by Ben Shapiro
Deborah Besce, then president of Nickelodeon Movies, averred: “The world is more sophisticated today. Our lives were so much simpler. And kids are demanding shows that express who they are and what they want.” Jean MacCurdy, then president of Warner Brothers’ television animation department, agreed: “You have to keep pushing the envelope toward more sophisticated humor and storytelling . . . The biggest mistake is talking down to the audience. You can’t do that.” Then-president of Walt Disney Pictures David Vogel told Weinraub, “it’s no longer an innocent period of time . . . Today’s eight-year-olds are yesterday’s twelve-year-olds . . . There isn’t this innocence of childhood among many children, what with broken homes and violence. We can’t treat children as if they’re all living in tract homes of the 1950s and everyone is happy. That is ridiculous.”17
As L. Brent Bozell pointed out at the time, just because society is in decay doesn’t mean that Hollywood should be exacerbating that decay. “Now take Vogel’s argument to its logical conclusion,” Bozell penned. “It is an unassailable fact (meaning: count on Hollywood to deny it) that the entertainment industry has a more powerful impact on youngsters’ cultural upbringing than any other institution. To coarsen product to meet the public’s lowered standards leads to an increasingly coarsened public.”18
According to a Harvard University School of Public Health and Kids Risk Project study, objectionable material in movies increased dramatically between 1992 and 2003. Kimberly Thompson, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at HSPH and Director of the Kids Risk Project, stated that “ratings creep has occurred over the last decade and that today’s movies contain significantly more violence, sex and profanity on average than movies of the same rating a decade ago.”19 The study also found that movies containing “sensuality,” “sex,” and “innuendo” according to the MPAA were less likely to receive a higher age-rating than those containing “sexuality” and “nudity.” Conceal the sex a bit, sneak your film into the PG-13/PG range.20
Today’s filmmakers complain even about the incredibly mild MPAA standards currently in place. Film critic Roger Ebert feels that the standard G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 ratings system is oppressive. He compares the MPAA’s Valenti to a cruel Roman emperor: “[Valenti] said ‘You compared me unfavorably with Caligula,’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s better than comparing you favorably with Caligula.’” But Valenti himself admits that the standards admit degrading material. “When you’re a First Amendment person,” he says, “you have to allow entry into this marketplace that which you find squalid and meretricious and tawdry and vulgar and sometimes just plain stupid.”21
While moviemakers and critics may complain about ratings systems and portray themselves as “First Amendment people,” the reality is that Hollywood uses sex to get the glands and the money moving, not to enhance the artistic quality of its product. The simple fact of the matter is that sex sells, and subtlety doesn’t. Actresses use the casting couch to get roles; directors use the sex scenes to sell tickets. In Hollywood, it’s titillation for cash, highbrow whoredom. As Jane Fonda once put it, “Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution.”
“I’ll do it for art!”
There are plenty of A-list Hollywood actresses who began their careers with nudity. Whether they made their bones on the casting couch or not, they certainly made them on the film mattress. As the Chicago Tribune observed, “Nudity—and, often, very explicit sex scenes—is what you do if you want to go gunning for a prime spot on the A-list and be seen as a ‘real’ actress. Look no further than A-listers such as Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Halle Berry: When they took it off, their careers took off.”22
When you’re a toddler, your mother reminds you that you can’t just walk around the house naked. When you’re an actress, the critics remind you that you must.
