To wonder why actresses say nude scenes are "empowering for women"

[PinkChestnut]

When in reality every pervert on the Internet will be searching for and wanking over it?Family members won't feel comfortable (potentially) watching your movie. It might haunt you when you get older as it has for some older actresses who say they regret their nude scenes in their past.

Can't help but feel it's more likely to be cs they feel hot and want the attention. Or they feel they won't get the part if they don't bare all to the general public.

The two most recent films I've seen with naked or topless women:
The Shape of Water. Sally Hawkins (+40 year old actress in graphic bath masturbation scenes). The character's sexuality, though never expressed in her day to day life, is completely pivotal to the plot and, given that the film is absolutely graphic in it's approach to violence also, is completely appropriate in my opinion.
Hologram for the King. Sarita Choudhury, (+50 year old actress swimming topless in the sea). Also pivotal to the plot: she is a woman living in Saudi Arabia, divorced, educated, doing something completely forbidden (swimming alone with a man) and goes topless so that from the beach it looks like 2 men snorkelling together.
I think that both these actresses (apart from both being brilliant) must be very comfortable in their own skins to be able to do it (I know I couldn't), but most importantly confident in themselves to go the extra mile to add veracity to the roles.
I'm not sure that the CGI enhanced breasts of Angelina Jolie in the Lara Croft films is pivotal in quite the same way.

So I think I agree with you OP that women in film are generally expected to show more flesh unnecessarily, but I don't agree that all women who choose to do so are fooling themselves as to the reason.

Off the top of my head I can remember having seen Mel Gibson's, Kevin Costner's, Arnold Schwarzenegger's, Charles Dance's and Sylvester Stallone's bottoms at some point. I never hear anyone worrying about their choices.

Remember Seth McFarlane singing 'We saw your boobs' about a list of famous women at the Oscars? Very empowering.

Off the top of my head I can remember having seen Mel Gibson's, Kevin Costner's, Arnold Schwarzenegger's, Charles Dance's and Sylvester Stallone's bottoms at some point. I never hear anyone worrying about their choices.

Yes, but I doubt any of those men have even claimed that being naked was 'empowering' either.

It's more just like 'here's my arse'.

There's never any reason to show breasts in movies in the same way i don't need illustrations of breasts in novels I'm reading. My mind can fill in the blanks

But were they empowered ShowMeTheElf? Can't say I'm offended or bothered by nudity. Not when it's pivotal to the plot.

I dislike it when nudity where it really is just a get your tits out. One-sided (only women) and has no actual part of the plot. (It's akin to the casting of a couple of women and men with a huge age gap and levels of attractiveness.)

It'd be interesting to note who is claiming to be empowered by nudity. Older actresses, unattractive actresses, or just the young hot ones.

Empowering can mean gaining the same or more attention than other clothed stars in that particular scene.

Young, hot females generally have no issue with showing some flesh and looking sexy. Older, less hot females have an issue, and deep down I think that’s more down to jealousy than anything else

Read up on internalised sexism please, that's if you're a woman.

^ This.

Also the sole purpose of flesh baring is to be attractive to men who form a sizeable part of the purchasing market and almost 100% of the people making the decisions in the selling market.

There may be additional by-products (eg. attractive to gay women) but these are only by products. A hot naked young women is there because the men deciding want it. Films - and better, greater films at that - were made for years without any nudity so the idea that this is "essential to the plot" is obvious nonsense. The whole industry/society/universe has been set up by men for men and we are living with that legacy every day.

I saw Heather Graham give an interview about a female drive in film she has produced and she said the reason she went into producing was that you had to go through millions of layers of men to make a film:

you need to get it green lit by a studio (a man)
you need a producer/finance (men)
you need a distributor to agree to distribute it (men)
and then you need entertainment journalists/editors to support and promote it (mostly men).

Perhaps this sums up the discussion thus far

The photo set up just looks ‘stupid’. The men look stupid even. The photo just screams ‘incoherent’.

Nudity is only really essential to the plot if the story line is influenced by the nudity. Say a character being naked to make a point or being stripped as a punishment/humiliation or deprivation

You could argue of course about nudity in sex scenes being essential. But it's not as it'd be just as obviously a sex scene without breasts on show or female full front nudity. Arses are just as unnecessarily. They are there to be looked at, not essential. If it was necessary to make it clear sex was occurring there'd be a lot more cock and balls seen wouldn't there?

How many nude scenes in Harvey Weinstein films?

"Actress Salma Hayek said Wednesday that disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein threatened to shut down production of her dream movie, "Frida," unless "I agreed to do a sex scene with another woman."

"And he demanded full-frontal nudity," Hayek wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. "It was clear to me he would never let me finish this movie without him having his fantasy one way or another. There was no room for negotiation. I had to say yes.""

www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sexual-misconduct/salma-hayek-says-harvey-weinstein-forced-her-do-sex-scene-n829406

I saw Heather Graham give an interview about a female drive in film

female DRIVEN film !! FFS

@NSEA
Is somebody a “creep” for masturbating to something someone has chosen to film that they find arousing? Do you never do this?

@overnightangel I don’t think that’s what I said - my choice of ‘creep’ was following from earlier posters description of “perverts”. I don’t think masturbation is creepy in the vast majority of cases. I more meant don’t worry about creeps or perverts or anyone, I suppose.

I remember as a teenager seeing the magazine racks in shops, all the men's magazines had half naked women in the front, and articles about cars, interesting stories, interviews etc. Then the women's magazines all had women on them too with articles like "how to please him in bed", "how to lose weight" etc etc! And I thought at the time how unfair it was. Where was the women's magazines with topless handsome men? Or mens magazines that didn't exploit women's bodies? Then there was the movies and TV shows with half naked women. And the general fashion being women wear clothes to show off your body and emphasise your boobs/legs etc. But men wear comfy t-shirt, jumpers, trousers and flat shoes

The misogyny has been forced down our throats for so long now that bright young women see getting their clothes off as liberating and empowering while men in power sit back and enjoy the show

on the subject of photo shoots (not really talking about yours Eena, but it made me think of it) these boudoir photoshoots. It's great that you can go for one and feel really good about yourself. But can you imagine a man going for one of these photo shoots and posing in a range of sexy positions and getting a set of prints 'for her eyes only'?

No, I can't imagine it because we live in a world where sexism is deeply entrenched and women are socially constructed to be valued in terms of their appearance. And I can't change that. It is the reality of the world we live in. But I can manage that world on my terms. Which maybe isn't revolutionary, but I think is empowering. And I wonder if that's what those actresses mean. They know the world they live in. They know their career depends on their looks. The best they can do is actually take control of their own image, set their own boundaries and choose how they want to be portrayed.

Like I said, not revolutionary or a great feminist statement but I can see why taking control and framing your own narrative is empowering.