Nudity in film

Nudity in film is any presentation in motion pictures of people while naked or wearing less clothing than contemporary norms consider modest. Many actors and actresses have appeared nude, or exposing parts of their bodies or dressed in ways considered provocative by contemporary standards at some point in their careers. Most nude scenes have been justified as being part of the story, in the concept of "artistically justifiable nudity," while other nudity has been viewed as "superfluous" or "gratuitous".

Nudity in film should be distinguished from sex in film. Nudity of a sexual nature is common in pornographic films. In softcore films, there are limitations, such as avoiding the appearance of a penis or a vagina, although it may be depicted. Erotic films are suggestive of sexuality, but need not contain nudity. A film on naturism or about people where nudity is common may contain non-sexual nudity, and some other non-pornographic films show some seconds or fractions of seconds of nude scenes, but the vast majority of nudity in film is in pornographic films.

Nude scenes can be controversial in some cultures because they may challenge some people's standards of modesty. These standards vary by culture, and depend on the type of nudity, who is exposed, which parts of the body are exposed, the duration of the exposure, the pose, the context, and other aspects. Regardless, in many cultures nudity in film is subject to censorship or rating regimes which control the content of films, with the intention of limiting content that is deemed by the classification authorities and/or the movie industry to be harmful or undesirable, morally or otherwise.

For this reason, it has been said that many directors and producers apply self censorship, limiting nudity (and other content) in their films, to avoid external censorship or a strict rating, in countries that have a rating system. Thus, adults are denied images just because these images are not considered suitable for teenagers. This applies even for scenes explicitly about a character showing or seeing nudity. Directors and producers may choose to limit nudity because of objections from actors involved, or for a wide variety of other personal, artistic, genre-bound or narrative-oriented reasons.

Terminology

Nudity in film is controversial in many societies, and various cinematic techniques are at times used to reduce the level of nudity in film, at times to avoid censorship or classification issues. In some cases nudity is itself the object of the movie or is used in the development of the character of the subject.

In film, nudity may be either partial or full nudity. Partial nudity is when a person appears less than fully clothed, for example when a female is topless. The term partial nudity is sometimes used to refer to exposure of skin beyond what the person using the expression considers to be within the limits of modesty.

Total nudity is when at least one person appears in film apparently completely naked. However, though apparently naked, the extent of their exposure on film may be manipulated. For example, an actor may appear nude in the distance, or only briefly, or out of focus, or the actor though seemingly nude is only seen waist up, or from the back. Full frontal nudity refers to nudity when the subject is facing forward with the whole front of the body exposed, including intimate parts such as a man's penis or woman's vulva or either male or female's pubic hair. Partial frontal nudity or toplessness typically only refers to the exposure by a woman of the breasts. Non-frontal nudity describes nudity where the whole back side of the body, including the buttocks, is exposed, or a side-view from any other direction.

Gratuitous nudity in a movie is nudity which does not contribute to the plot, but is added to attract a particular audience. In this sense, the term has a negative or judgmental connotation, implying unnecessary or unwarranted.

Nude photography before cinema

See also: History of erotic photography

The first entertainer to pose nude for photographs was undoubtedly the stage actress Adah Isaacs Menken (1835–1868). A series of Menken photos survive in near pristine clarity.

Sarah Bernhardt early in her career posed topless on several occasions for French photographer Felix Nadar. She is nevertheless seen with her top covered in surviving stills of these sessions. At least one later topless photograph of the young Bernhardt made in 1873 survives. These nude sessions were not meant for outright public consumption but for the encouraging of theatrical employers or personal guests. Thus nude photos of women like Menken and Bernhardt are known only to scholars and perhaps theater buffs.

If total nudity was not achieved, then sheer nudity was. Skin-tight flesh-colored attire existed in the era immediately before the invention of motion pictures. Stage actresses would pose in very provocative attire leaving little to the imagination, for roles such as Lady Godiva.

In the 1880s, Eadweard Muybridge, at the dawn of the invention of the motion picture, used a device he called a zoopraxiscope to project a series of successive still photographs. The photos would then be played one after the other giving the illusion of movement. Sometimes the same sequence would be filmed using several cameras. Many of Muybridge's photographic sessions using the zoopraxiscope had nude anonymous models, both female and male, and indeed even Walt Whitman and George Bernard Shaw posed nude for a session.