Halle Berry is one of the most respected actresses in Hollywood. She’s had a movie career spanning over fourteen years. She was the runner-up in the 1986 Miss USA contest. She starred in the successful film X-Men. But her movie career really took off in 2001, when she starred in the John Travolta misfire Swordfish. No, that movie wasn’t a hit—it made under $70 million at the box office, even though its budget stood at a whopping $80 million.23 But Berry left her mark—or, more accurately, two marks. While Berry had insisted until Swordfish that she would not do nude scenes, she decided to flush that principle down the toilet as soon as producers bumped her salary from $2 million to $2.5 million.24 For those who aren’t quick with the math, that’s $250,000 per breast, for all of three seconds of film time.25
Even Swordfish producer Jonathan Krane felt that the topless scene was gratuitous. “I felt it was kind of like old news,” Krane told the Edmonton Sun. “We had seen this before. But other people really wanted that. A lot of actresses turned it down on the basis of that—and they should. I didn’t think it was necessary in the movie. Neither did John (Travolta). She also didn’t want to do this. But, somehow, and it had to do with a number of things (including money), she agreed to do it. I was hoping she would not agree to do it and we would hire her anyway so we would not have to have that scene, but she agreed . . . I’m being real frank with you, I don’t like it. I’ve made forty-three films that I have produced and I don’t think I’ve had a naked girl in any of them until this.”26
It wasn’t about the money, Berry insisted. It was about gaining legitimacy as an artist. Because great actresses, as we all know, are defined by their lack of inhibition about nudity. “Now that I’ve opened the door to the sexy thing there’s a whole new avenue I can travel down. It was a big step,” she explained (as though her entire career were not already based on “the sexy thing”). “When I started this was the last kind of role I would have done because I came from beauty pageants and I’ve had to work hard to dispel the idea that I was just a pretty face who couldn’t act. I felt that if I did nudity I would get typecast and prove all my critics right.”27
Of course, the Gypsy Lee Rose of the silver screen realized that it was downright liberating to loose her breasts from the confines of her shirt for the moviegoing public. It was just those darn silly Americans who care about bare breasts! “It was the fear of allowing myself to give that much to a character [that prevented her from stripping before],” she said. “It’s kind of liberating because what you discover is that they’re just boobs and, in most parts of the world, it’s not really a big deal. It’s only in America, with our social values, that it’s really hard.”28
Why did Berry pick a terrible action flick to do her Lady Godiva impersonation? Baring all for Swordfish isn’t exactly posing nude for Rembrandt. As Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News wrote, “What does it say about the revolting new movie Swordfish that the biggest applause at a recent screening was prompted by Halle Berry flashing her breasts?”
Berry’s answer seemed to be: Why not? “It’s not really because I ever thought it was bad. I applauded the women and the men who could go there . . . I knew that I was doing nudity that was gratuitous. I knew that I would never be able to articulately justify why it had to be in this movie,” Berry says. “I had to get over my inhibition of letting myself be exposed that way.”29
You have to hand it to Berry—she definitely knows the game. As soon as she let her “babies” out of her shirt, Oscar came calling. In Monster’s Ball, Berry plays the widow of Sean “Puffy” Combs, a death row inmate; she falls in love with his executioner, Billy Bob Thornton. Nowadays, love in movies can only be portrayed through graphic sex, and Berry was prepared to play the part. Berry’s character decides she’s really in love with the Thornton character after he gives her oral sex. Berry described her more physically demanding nude scene: “We talked about it to death, and we both agreed that we didn’t want to do this too many times so let’s get it right the first time.”30
Naturally, the critics fell in love at first sight. The Hollywood Reporter gratuitously lauded Berry and th
e sex scene, writing “The collective soul-baring, which also extends to some very naked coupling, lends the film its raw, stirring power.”31 According to the critics, Berry was more than good in bed—she was “brave.” Because “bravery” is measured by how many articles of clothing one is willing to discard in the name of art. Jeff Simon of the Buffalo News called Berry’s performance “brave.”32 So did Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle.33 Mark Rahner of the Seattle Times explained that Berry’s performance was “brave at the very least in the much-discussed raw sex scene.”34 A. O. Scott of the New York Times lauded Berry’s screen work as “an extraordinarily brave and risky kind of performance of a kind that the Academy perhaps too seldom recognizes,” and also mentioned that he believed Berry was “due” for an Oscar.35 Yes, that absolutely masterful performance in The Flintstones was certainly overlooked!
