An upside to the Internet’s obsession with porn! It made a serious movie like Skin possible and not a magnet for teen boys, 14-year-old me going, YESSSS! This is a documentary and it’s very academic about the topic. There’s still uncensored scenes from the famous movies that pushed the boundaries and interviews with the people (mostly women) who starred in them. I wish it were made more recently since the #metoo movement is in this, which I felt was an overdue reckoning given how often young actresses are bullied into nude scenes, but you can tell it’s ongoing with optimism.
But a quick time out here. I know the Europeans feel a thousand times less shame about sex and nudity and congratulations; the Irish are the exception. However, in America (and Canada), the problem today isn’t cultural shame embedded in our collective DNA by the Calvinist founders of earlier centuries. It is the sleazy people in charge at the top infecting the system with their brohs as producers and directors. Getting actresses, and sometimes actors, to display themselves in the ‘all together’ is a power play by shitty humans. I’m glad director Paul Verhooven demonstrated how he was not a “do as I say, not as I do” person when the cast of Starship Troopers were reluctant to shoot the co-ed shower scene. In case you’ve not watched this perfect parody about US militarism, propaganda and freakout to a terrorist attack, the army is co-ed and the soldiers do everything together. It wasn’t meant to be a turn-on for the audience. Back to Paul. The cast balked. So he stripped down to let them know it wasn’t a big deal. Admittedly, a middle-aged Dutch guy has less to lose yet I doubt Spielberg, Tarantino or the other American “greats” would follow (birthday) suit!
Back to the documentary and the #metoo movement. Before my strained digression above, Skin could’ve been more effective and relevant if the aftermath were in the story. Shit bird Harvey Weinstein sentenced to prison where he belonged, intimacy coordinators required and does the new SAG-AFTRA contract protect young strugglers from exploitation? No more horror stories would be nice to discover when it comes to favorite films.
Sadly, we know #metoo ran aground. It’s not dead, more like weakened as the movement divided, some scum have died (St. Reagan the SAG Rapist) or escaped and unfortunately, a few innocent people were accused. The Fatty Arbuckle story continues 100 years later.
What else? The main take away I do want to emphasize. The “good ol’ days” weren’t clean and perfect. Hollywood during the Roaring Twenties had movies showing stuff that would make you go, WTF? Yeah. Wings also had two dudes kissing like they meant it. Movies got reined in by the Thirties but only for economic reasons; the studios grew tired of having to print different edited versions by state, city or county standards. The pendulum swings back in the Fifties and Sixties through loopholes, namely nudist colony footage. Hollywood starts a new charm offensive to appease the prudes while making movies to compete with TV eating their lunch. I completely agree how the rating system helped let everybody learn the new ground rules and boundaries, screw the Catholic Church’s “condemn” bullshit; the last movie I remember anyone caring over this was History of the World Part I, by then, most Catholics just rolled their eyes.
I do hate how the MPAA jerks aren’t consistent. Served them right how they chose not to copyright their X rating. Originally, there was just G, M, R and X. The latter meant, “this movie isn’t going to interest and/or has subject matter not for those under 18.” Legendary flicks got this label: A Clockwork Orange, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Midnight Cowboy. The Porn Industry loved X and used it to their marketing advantage by inventing XXX (there’s no such thing), if it’s three times what was in Valley of the Dolls, it must be “offensive.” Obviously, the MPAA had to reconsider their system and to this day, those I listed earlier are now solidly R and they created NC-17 in 1990 to separate Art from Porn. Nope, NC-17 remains the death penalty regardless of the movie’s content; it could apply to violence, America’s true addiction.
In between the segments showing the march of time, there are interviews with actors and actresses who bared it all, directors, writers, business people, critics and historians. I love Joe Dante’s story about making trailers for Roger Corman to just get by the MPAA. Having met Diane Franklin (Better Off Dead), I feel terrible she felt obliged to do the graphic stuff in Last American Virgin to get work. Ditto for women. Malcolm McDowell laughed about it and said after If…, A Clockwork Orange wasn’t a big deal, most people knew what he looked like naked by then. Bruce Davison was told by his uncle and aunt how they were shocked to see his bare butt on the big screen from Last Summer.
Skin is something I highly recommend for fans of Film History and Cultural History like I am. It’s fascinating to see how norms shift. Popular entertainment either reflects it or fuels the change. I think it’s simultaneous because the former is when studios cash in and with the latter it’s when the former runs out of gas. MAGAts and blowhards claiming there was a “good ol’ days” want the majority to believe the latter too. Not by a longshot! Hollywood knew since day one, sex sold despite it being in black and white with no sound.
I’ll close with a little History and silliness about Skin‘s subject matter. Like all kids during the late Seventies and early Eighties, seeing a naked, adult woman was a Holy Grail. In the days before the Internet, one often found a stash of Playboys or Penthouses in the nearby woods. I think these magazines grew from seeds, not from publishers! If you were lucky, your family had HBO! Many Saturday nights, you could count on HBO to show something racy when the adults were away! However, I was a weird kid of two minds. My inner Mr. Spock chimed in when it came to these movies with “How did this exactly move the plot?” Case in point, my dad let us watch the weak Wilder-Pryor comedy Stir Crazy. Being 1981, the jokes were solidly PG. During the third act, the real bank robbers are seen in a topless joint with obvious proof, and boom, there’s the rationale for an R. I remember thinking, I didn’t get to see this last year with my parents in a theater due to these pointless couple minutes? A lame decision for all involved in making this. More people could’ve gone, made it successful if it didn’t wedge in showing topless women who have nothing to do with the robbers or the stars. But then again, I never said this aloud, especially on the playground for fear of my peers asking, “Are you a fag?”
