Naked truth about nude scenes

[Faithless]

From the Chicago Tribune comes this thing that has been bothering me as well:

Older actresses now doing nude scenes >:^{ (http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/mmx-0312300304dec30,0,3697411.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds)
Conventional wisdom has it that an actress gets more leverage the older and more established she becomes. Conventional wisdom also has it that the consumer demand for on-screen female flesh tends to gravitate toward actresses under 30. Heck, under 25.

How, then, to account for the recent partial or complete nude turns of actresses such as Mirren and Julie Walters (both in the just-released "Calendar Girls"), Diane Keaton ("Something's Gotta Give") and Kathy Bates (2002's "About Schmidt")?

In case you're wondering, Mirren is 58, Walters will be 54 in February, Keaton hits 58 in January and Bates is 55. None of them have ever been considered traditional sex symbols, and all except Keaton have done on-screen nudity before. Keaton, in fact, gained a certain notoriety for refusing to go the full monty in the stage version of "Hair" in the late 1960s.

Not this time.

"I had to do it to be honorable to the movie," Keaton told the Daily News. "Look, the film is about middle-age love, and this is a woman's body naked, and this is a man's bottom just flailing about. Jack's [Nicholson] making fun of himself. Why shouldn't I make fun of myself?"

Slightly less daring -- though no less undraped -- are the recent disrobings of Meg Ryan, (age 42, in "In the Cut"), Emma Thompson (44, HBO's "Angels in America"), Mary Louise Parker (39, "Angels in America") and Laura Linney (39, "Love Actually").

Angelenos saw a nude Jerry Hall (47) in the stage version of "The Graduate." Other actresses to bare it all as randy Mrs. Robinson include Lorraine Bracco (54) and Kathleen Turner (who was 48 when she originated the role.)

[Blue dice]

I'm not sure if that was Kathy Bate's real body in About Schmidt but I damn near went blind after seeing it.

She's a good actress but for god's sakes cover it up.

[ism]

but it's art.

[hooligan]

diane keaton is hot stuff.

[Martino]

but it's art.


Ruebenesque?

[Faithless]

but it's art.

Art as in Art Carney?

[thaite]

You're going to see a lot more of that as Hollywood begins to cater more to the Baby Boomer Generation.

[TB4000]

If you were forced to see any one of the hosts of The View nekkid, which one would it be? Now that's frightening.

[mr. x]

If you were forced to see any one of the hosts of The View nekkid, which one would it be? Now that's frightening.

mmm Star Jones, whole lotta woman!

[Emperor_Mike]

mmm Star Jones, whole lotta woman!

Enough to feed a small nation, apparently.

[Faithless]

You're going to see a lot more of that as Hollywood begins to cater more to the Baby Boomer Generation.

Which makes this thing so interesting. You'd think movie goers would reject that stuff in favor of the sexy YW-body-typed young thangs. :tongue:

[Faithless]

Sexy Older Women (http://www.modbee.com/24hour/opinions/story/1098695p-7685422c.html)
For the longest time, stretch marks and wrinkles were beyond passe. They were verboten, terminators, as it were for women's acting careers. Now (we can hope at least) they're in vogue.

It's about time the reel Hollywood caught up with the real Hollywood. In their private lives, older actresses are pairing up with younger male stars at unheard-of rates. Look at a sampling of Hollywood's hottest couples: Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher - she is 16 years his senior. Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake - he is 9 years younger than she. Then there's 44-year-old Madonna with her director-spouse Guy Ritchie, 10 years her junior. There's Julianne Moore, who trumps her mate, Bart Freundlich, by nine years.

Long gone is the time (1967 was the year) when "Mrs. Robinson" was new to the Hollywood lexicon and the idea of older woman with her "spring rooster" was shocking, jaw-dropping and bizarre. Even into the early '70s, the movie-going public was still incredulous when Burt Reynolds, then a major sex symbol (but God knows why) had a four-year romance with singer Dinah Shore, who was 20 years older.

But is this progress, or is it Botox? Are younger men just more accepting of white hair, yellowed teeth, wrinkles and sagging skin? Or have Botox, hair dye, tooth bleach and plastic surgery merely transformed 60-year-old women into 45-year-old look-alikes?

Novelist and columnist Amy Sohn makes a fabulous point on her Web site. "Women in my mother's generation are supposed to be happy that there are more and more roles for middle-aged actresses, but there's not much to applaud for when the actresses look like mutated freaks. When my parents see a movie and my dad admits a crush on the 52-year-old, nipped-and-tucked, female star, my mom's not going to feel flattered. She's going to feel majorly dissed - because until she pays the twenty grand to get the work done herself, she'll never be able to compare."

The question is valid: If middle-age and older actresses merely cut and paste themselves into looking younger, are they really leading us into a new era, or just reinvigorating ancient stereotypes?

While we are not yet riding the crest of a tsunami, the data tell us we're moving forward. The Screen Actors Guild collects data on diversity in filmmaking. In 2001, the guild reports actresses landed 38 percent of all movie roles and actresses over the age of 40 landed 24 percent of all film roles. That, while women overall accounted for 51 percent of the U.S. population, and women over the age of 40 represent 22.6 percent of the population. In 1992, actresses secured 29 percent of total roles and women over the age of 40 landed a mere 9 percent.

Actress Rosanna Arquette released a documentary earlier this year called, "Searching for Deborah Winger" in which she interviewed 25 leading (or formerly leading) actresses including Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Sharon Stone and Vanessa Redgrave. They talked about the consequences of aging and trying to stay alive professionally in an industry that so worships youth. Said Whoopi Goldberg, "I'm being stalked by my as-. It's gotten bigger since I hit 45 and there's nothing I can do about it."
Do you think Hollywood is being more realistic or just capitalizing on some old-chick fetish?

[bluemonq]

i don't know about hollywood but for a while broadway and london were playing it up. the reviews were like, "oh my god, it's an old naked woman! it's unafraid to show this kind of stuff! go see it!" :roll eyes:

[Faithless]

Not very many bad reviews at rottentomatoes.com (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/CalendarGirls-1127764/)

[nonamerasian]

Power to those ladies!

[TB4000]

Power to those ladies!
Glad to see you totally support nudity in our movie culture. I think there should be a demonstration so the public can see how serious they are. And nudity should be the theme.

[kitty]

I actually do believe that everyone, and not just women under 25, should get naked if the scene calls for it. It is art, a certain amount of environment, that is being communicated by tasteful or appropriate nudity. Traditionally, only women have had to get naked -- and a big part about being an actress was the willingness to bare all. But this backlashed by creating unrealistic beauty myths for women and making them little more than meat for the camera.

I say, rather than get rid of nudity, that all of Hollywood should be freer. Men, as well as women, should be asked occasionally to do full-frontal nudity, and old as well as young. Then, we might see a shift back to beauty of both genders and all ages, even the Botoxed people -- since no matter how much you lipo out, you're still gonna look old. And a lot of older women who get nude now do it because they've worked their butts off to look good, and not because they got it all sucked away.