Sex and the Cinema

By: Hannah Blackman

I was simply getting my hair colored. My hairdresser said, lowering his voice to a whisper: “Did you see Forgetting Sarah Marshall?” I hadn’t yet. What’s so special? He bent toward me. “He drops the towel.” “Facing which way?”  Scissors in hand, he said, sotto voce,  “He steps out of the shower, you can hear him walking, slap slap slap slap. And then he drops the towel. Full frontal.”

Here they go, I thought. Showing what The Full Monty tactfully did not. Breaking another taboo. And then the disquieting thought: Where on earth will they go next?

I knew, at that moment, that it was my responsibility to say a word to producers of contemporary film on the perils of what may lie ahead.

But when I mentioned this article to the men in my family, they were highly disturbed. Old gals like me do not take up the subject of the on-screen whatsit. But why not? I was married for more than fifty years. I know the ins and outs of the subject from the perspective of both youth, when I would have approached it with a rush of hormones, and in age when I consider it with a sigh of recollection.

In ancient Greece, the beauty of the male athlete unclothed was a thing of art. Go to Italy and see the magnificent statue of Michelangelo’s David–those strong hands, the great feet planted solid on the earth, and the beauty of his sexuality, power of life itself.

Then came the Puritans and the Victorian age, and the fig-leaf squad went about either covering up or knocking off to save the embarrassment of the ladies who could faint at the mention of a “chicken breast.”

When I was a kid, early ‘30s, anything sexual in the library was kept in a glass case under lock and key. In those days, it was ten cents for a double feature–an exciting “serial” cliff-hanger, and a chance to win one of the great prizes in the lobby.  We saw a mostly unclothed Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). He wore only a little leather thingy over his who-knew-what, and we were always hoping that, as he swung vine to vine, a jungle breeze might whisk it aside. No luck. And knowing nothing about sex, we sang what we considered a really “dirty” little ditty: Two little lovers, under the covers, and what do they do, they doodley do.

What they did was only hinted at in the movies. Married folk slept in twin beds, without a suggestion that on occasion they crossed over. See It Happened One Night (1934). Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are forced to spend a night alone (unmarried) in a motel. They string a clothes line between the beds and sling a blanket over it. But oh that was sexy.

Back in the ‘60s, the first line was crossed with a play called Oh Calcutta which displayed frontal male nudity. And if I remember correctly, in a play called I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running, a nude character suddenly turns and faces the audience. He wasn’t a classical David–just an ordinary guy with an ordinary winkie. And it was not sexual…it was pure comedy.

Then came contemporary film. First the naked breasts of women were revealed and permitted.  In one film, Short Cuts (1993), Julianne Moore whips off her skirt to clean a stain and she’s starkies underneath, but it’s not sexual because she’s so anorexic she looks like a store window mannequin. And wasn’t she uncomfortable without any underwear?   So women’s naked bodies were slowly inside the line.

Once female nudity was accepted, then came the orgasm. In almost every date movie, you have the two little lovers under the covers, moaning and heaving and crying out such passionate cries of amour that I’m sure many gals in the audience listened in chagrin: was that how it was supposed to sound? What am I missing? Did I pair up with the wrong guy? So vocal that it was brilliantly satirized in When Harry Met Sally (1989).

Suddenly, the door opened to male nudity. In Pulp Fiction, Bruce Willis steps naked out of the shower. But the male athletic body was always a piece of art. He looks great. Eastern Promises displayed Viggo Mortensen full frontal, but again Mortensen was an athlete in combat. I missed that scene the first time, not because I was not curious, but because he was stabbing a guy in the eye while battling starkers and I’m squeamish about eye-stabbing. But I had to see it a second time for the “scene,” and again it was an athlete fighting for his life in a steam room–he had to be naked, and it was tasteful and done not to shock but for veracity…which is the issue that’s making me nervous–not for me in the audience, but for you guys out there.

Because the male thingy has been exposed. The line has been crossed. Where is it going from here?  That is what worries me.

There are two reasons for making film. One: a great story with a look into the human heart, such as one acted by Daniel Day Lewis and Jeremy Irons whose peckies there is no need to show on screen.  The second reason: great entertainment and the genre films, action films, horror films, date films.  In horror, you can always get another stronger shock with a new kind of decapitation or gory shattering limb removal. And the ever popular date films all star Jennifer Aniston with loud, vocal lovemaking.

So now what?  To bring more folks into the theaters in a time when you can rent videos and watch at home. What’s the next shocker?  Now that the pecky has been unsheathed, what will they do to it next? The next step is showing the thingy not in its athletic state or out of a cold shower in quiet repose but …dare I say it?

Remember A Fish Called Wanda (1988)?  Where John Cleese, fully excited at the expectation of a sexual adventure with Jamie Lee Curtis, strips naked, the door opens, and a family with children walk in and stare–he quickly pulls a framed photo off the table and covers his chagrin. It was funny!

Producers, directors…do not take that next step. Guys, unless the ladies of the audience are drenched in hormones, it’s going to be not titillating but comedic, and not entirely flattering.

Please, for the sake of romance, keep the two little lovers under the covers, moan and sigh if you must. But yes, a quick run from the showers, if he’s in great shape…and I saw what you were doing in Sex and the City with that last quick shot. And I quiver to think of what you’re going to do next.

Stop while you’re ahead.