Gone are the days of watching movies for female nude scenes because, ladies, the men are taking over — and we like what we see. After years of objectifying women, Hollywood’s It Girls are taking on more intellectual roles (think: Daisy Edgar-Jones in Twisters) and allowing the boys to be the eye candy, with and without their pants on.
While Barry Keoghan didn’t start the full-frontal movement, he sure has become the face of it. It’s been a year since Saltburn, and the Irish actor dancing naked to “Murder on the Dancefloor” is still living rent-free in our heads. Anyone else?
The fact of the matter is the millennial fangirl, while continuing to fixate on Keoghan’s figure, has exposed a significant shift in showbiz. In days of yore, the female nude moments, a la Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, were the main focus — with the actress getting asked ad nauseam about that iconic moment.
Now it seems the tables have turned with men’s bodies being objectified as they strip down. Some directors have even admitted to including more male nudity as a way to even the score in the entertainment industry. Judd Apatow, for one, previously stated his goal to “get a penis in every movie” that he works on.
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This year alone, more than one Hollywood — ahem — member has been making headlines. Tom Pelphrey got people talking about A Man in Full after the Netflix show’s jaw-dropping (and pants-dropping) May finale when he was left naked and alone after taking Viagra. House of the Dragon viewers also watched Ewan Mitchell’s Aemond Targaryen bare all in a June episode, with the actor revealing that he was less-than-bothered about showing “broken boy” (his words, not ours) Targaryen in his birthday suit. Mitchell joked in an interview that filming the scene was “a shock to the naked body” but that he was ultimately happy with how it turned out.
Newcomer Cooper Koch recently got the Ryan Murphy welcome and had a full-frontal shower moment when playing Erik Menendez in Monsters, which premiered in September. And Kit Harington, who stripped down in an August episode of the new season of Industry, even commented on the trend. “I think the swing back to looking at nudity from the male perspective is actually a really good one,” the Game of Thrones alum said, noting that he doesn’t mind taking his clothes off for the cameras. OK, then keep the scenes coming for all the Jon Snow girls.
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Another notable nude scene veteran is Rory Culkin, thanks to his much-talked-about appearance on Hulu’s Swarm, released last year (if you haven’t seen it, X is a perfect source). What leads the internet to fixate on certain actors’ clips over others? There’s no concrete answer, but social media seems to favor — and repost — more jaw-dropping naked moments than your run-of-the-mill sex scene.
So, what does this mean for the future of Hollywood? Here’s to equality of naked men and naked women on screen — or, maybe, let actors do their nude scenes in peace.
