word “partial”.
Last week one of the detectives was lying in bed when his girlfriend let herself into the apartment and, after putting away his gun and telling her she shouldn’t surprise him like that, she said she could make it up to him that night. He flips the covers back and the camera pans maybe 1/2 " above his body, but you are left with no uncertainty that he is naked. She starts stripping and you are treated to her standing with a perky bare bottom and then the two of them on the bed, fully naked, but face-to-face covering the “private parts.” NYPDBlue has done this a couple times, and has been showing a naked male butt at least once a month for the last two seasons in addition to the side shots of a woman’s breast, nipple just out of sight.
I’m just bringing this up since it’s a nearly weekly thing on TV and it seems they are striving for equality in skin-exposure.