U.S. cinema

Overview

Film-making started in the 1890s, with the first feature length film being produced in 1896. From the introduction of the new invention nude scenes were filmed. In the 1910s and 20s, Hollywood produced several films which were considered risqué. Various groups objected to films that contained nude scenes on moral grounds, and several states set up film censorship boards, arguing that the scenes are obscene, and other states threatened more. Under pressure, the Motion Picture Association of America brought in the Hays Code, which brought an end to nudity in all its forms in Hollywood films. The Code was adopted in 1930, and began to be effectively enforced in 1934. At the same time the Catholic Legion of Decency was formed to keep an eye on the morals conveyed in films and indicate its disapproval by "condemning" films it considered morally objectionable. Social and official attitudes to nudity have eased since those days and the Code came under repeated challenge in the 1950s and 60s. In 1958, the New York Court of Appeal ruled, in the context of prohibition of screenings of films, that a film that merely contains nudity was not obscene. The Code was abandoned in 1968, in favor of a MPAA film rating system.

From its early days the presence of nudity in a film has been controversial and even today its presence is invariably noted by critics and censors. Until the 1980, whatever nudity found its way onto the screen was female nudity, and each occasion was hailed as a first of some kind. Though female nudity was routinely treated with respect and solemnity, male nudity, when it finally found its way onto the screen, was treated humorously and mockingly. Today, though nudity in film is much more common, its presence is still expected to be justified on artistic grounds.

Early films

Audrey Munson in Inspiration (1915), the first non-pornographic American film containing nude scenes.

A still of Annette Kellerman from A Daughter of the Gods (1916)

Inspiration, a silent film released in 1915, is believed to be the first American motion picture with a leading actor in a nude scene. The context of the nudity in the film was that of an artist's model, played by Audrey Munson, at work. Munson appeared nude again in a similar role in the 1916 film Purity. A feature of these films was that Munson was a tableau vivant, not being required to move, and only her backside was before the camera. Annette Kellerman, the famous Australian swimming star, appeared fully nude in an active role in A Daughter of the Gods in 1916, though most of Kellerman's body is covered by her long hair. Kellerman had appeared in several lost films prior to 1912, but whether she did nude scenes in them is unknown. A couple of her films from 1910, thought to have been lost, have been rediscovered in Australia.

Several early films of the silent era and early sound era included women in nude scenes, presented in a historical or religious context. One such film was the anticlerical Hypocrites (1915), directed by Lois Weber, which contained a sequence with an uncredited nude Margaret Edwards posing as a statue and impressive (for 1915) her nude traveling double exposure sequences. Nell Shipman appeared nude in Back to God’s Country (1919). Fox produced The Queen of Sheba in 1921 starring Betty Blythe. The film, now lost, was a huge hit for Fox and Miss Blythe displayed ample nudity even when wearing 28 different diaphanous costumes.

After the silent era ended, movies with sound that included brief glimpses of nudity appeared as early as 1931 with The Yellow Ticket. Cecil B. DeMille, later known as a family entertainment specialist, included several nude scenes in his early epics such as The Sign of the Cross (1932). Other filmmakers followed suit, particularly in historical dramas such as The Scarlet Empress (1934) – which shows topless women being burned at the stake – and contemporary stories filmed in exotic, mostly tropical, locations. Bird of Paradise, directed by King Vidor in 1932, featured a nude swimming scene with Delores del Rio, and Harry Lachman's Dante's Inferno featured many naked women suffering in hell.

The early Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller featured at least partial nudity justified by the natural surroundings in which the characters lived; in Tarzan and His Mate in 1934, Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan, doubled by Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim) swims in the nude. Nudity of natives was portrayed (often by editing in stock documentary footage) in jungle epics and South Seas island pictures such as Trader Horn (1931), Moana (1926) and Tabu (1931).

Repression, 1930s-1960s

In response to objections voiced by several groups – provoked at least partly by the notorious 1933 Czech film Ecstasy, which featured a nude scene by Hedy Lamarr – the Motion Picture Association of America drew up the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the Hays Code, which restricted the materials which the major film studios could include in its films. The code which was imposed from 1934 until the late 1960s restricted nudity in films produced by the studios. The code authorized nudity only in naturist quasi-documentary films and in foreign films.

United States produced films were also under the scrutiny of moral guardians, such the Catholic Legion of Decency, which had an influence on the content and subject matter of films. They were also subject to constraints of state censorship authorities.