It was all but a foregone conclusion that Berry would win an Academy Award. When she did, she made one of the more obnoxious speeches in Oscar history, claiming that she had overcome massive racial obstacles to reach the Oscar podium. “This moment is so much bigger than me,” Berry told the audience. She stated that her win was a victory “for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.” As Ann Coulter bitingly observed, “Yes, at long last, the ‘glass ceiling’ had been broken. Large-breasted, slightly cocoa women with idealized Caucasian features will finally have a chance in Hollywood! They will, however, still be required to display their large breasts for the camera and to discuss their large breasts at some length with reporters.”36
Berry’s transformation from she-who-would-not-bare-her-babies to the Boob Queen of California isn’t unique. There are countless other starlets who attempted to broaden their artistic horizons in the same manner, including Jamie Lee Curtis, who took off her shirt in Trading Places; Kim Basinger, who posed for Playboy in order to escape her Breck girl image;37 Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. Reportedly, Jennifer Connolly wasn’t even considered for her Oscar-winning role in A Beautiful Mind until Ron Howard saw her in Requiem for a Dream, in which Connolly ends up at a sex party.38
Liv Tyler made the transition from clean to slutty in One Night at McCool’s. The website for that movie featured a “provocative photo of her washing a car with the gusto of that babe who made the chain gang hot in Cool Hand Luke. Tyler’s body is covered in a suspiciously milky film of suds. As the bubbles continue to clear, your cursor caresses three smaller pictures of the pillow-lipped actress, producing purringly suggestive sound bites (‘I love it!’) plus a recurring moan of pleasure. Trailers for the movie tease that her character’s second favorite thing in the world is water. Her first is not tough to guess.”39
As Brad Prager, who teaches film and popular culture at the University of Missouri-Columbia states, “An actress is now more likely to undress for a director who she feels is making a work of art.”40 Ah, the joys of “art.” There’s money to be made and critical praise to be garnered from dropping the robe. The virgin-to-slut phenomenon doesn’t just work for pop tarts—it works for front-line actresses.
The current matriarch of Hollywood actresses, Nicole Kidman, has done dozens of feature films. Many of her major hits have involved her in the flesh. In 1986’s Windrider, Kidman filmed a steamy shower scene. In 1989’s Dead Calm, she bared all for her art. She dropped a towel to gaze at herself in her birthday suit in 1991’s Billy Bathgate. She displayed her rump in Malice (1993). She revealed herself several times in Eyes Wide Shut (1999), her nipple in Moulin Rouge (2001), her rear again in Birthday Girl (2001), everything in The Human Stain (2003), and everything again in Cold Mountain (2003). She appears naked with her love interest, a ten-year-old boy, in a bathtub, in Birth (2004). What artistic versatility! No wonder Harvey Weinstein effuses: “She has thrown herself into the most daring kind of work, and as a result we’re now seeing the celebration of one of the world’s greatest actresses.”41 No wonder director Anthony Minghella labels Kidman “probably the greatest actress working right now.”42
Julianne Moore, Kidman’s co-star in the all-lesbianism-all-the-time flick The Hours, also rode Lady Godiva’s horse to the top of the mountain. In 1993’s Short Cuts, Moore conducted an argument while walking around a house naked from the waist down, blow-drying her skirt. Also in 1993, she did a soft-core sex scene in Body of Evidence, and then repeated the feat in Boogie Nights (1997). She went fully nude in The End of the Affair (1999). No wonder New Statesman critic Mark Kermode calls Moore “simply the greatest actress of her generation.”43
The hottest young starlets have imitated Kidman and Moore. Kate Winslet truly began her career in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994), in which she engaged in a hot-and-heavy lesbian make-out scene. In Titanic (1997), which brought her fame and fortune, as well as a Best Actress nomination, she posed naked for Leonardo DiCaprio. She took off her top for Hideous Kinky (1998), took off the rest in Holy Smoke (1999), bared her breasts in Quills (2000), and bared it all in Iris (2001).
Likewise, Chloe Sevigny has done nothing in her career save getting naked and making out with members of either sex. Her genitalia are revealed while she sleeps in Kids (1995). She repeatedly has graphic sex with Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry (1999), revealing her breasts and earning an Oscar nomination for it. Even more horrifically (if possible), she has sex with two men at once and gives graphic oral sex in The Brown Bunny (2003).
