Jason Segel, not naked, but smoking
The Associated Press

Jason Segel appears fully nude in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," but this picture of him with a cigarette in his hand was the most scandalous we could find in the AP archive.

Featured Topic | Posted 32 weeks 2 days ago

Male nudity in the movies: A taboo worth ending?

Here's the naked truth: Male genitalia is getting unprecedented screen time at the multiplex these days -- in mainstream popcorn fare and broad comedies -- thanks in large part to comic mogul Judd Apatow (and his band of merry collaborators), who has pledged to shake Americans from their squeamishness about male anatomy in movies. Apatow's new comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, features ample full frontal male nudity.

"America fears the penis, and that's something I'm going to help them get over," Apatow is quoted as having said in a World Entertainment News Service story in December. "I'm gonna get a penis in every movie I do from now on. . . . It really makes me laugh in this day and age, with how psychotic our world is, that anyone is troubled by seeing any part of the human body."

Is Apatow right? Are Americans just uptight? Or is there still something to be said for modesty on the silvers screen? And when is nudity used to good artistic effect?

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Ben likes: What are the decent films?

Steven D. Greydanus/This Rock

What is "decent" entertainment or "humane" culture? Must a decent film deal only with uplifting or wholesome subjects, or may dark or disturbing themes also be dealt with? Can a film include nudity or profanity and still be "decent"? Can "humane culture" include popular films or genres like action films and romantic comedies, or do only highbrow "art films" count as true culture?

It is true that among the arts film poses special issues -- that it is especially liable to abuse by the unscrupulous, and can be exceptionally insidious when so abused. "Moral restraint" in its production and consumption is certainly necessary to avoid either presenting or being confronted with likely occasions of sin. But reasonable Catholic opinion will not insist on equating "restraint" with an absolute ban on nudity, violence, profanity, and so forth.

The 1995 Vatican film list, published by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in commemoration of the centenary of cinema, enumerates 45 "important films," each noted for exceptional value in one of the three areas of "Religion," "Values," and "Art" (15 films in each area). For those who insist on a rigorist approach to film, though, it’s hard to see how some of these films could be deemed "deserving" of special note at all, except as films to avoid. Nudity, sexual content, obscene or profane language, and explicit violence can all be found in films on this list. Yet all demonstrate a level of restraint that distinguishes them from morally unworthy productions that pose a likely occasion of sin for viewers. 

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Joel likes: Members only

Sara Vilkomerson/New York Observer

The sight of male genitalia in the movies or on TV still manages to cause a kind of embarrassed discomfort that bared breasts do not. Perhaps it’s because men were in Hollywood’s decision-making positions of power (hard to imagine John Wayne or Cary Grant being commanded to go commando). And what powerful man really wants to expose that most basic symbol of virility in its flaccid, floppy form? And who the heck wants to pay ten bucks to see that?

But in the age of Hillary, men may want to get used to the male member being objectified and thus robbed of its power -- much the same way the naked female form has been used by men to strip women of their allure.

Indeed, with women continuing to take over roles of power -- studio heads, screenwriters and directors -- perhaps there will soon be a future where it won’t just be the female actresses worrying over nudity clauses.  

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