Independent film producers – i.e., those outside the studio system – were not bound by the restrictions of the Hays Code. However, they were subject to state censorship regimes. These films claimed to be educational and dealt with taboo topics such as drug parties, prostitution, and sexually transmitted infections. In the course of presenting the message nudity at times made an appearance. These films, which emerge in the 1930s, were obliged to play in independent theaters or traveled across the United States in "roadshow" fashion. They were normally low-budget, and described as sensationalized exploitation films. Using this framework, brief nude scenes of women appeared in Maniac (1934), Sex Madness (1937), and nude swimming sequences in Damaged Lives (1933), Marihuana (1936) and Child Bride (1938).

Other films containing nudity were the early pornographic films which, due to various censorship regimes, had only limited means of distribution and were not widely seen.

The Hays Code was so strict that even the display of cleavage was controversial. Producer Howard Hughes created controversy by his emphasis on cleavage, especially those of Jane Russell, first in the 1941 film The Outlaw and also in the 1953 film The French Line. The film was found objectionable under the Hays Code because of Russell's "breast shots in bathtub, cleavage and breast exposure" while some of her decollete gowns were regarded to be "intentionally designed to give a bosom peep-show effect beyond even extreme decolletage". Both films were condemned by the Legion of Decency and were released in cut versions.

Nudist films

Several nudist films were produced in the 1950s and 60s, although the genre has roots dating back to the 1930s with such titles as This Nude World (1932) by Michael Mindlin and The Unashamed (1938) directed by Allen Stuart. Hobart Glassey produced Elysia, Valley of the Nude (1933). Famous examples of nudist films of this perid included Garden of Eden (1954) directed by Max Nosseck and Naked Venus (1958) directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Other producers and directors active in the genre included David F. Friedman, Herschell Gordon Lewis, with films such as Daughter of the Sun (1962), and Barry Mahon. Filmmaker Doris Wishman was probably the most active producer/director in the genre, with eight nudist films to her credit between 1960 and 1964, with films Hideout in the Sun (1960), Nude on the Moon (1960), Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962), Diary of a Nudist (1961), Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls (1963), Playgirls International (1963), Behind the Nudist Curtain (1964), and The Prince and the Nature Girl (1964). Ramsey Harrington produced For Members Only (1960), Arthur Knight produced My Bare Lady (1963) and Leo Orenstein (under the pseudonym Alan Overton) directed Have Figure, Will Travel (1963).

Exploitation producer George Weiss also released films such as Nudist Life (1961), which comprised vintage nudist camp footage. In the same year, in England, Harrison Marks released Naked as Nature Intended which starred Pamela Green and was a box office success. (Marks soon went to make softcore pornographic and caning/spanking fetish films.)

Nudist films claimed to depict the lifestyles of members of the nudism or naturist movement, but were largely a vehicle for the exhibition of female nudity. They were mainly shot in naturist resorts, but augmented by attractive glamour models. The nudity was strictly non-sexual and when filmed frontally the members' pubic area was strictly covered by the angle of shot or some clothing or other objects. There was uninhibited exposure of breasts and backsides though. The acting and technical production standards were not very high and the outlets for their exhibition were very limited, as was the size of the audience interested in these films, and many films were re-released several times under new titles, to trick patrons into seeing the films additional times. What audience there was lost interest in these films by the mid-1960s and production ceased.

Nudie-cuties

At the same time, some independent producers produced erotic feature films which openly contained female nudity without a pretext of a naturist context. The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959) directed by Russ Meyer was the first of such films. In that film the context for the presentation of female nudity was the fantasies of the main character involving nude women. A feature of the film was the use of larger-breasted women, which became a feature of this genre. The film is widely considered the first pornographic feature not confined to under-the-counter distribution, and the film was commercially successful. For the next few years a wave of such films, known as "nudies" or "nudie-cuties", were produced for adult theatres (in the United States sometimes called grindhouse theatres). Films in this genre included Doris Wishman's science fiction spoof Nude on the Moon (1963), the Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman film The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (1961), and Ed Wood's horror-nudie, Orgy of the Dead (1965) with its bevy of topless dancers from beyond the grave, following his western screenplay, Revenge of the Virgins (1959), which shows a fierce tribe of bare-breasted Indian women hunting a group of treasure seekers. There were very many other similar films and sequels. They all boasted their low budgets and were generally of poor quality. Their producers generally did not claim any artistic merit for their work, but such films were very profitable.

