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<\/p>\nFrom \u201cThe Idol\u201d to \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d women\u2019s bodies were on display on our screens the past few months. Some executions succeeded with humor, others felt misguided.<\/p>\n
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By <\/span>Maya Phillips<\/span><\/p>\n This has been a summer of women being liberated \u2014 from their wardrobes, mostly. The nudity on our screens has been a topic of constant conversation for months, from the provoking premiere of \u201cThe Idol\u201d in June to the left-field nudity in \u201cOppenheimer\u201d (and the interpersonal havoc it wreaked on some relationships, as one viral TikTok can attest to). In each instance the theme, in one respect or another, seems to be liberation: not necessarily of the de Beauvoir variety, but a female character\u2019s liberation from some kind of enclosure, whether societal, cultural or personal, and her nudity is meant to reflect that.<\/p>\n Depending on the context of the story, the director\u2019s intention, the work\u2019s perspective or the execution of the shot, a nude scene may serve as shorthand for a character\u2019s newfound physical or spiritual freedom, or even an emotional or psychological breakthrough. Or it may be another case of entertainment using a woman\u2019s body for shock value. What follows is a spoiler-filled survey of the most gratuitous, unforgettable scenes of nudity this summer \u2014 and an analysis of which ones succeeded in showcasing the female form with reason and intention, as more than just eye candy.<\/p>\n The setup:<\/strong> On \u201cThe Idol,\u201d a young pop star named Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), feeling artistically frustrated and in the midst of a nervous breakdown, thrives under the tutelage of a mysterious club owner named Tedros (Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd) who is fostering a cult of skilled wannabe stars.<\/p>\n The scene:<\/strong> It\u2019s tough to pick just one nude scene in this disaster of a television show because Jocelyn is perennially stuck in a state of partial undress. In the first few minutes of the first episode we see Jocelyn in an open silky red robe at a photo shoot, arguing with the intimacy coordinator about her choice to do the shoot with her breasts visible.<\/p>\n By belittling the job of the intimacy coordinator, the scene appears to be less about building Jocelyn as a character than it is about the series planting a flag in the bedraggled land of lurid television. Jocelyn\u2019s insistence on doing the shoot without covering up is meant to illustrate that she\u2019s a liberated woman, fully in charge of her sexuality, her body, her image. But \u201cThe Idol\u201d never figures out what it thinks of its own characters, nor what they want or what to do with them.<\/p>\n One of the prevailing questions about the show among viewers was: Are we meant to think Jocelyn is actually talented? It\u2019s unclear whether the show considers its protagonist a true artist or an inept yet deluded peddler of mass-market schlock. Similarly, we don\u2019t know how much control Jocelyn actually has. Her submissiveness to Tedros seems to indicate that she\u2019s being manipulated. So Jocelyn\u2019s daily wardrobe choices \u2014 which don\u2019t ever seem to include baggy house clothes for bloated days or cotton pajamas for comfy lounging \u2014 seem to be less about her own self-image and freedom than they are about her being trapped in a 24\/7 prison of objectification by her public and those around her.<\/p>\n But the show makes a messy concluding three-point-turn near the end, proposing that perhaps Jocelyn was the evil mastermind after all. Just like the show can\u2019t have both its earnest, docile starlet and cunning undercover operator, it can\u2019t have a celebrity with both total agency and an obsession with appeasing everyone in their ideas of what she should look like and what she represents as an artist. Either way, with the show\u2019s cancellation, it seems Jocelyn\u2019s career is forever dead, with no Tedros to revive it.<\/p>\n The setup:<\/strong> In \u201cNo Hard Feelings,\u201d Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence), a crude and awkward 30-something with commitment issues who\u2019s strapped for cash, responds to an ad from a rich couple seeking a woman to date and deflower their unknowing 19-year-old son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). Maddie\u2019s attempts at seducing the neurotic and insecure teenager are repeatedly thwarted in the most ridiculous ways, but in the process Maddie and Percy build a real connection.