by Naomi Schaefer Riley
Elizabeth Berkley gets “artsy” in the 1995 risqué flick “Showgirls.” |
Do you need full nudity to show a woman is upset by a friend’s death? Apparently the makers of “The Big Chill” persuaded Glenn Close it was necessary. Did Julianne Moore’s pantless scene in “Short Cuts” really tie the film together?
Sophie Horn
“I’ll do nudity for the right part,” is the Hollywood cliché, and every so often there’s a naked role that garners critical acclaim. Halle Berry won an Oscar for “Monster’s Ball,” but I can’t help thinking Angela Bassett was right to reportedly turn down the role because it was too explicit.
And let’s be honest, “artistic nudity” is rarely an Academy Award-nominated role. It’s about voyeurism and ticket sales, and supposedly liberal-minded Hollywood producers convincing women to take off their clothes.
“It was all my fault.”
That was director Paul Verhoeven apologizing last week to actress Elizabeth Berkley. In 1995, Berkley, whose star was rising with her career on “Saved by the Bell,” was cast by Verhoeven in the movie “Showgirls.”
Bianca Kajlich topless in 30 minutes or less
Berkley played the lead role of Nomi, an aspiring dancer who wants to make it in Vegas but ends up working in a strip club instead. Filled with nude scenes, lesbian sex and an icky shot of Berkley licking a pole, the movie was universally panned.
Berkley thought she was making a serious film. It turned out she was making porn.
“ ‘Showgirls’ certainly ruined the career of Elizabeth Berkley in a major way,” Verhoeven said. “It made my life more difficult, but not to the degree it did Elizabeth’s. Hollywood turned their backs on her.”
Despite the fact that the movie has a kind of cult following — no doubt among 13-year-old boys — Berkley’s career fizzled.
But she is not the only one who should get an apology. Just like Verhoeven, Hollywood has been conning actresses for decades by telling them nudity is “necessary” for a part.
Do you need full nudity to show a woman is upset by a friend’s death? Apparently the makers of “The Big Chill” persuaded Glenn Close it was necessary. Did Julianne Moore’s pantless scene in “Short Cuts” really tie the film together?
“I’ll do nudity for the right part,” is the Hollywood cliché, and every so often there’s a naked role that garners critical acclaim. Halle Berry won an Oscar for “Monster’s Ball,” but I can’t help thinking Angela Bassett was right to reportedly turn down the role because it was too explicit.
And let’s be honest, “artistic nudity” is rarely an Academy Award-nominated role. It’s about voyeurism and ticket sales, and supposedly liberal-minded Hollywood producers convincing women to take off their clothes.
Did these actresses feel like they had a choice? The reactions to Seth MacFarlane’s opening number from the 2013 Oscars suggest not. The song, “We Saw Your Boobs,” mentioned many of the actresses who shared their bounty with audiences. Besides Berry, there was Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and Kristen Stewart. The list went on and on as the camera panned to each one of the women in the audience.
Rumor afterward was that their annoyed looks were all staged. But it would have been hard to mimic the sheer joy emanating from Jennifer Lawrence, when MacFarlane noted, “But we haven’t seen Jennifer Lawrence’s boobs at all.”
Like Julia Roberts and Cate Blanchett, Lawrence has managed to be one of the most successful actresses in Hollywood without revealing too much. Roberts even managed to play a prostitute without losing vital items of clothing.
J-Law has made news lately pushing to ensure that the sisterhood gets paid better by Hollywood. Another great cause: the fact that many of her colleagues are being treated like, um, strippers.
In response to MacFarlane’s song, lawyer Gloria Allred railed: “It’s one thing to be topless and to have that in the context of the film, for a purpose in a particular scene for a particular reason. It’s another to take it out of context and just focus on women’s breasts.”
But in the days of screen grabs and GIFs, that’s exactly what happens. The Internet tells you what film an actress is naked in and when. Plenty of men are happy to take women’s breasts “out of context.”
If Hollywood didn’t want audiences to “just focus on women’s breasts,” they might spend less energy insisting women take their clothes off.
Brittney Palmer