This isn’t to say that these actresses aren’t talented. Winslet is brilliant in Finding Neverland and Hamlet; Moore and Kidman can definitely act. But could we please see that talent expressed in acting, as opposed to stripping? There used to be two kinds of actresses: those who were paid to get naked, and those who weren’t. The first types were porn stars, the second were actresses. Now, it’s difficult to tell the difference between call girls and movie starlets. Perhaps that’s why there are now hundreds upon hundreds of pornographic web pages composed entirely of clips from mainstream Hollywood films, released and showing at your local Cineplex. The actresses do it for their “art.” The directors do it for the cash. And the audience goes to get its rocks off.
Homosexuality chic
Michael Ovitz was once a member of the rich and powerful Hollywood elite. Ovitz founded the Hollywood powerhouse Creative Artists Agency, and for some time he was the number two man at Disney.44 During the 1980s and early 1990s, Ovitz reigned over Hollywood; according to the New York Times, Ovitz was “famously and frequently described... as the most powerful man in town.”45 He was also the most hated man in town, and when he sold his company, Artists Management Group, he was forced to take a financial hit of somewhere between $100 and $200 million.
Ovitz claimed that his fall was not the result of bad policy, but of something more dark and devious: a “gay mafia” in Hollywood. “I didn’t kill anybody; I’m not a murderer,” he told Vanity Fair. “I didn’t set off a bomb in a shopping center. I didn’t take off in a white Bronco. I’m an entrepreneur. The money I lost was mine. My money, my gamble, my mistake. And still they hate me. Everyone.” Ovitz maintained that this “gay mafia,” led by mogul David Geffen, put out a hit on his company and used New York Times reporter Bernard Weinraub as its publicity man.
Ovitz also labeled several other powerful Hollywood figures as members or allies of the “gay mafia,” including Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, and Richard Lovett—all of whom reacted publicly with disgust. Despite the fact that Ovitz recanted the “gay mafia” comments almost immediately (“The term ‘gay Mafia’ does not reflect my true feelings or attitudes” 46), the media, salivating for a juicy story, pounced. “It really reeks of the homophobia we saw in the ’70s and ’80s when a lot of gay execs were closeted,” Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation entertainment media director Scott Seomin told Daily Variety.47 “Pointing fingers at gay men and lesbians for society’s ills—or for one’s personal downfall—is just wrong,” fumed Philadelphia Daily News sports desk editor Deb Woodell.48 “He
’s finished,” a studio bigwig told the New York Times. “Actually, he was finished before, but now he’s really finished. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to have dinner with him after this.”49 “Was it an interview or a psychotic episode?” asked Jonathan Bing and Dade Hayes of Daily Variety.50 A couple of obscure filmmakers, Steve Young and Denise David, even made a twelve-minute video called “My Dinner With Ovitz,” depicting an Ovitz-lookalike being shot by members of a “Gay Mafia” at a gay bar, “Mother Lode.”51
It’s too bad that Ovitz made the Hollywood “gay mafia” comments—his widespread detractors were far too quick to dispatch his comments as the result of psychosis or paranoia. Completely neglected went the fact that the term “gay mafia” has been in use for years—and with good reason. Rachel Abramowitz of the Los Angeles Times noted that “among a certain set of high-powered cognoscenti, the term ‘gay mafia,’ or ‘velvet mafia,’ has been used to refer to a tiny, select group of friends of which Geffen happens to be a prominent member.”52 Michelangelo Signorile, a militant gay activist famous for “outing” people, explained: “The shock and bewilderment among both journalists and Hollywood’s liberals is pretty silly—not to mention a bit defensive and a tad dishonest. While Ovitz’s statements certainly warranted coverage, they weren’t that shocking . . . Truth is, many gay men will tell you that there most certainly is a Hollywood/media gay mafia—using that term or its synonym, ‘the velvet mafia’—whether or not they are members themselves. It’s made up of men such as DreamWorks co-chair David Geffen and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, plus many more well-known and lesser-known individuals.”53
