Rated R

Last Saturday night, I went with some friends to see The Reader.  For those of you who haven’t seen the film, it’s about a German teenager named Michael who has an affair with an older woman (Kate Winslet’s Oscar-nominated role), Hannah, who he finds out years later was a guard at Auschwitz.  It wasn’t a holocaust movie per se (the event in question is more of a footnote), but it was definitely one that left you thinking, and I thought overall it was pretty good.  But that’s not what is sticking with me today.

The first half of the movie depicts the affair between Michael and Hannah.  For a movie about a love affair, there isn’t what I’d call an excessive amount of nudity, and the nudity that is shown is presented in a way that isn’t really meant to arouse.  Michael and Hannah have sex, but the sex scenes are quick, static, close-up snippets of movement and breathing rather than long, drawn out sex scenes.  Although the couple spends much of this part of the movie completely naked, they are only occasionally engaged in any kind of sexual activity.

The nonsexual nudity is nonchalant, but very revealing.  There are a lot of shots of both characters’ bare behinds, and more shots of Hannah’s bare breasts than I can count.  There are even one or two full frontal shots of Michael, which is so rare in Hollywood movies that it’s still a buzzworthy occurrence (as opposed to bare breasts, which today are apparently a dime a dozen in movies).

The girls I was with are considerably more religious than I am, and, predictably, they were appalled by this casual display of nudity.  They were taught, as was I, that certain parts on your body are meant “for your husband,” meaning, you show your body to no one until you are married, and then, only to your husband (I couldn’t tell you what boys are taught in this respect, but I imagine something similar).  Granted, in Judaism, the more observant you are, the more that gets covered, but certainly breasts, butts, and genitals are obvious ones.  But what I found interesting was that they were upset, not by the flagrant display of Kate Winslet’s naked body, but by the full-frontal shots of David Kross, who played the young Michael.  They thought it was incredibly unnecessary to show his penis.

Now, I could get into a long, drawn out debate with myself on the unnecessary baseness and low-class draw of nudity vs. the designation of nudity as wrong being a construction of a puritanical society, but I don’t have the patience.  Instead, I’ll focus on something a bit less philosophical.

In Judaism, a key reason for minimizing the display of the body is so that men will not become aroused by women, and vice versa (though the latter is only implied).  The thing is, when movies are trying to make their scenes sexy, they never use a man’s genetalia as part of this effort (except in pornography, that is).  This is for several reasons, one of which is that heterosexual men are usually the ones making the movie in the first place, their intended audience is made up of other heterosexual men, and neither party finds a man’s penis the least bit arousing.  Another reason is the simple fact that male genetalia are (objectively speaking) not the most aesthetically pleasing parts of a man’s anatomy.  This is especially the case if the man is not sexually aroused, and, unless the movie is a porno, a mainstream Hollywood movie will never include a visual of a man’s naked arousal.  My argument, is therefore, that there is no way that the full-frontal shot(s) of Michael was/were meant to be arousing, and I’m fairly certain that neither of my friends found the image appealing.  In fact, they reacted with acute revulsion to the image, though I’m pretty sure it was not because they found the penis disgusting, but that they found its display distasteful.

As I said previously, these girls are considerably more observant than me.  They abstain from any physical contact with members of the opposite sex that aren’t family (a choice I fully respect them for, since it is a very admirable yet difficult commitment to take upon oneself), and have probably only had minimal sexual experience (probably nothing past second base), if indeed they’ve had any at all.  I’m fairly certain that these full-frontal shots were one of the few, if not only, times they’ve ever seen a mature penis.  I’d bet money that they’ve never seen one in real life.  Until relatively recently, I had never seen one either.  But I know that had I seen this movie several years ago, I would not have had the same reaction.  I would have been incredibly fascinated rather than revolted.  I’m not entirely sure they weren’t curious themselves.  In truth, they probably were on some level, but their response has been ingrained in them as proper, correct, and, at the very least, socially expected.