# Most degrading or humiliating scene for an actress/actor **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2003, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102 "2003-07-22T07:24:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/1 "2003-07-22T07:24:07Z")
There was another thread that I don’t want to rethread ([Uncomfortable scenes](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193585)), but in this I want to focus on degrading scenes. Those scenes who depict an actress/actor in a situation that makes you feel a little sad sympathy for them, a situation that you will never accept to perform if you were in their shoes. My favorites (not for good) are: 1. The oral sex stuck of **Selma Blair** in **The Sweetest Thing**. 2. **Jennifer Connely** and the double-ass dildo in **Requiem for a Dream**. 3. Rape of **Ned Beatty** in **Deliverance**. 4. The sex with the strange creature by Isabelle Adjani in **Possession**. 5. The fisting scene of **Isabella Rosselini** in **Blue Velvet**. Of course there are more that I don’t recall by now, but it has to refer to sex-degradation. I cannot understand how would they feel when their kids or relatives see those scenes. (Hope this would not be considered a sick thread) ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/2 "2003-07-22T07:36:50Z")
But Ned squealed like a piggy so well! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/3 "2003-07-22T07:42:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Grousser \* > \*\*There was another thread that I don’t want to rethread, but in this I want to focus on degrading scenes. Those scenes who depict an actress/actor in a situation that makes you feel a little sad sympathy for them, a situation that you will never accept to perform if you were in their shoes. > > (…) > > Of course there are more that I don’t recall by now, but it has to refer to sex-degradation. \*\* Why, are you compiling a “To See” list? If so, I can only recommend real porn. ---
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/4 "2003-07-22T07:50:24Z")
No, I’m not interested in porn. I saw it in my young days and now it bores me. This is just because I feel sympathy for mainstream performers who have to do that kind of stuff. I don’t mind if I saw the movies yet. :o ---
**Author:** ![zen101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c68b51/32.png) [@zen101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zen101)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/5 "2003-07-22T10:27:17Z")
Kim Bassinger crawling on the floor in 9 1/2 weeks. ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/6 "2003-07-22T11:01:17Z")
Wow! Unless you’re preparing a lawsuit against Hollywood or writing some kind of paper on violence against women, this seems really sick. Assuming you’ve a legitimate reason, what about Jennifer Jason Leigh in the gang rape in Last Exit to Brooklyn, or Kerry Fox performing fellatio on Mark Rylance in Intimacy (which I’ve not actually seen, but is pretty notorious). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/7 "2003-07-22T11:54:45Z")
How about Joan Collins having to be controlled by a giant ant in **Empire of the Ants**? Has to be more degrading than any sex scene. ---
**Author:** ![McJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@McJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McJohn)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/8 "2003-07-22T12:04:37Z")
“Reanimator” does it for me. Ugh. Not only does the first sex scene feature a man rolling off his lover without even saying, “Gosh, sweetie, I sure enjoy being with you,” the end of the movie has this scene in which the semiconscious ingenue is surrounded by leering, drooling monsters who leer and drool all over her while ripping off her top. I was watching this poor young lady, with every eye in the room pointedly pointed toward her nakedness, and all I could think was, “That is the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen a director do to an actor.” 'Course, that was before “Battlefield Earth”. ---
**Author:** ![richardb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@richardb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richardb)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/9 "2003-07-22T12:08:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by McJohn \* > \*\*“Reanimator” does it for me. Ugh. Not only does the first sex scene feature a man rolling off his lover without even saying, “Gosh, sweetie, I sure enjoy being with you,” the end of the movie has this scene in which the semiconscious ingenue is surrounded by leering, drooling monsters who leer and drool all over her while ripping off her top. I was watching this poor young lady, with every eye in the room pointedly pointed toward her nakedness, and all I could think was, “That is the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen a director do to an actor.” > > 'Course, that was before “Battlefield Earth”. \*\* Not to mention the scene that gives a whole new definition to the sex act “giving head.” ---
**Author:** ![Mullinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@Mullinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mullinator)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/10 "2003-07-22T12:48:35Z")
Call me crazy, but I am thinking Ving Rhames deserves a spot somewhere on this list. ---
**Author:** ![mecaenas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@mecaenas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mecaenas)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/11 "2003-07-22T12:53:38Z")
Surely something like the Jennifer Connelly scene would actually be staged by body-doubles, you wouldn’t get an actress of her standing actually performing the act herself - hell actresses regularly get body-doubles for harmless nude scenes, like in Titanic. So my point is, do those scenes really count at all? ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/12 "2003-07-22T12:55:58Z")
Watching Malcom McDonald and Peter O’Toole and Sir John Guilgud degrade themselves in the truly dreadful awful reprehensable Caligula ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/13 "2003-07-22T12:57:56Z")
Halle Berry’s intimate scene with Thornton in _Monster’s Ball_. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/14 "2003-07-22T13:24:29Z")
It seems like some of those could be good moments–it can’t be easy to maintain your dignity and do such humiliating stuff. Perhaps the most embarrassing thing is getting stuck with somethig easy, like an even tempered cashier. Then for the rest of your career, other actors will say things like, “Sure, falling off a log is easy, but not as easy as playing _even tempered cashier_!” ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/15 "2003-07-22T13:39:50Z")
At first, Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Main character, Raymond, seemed to be just that: a humiliating role. But once you watch it and appreciate it, it seems like quite an accomplishment. The actor (name escaped me) who was raped in Pulp Fiction is a nominee. Never heard of the Jennifer Conelly scene. Cute kid. What happened in that one?? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/16 "2003-07-22T13:51:25Z")
If you’ve ever had the misfortune to view 8 1/2 women, I probably need say no more. If you haven’t, consider this: Man climbs into bed with his elderly father, then asks him to remove his underwear. Ewwwwwwwwww. ---
**Author:** ![Splanky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@Splanky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Splanky)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/17 "2003-07-22T14:11:48Z")
Every scene from **From Justin to Kelly** , now #1 on [IMDB.com](http://IMDB.com)’s Worst Movies of All-Time list. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/18 "2003-07-22T14:21:16Z")
Are we talking about scenes depicting degrading _situations_, or just scenes that actors might be reluctant to do in front of cameras? In _Intimacy_, for example, Kerry Fox went beyond what most mainstream actesses would be willing to do in a scene, but the _situation_ being depicted isn’t degrading at all; it’s just two adult lovers have some oral sex in private, which is fairly normal, I understand. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/19 "2003-07-22T14:48:24Z")
Ditto this submission: > [@](#): > > Halle Berry’s intimate scene with Thornton in Monster’s Ball. I don’t see anything degrading about this scene at all–it’s actually a moment of liberation for the two characters. Are you saying, JuanitaTech, that doing it with BBT is automatically degrading? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102/20 "2003-07-22T16:35:05Z")
Co-starring opposite Madonna. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-degrading-or-humiliating-scene-for-an-actress-actor/190102.md?page=2)