<\/p>\n The scene:<\/strong> One night, as Maddie and a reluctant Percy go skinny-dipping at the beach, some bullies try to steal their stuff. Maddie steps out of the water in a full-frontal reveal, which then leads to a very NSFW fight sequence.<\/p>\n Here \u201cNo Hard Feelings\u201d takes a classic romance trope \u2014 the sexy, impromptu post-date dip \u2014 and wrings out all of the seduction, instead opting for absurd physical comedy. The scene, which includes an impressive crotch punch, succeeds for Lawrence\u2019s dedication to this juvenile (and creepy) entry into the \u201craunchy sex comedy\u201d category of forgettable B-movies.<\/p>\n The camerawork is respectful, matter-of-fact, with no hint of a lingering eye. Lawrence\u2019s body is not the point of the scene, but the vehicle of the comedy. Her sexuality is incidental; she pummels the beach interlopers so thoroughly that the violence purposely undermines her attempt to appear desirous to Percy.<\/p>\n The setup:<\/strong> In the second season of this \u201cSex and the City\u201d sequel, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) struggles to maintain her frayed relationships with her family while figuring out how she defines her sexual identity.<\/p>\n The scene:<\/strong> Despite the show\u2019s revolutionary, daring precursor, \u201cAnd Just Like That\u2026\u201d can\u2019t seem to figure out how to write its characters into a new world of sex, relationships and dating. AJLT also takes a more demure approach to its depictions of sex \u2014 which makes Miranda\u2019s two full-frontal nude scenes in Episode 1 especially surprising.<\/p>\n A beloved character that many SATC fans read to be coded gay \u2014 as did Nixon herself, who has been outspoken about her own coming out journey \u2014 Miranda discovers a new dimension to her sexuality once she meets Che (Sara Ramirez), a queer nonbinary comedian. In the first nude scene, part of a season-opening sex montage, Miranda is the only one of the cast members who is exposed, shown nude from the belly up in a pool with Che. At first the montage seems to place the queer romance on equal terms with the cis heterosexual ones, but the moment of nudity does seem as though \u201cAnd Just Like That\u2026\u201d is calling special, almost self-congratulatory, attention to Miranda and Che.<\/p>\n But Miranda struggles to adjust to a new relationship, a new sexuality and a new lifestyle, exemplified by the second scene, where Miranda tries Che\u2019s sensory deprivation tank. Unable to relax, Miranda panics and stumbles her way out of the tank, floundering in the nude. It\u2019s a depiction of the fish-out-of-water metaphor that extends to another scene in the episode that shows her in the bedroom with Che struggling to use a sex toy. Here Miranda serves as a comic aside.<\/p>\n Miranda\u2019s arc has been the least forgiving in the series, given how her journey of self-discovery comes at the cost of her relationships and, in these nude scenes and others, her dignity. Miranda\u2019s nascent sexual liberation is graphically defined by gaffes and na\u00efvet\u00e9. For a show that aims to represent women \u2014 and, particularly, middle-aged women, with more diverse bodies and backgrounds and sexual orientations than \u201cSATC\u201d included in its series \u2014 \u201cAnd Just Like That\u2026\u201d unfortunately uses an older woman\u2019s body as a punchline.<\/p>\n The setup:<\/strong> In \u201cJoy Ride\u201d Audrey (Ashley Park), an Asian American lawyer raised by white parents, travels to China for a business trip that, thanks to her friends Lolo (Sherry Cola), Kat (Stephanie Hsu) and Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), transforms into a crazy vacation full of sex, drugs and misadventures. In one such outing Audrey finds herself in the middle of a threesome with two handsome basketball players. In another, a wardrobe malfunction reveals Kat\u2019s secret genital tattoo.<\/p>\n The scene:<\/strong> The movie\u2019s charm lies largely in its dedication to its tried-but-true girlfriends-gone-wild genre of comedy. So even the formulaic setups and telegraphed emotional resolution are entertaining given how much free rein the characters \u2014 and the actors playing them \u2014 are offered to showcase the film\u2019s absurdity. One of the reoccurring themes in the movie is the importance of being true to yourself, and the nude scenes fall perfectly in line with this idea.<\/p>\n Audrey\u2019s emotional journey hinges on her unwillingness to find her birth mother and connect with her culture. Her friends mock her for her uptightness and for her unchecked internalized racism \u2014 the knee-jerk trust she shows for a blond white woman over someone who looks like her, her obliviousness to her culture\u2019s food and traditions, her infamously poor track record for dating Asian men. So when she sleeps with two attractive Asian athletes, it\u2019s her liberating moment, when she can let loose sexually and feel open to embracing \u2014 literally and figuratively \u2014 Asianness.<\/p>\n Likewise, Kat\u2019s nude moment \u2014 revealing the giant demon head encompassing her full vulva \u2014 is the punchline to a classic, tidy setup that traces back to the early scenes of the movie, when Audrey lets slip to Lolo that Kat has a genital tattoo. Lolo\u2019s vulgar line of questioning and theories about Kat\u2019s private art, paired with the reveal that Kat pretends to be a chaste virgin in her relationship with her very Christian fianc\u00e9, build up the comedic tension. When her embellished nethers make an appearance, it\u2019s a surprise, but not a sexy one. The garish detail of the demon face \u2014 and the pivot to an \u201cinternal\u201d view, the camera showing the other three friends peeking into her vagina \u2014 rockets the movie\u2019s comedy up to absurd heights without seeming unnecessarily sexualized or exploitative.<\/p>\n The setup:<\/strong> In \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d the eponymous father of the atomic bomb (Cillian Murphy) is seen through the lens of his research, shifting politics and personal affairs \u2014 including a romance with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) \u2014 from his school days to his role as scientific director of the Manhattan Project to his public discrediting in the wake of a 1954 security hearing.<\/p>\n The scene:<\/strong> For all of the ways \u201cOppenheimer\u201d succeeds as a film, from its cinematography and performances to its storytelling, it also commits a cardinal cinematic sin: not just underusing a great actress like Florence Pugh, but also blatantly objectifying her character in gratuitous nude scenes.<\/p>\n In Pugh\u2019s first scene, Jean and Oppenheimer meet and banter, as if to show that she\u2019s a worthy intellectual adversary, and therefore a worthy lover for the man-genius. After a meager couple of lines of dialogue Jean is naked, straddling Oppenheimer while instructing him to translate a copy of the \u201cBhagavad Gita\u201d in his room. \u201cI am become death, the destroyer of worlds,\u201d he translates, immediately transforming the scene into a misogynistic trope so often used in stories about male genius. Jean is not a brilliant thinker with daring politics; she\u2019s not a character with her own story and agency. She is reduced to a body and a brilliant man\u2019s inspiration.<\/p>\n In Pugh\u2019s second nude scene, when Tatlock persuades Oppenheimer to take a short leave of the Manhattan Project to spend the night with her in a hotel, she\u2019s the stand-in for temptation. Her passion for him, and his ultimate refusal to continue their affair, helps the film craft an image of a man who is desired not just for his brain, but also his body.<\/p>\n But the most unforgivable is Jean\u2019s final nude appearance, imagined by Oppenheimer\u2019s wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), during Oppenheimer\u2019s hearing. The only new information the scene is meant to convey is Kitty\u2019s reaction to the council\u2019s line of questioning about Oppenheimer\u2019s affair with Jean. But Blunt\u2019s acting \u2014 the hardness in her eyes, the clear expression of disdain and embarrassment \u2014 tells us all we need to know about her emotional response. Here the film yet again erases Jean\u2019s personhood; she exists almost purely within the imagination of Oppenheimer and that of his wife, who like Jean, is similarly underwritten. She\u2019s an underdressed footnote in a story about a smart guy she slept with a few times. What woman would envy that?<\/p>\nConstant nudity means an unsatisfying night of television.<\/h2>\n
Fisticuffs in the buff make sexuality besides the point.<\/h2>\n
Miranda deserves better.<\/h2>\n
A well-placed tattoo can create comedy gold.<\/h2>\n
One man gets to be brilliant, while a brilliant woman gets to be naked.<\/h2>\n