The exhibition of female bodies in the nude came into mild, but mainstream competition in the so-called Beach party films which started in 1963 and proved surprisingly popular. There were many imitators and series in this genre. Though there was no direct toplessness, the genre featured youthful females spending most of their time in brief bikinis. The added attraction was the music, playful atmosphere and the quality of the production, as well as the fact that these films could be viewed at "family" theatres.

Sexploitation

By mid-1960s, erotic independent films took on a harder edge with films such as Lewis and Friedman's Scum of the Earth! (1963), Russ Meyer's Lorna (1964), Michael Findlay's Body of a Female (1965)[2] and Joseph P. Mawra's misogynistic Olga's House of Shame and its sequels including White Slaves of Chinatown. These films marked the end of cute, non-sexual erotic nudity of the nudie-cutie type and the ascent of nudity in a mix of sex and violence against the women known as "roughie" sexploitation. Prime examples include R. Lee Frost's The Defilers (1965), a study in abduction and sadism, The Sexploiters (1965), Doris Wishman's Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965), The Agony of Love (1966), Michael Findlay's psycho-killer trilogy starting with The Touch of Her Flesh (1967).

Frost's Love Camp 7 (1968) was the forerunner of the women in prison and Nazi exploitation subgenres.

Challenge to the Hays Code, 1960-1968

Jayne Mansfield on the poster for Promises! Promises!

In the British produced film Peeping Tom (1960) a model (Pamela Green) lays naked on a bed to be photographed. In one scene one of her breasts is exposed very briefly. The scene is regarded as the first female nude scene in a postwar English language mainstream feature film. The film was panned by the critics at the time and it destroyed Powell's directing career in the United Kingdom. The film was subsequently re-edited leaving out the topless scene. (Martin Scorsese released the film in 1979.)

In 1963, Jayne Mansfield was the first mainstream American actress to appear nude in a starring role in Promises! Promises!. Photographs of a naked Mansfield on the set were published in the June 1963 edition of Playboy. The film was banned in Cleveland, but enjoyed box office success elsewhere. As a result of the film's success, Mansfield landed on the Top 10 list of Box Office Attractions for that year. The autobiographical book, Jayne Mansfield's Wild, Wild World, she wrote together with Mickey Hargitay, was published right after Promises! Promises! and contains 32 pages of black-and-white photographs from the film printed on glossy paper.

The Pawnbroker (1964) was controversial for its breaches of the Motion Picture Production Code by depicting nude scenes in which actresses Linda Geiser and Thelma Oliver fully expose their breasts. The nudity resulted in a "C" (condemned) rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency. The Legion of Decency's stance was opposed by some Catholic groups, and the National Council of Churches gave the film an award for best picture of the year. Allied Artists refused to cut the film and released it to theaters without a Production Code seal.

In 1966 the Motion Picture Association of America unveiled a new Production Code. The new Code replaced specific rules, including those on nudity, with more general principles advising caution in matters like nudity and sexual intimacy. It gave the MPAA the power to label certain films as "Suggested for Mature Audiences".

In November 1968, the MPAA abandoned the Production Code altogether and replaced it with the voluntary MPAA rating system. Nudity could then be legitimately included in a commercially distributed film. However, many movie theaters still refused to show films with X ratings, which was frequently a barrier to commercial success.

1968– present day

A few X-rated films have been critical successes, including A Clockwork Orange (1971), Last Tango in Paris (1973), and Midnight Cowboy (1969), which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. At present, genital nudity is still rare in U.S. cinema. Anything more than a very small amount of genital nudity, especially in a sexual context, often leads to an NC-17 (or X, in the past) rating. (One notable exception is Porky's (1982), a broad sex comedy with an R rating that featured several full-frontal nude scenes with multiple men and women, though never both together.)

Some films in the 1990s involved nude children. One such example was The Amazing Panda Adventure (1995) which included a scene where one boy and one girl take off all of their clothes in front of each other and then skinny dip in nearby water, although genitalia were not visible. Other examples of films with child nudity included Angela (1995) and Hideous Kinky (1998).

In the 2000s, most nude scenes led only to an R rating from the MPAA, instead of NC-17. Broken Flowers (2005) was rated R for containing "graphic nudity", though it only contains one brief nude scene featuring Alexis Dziena (her vulva is visible in the scene). However, the 2003 film The Cooler originally received an NC-17 rating specifically for a scene in which Maria Bello's pubic hair is exposed, though the film was edited to receive an R rating. Bello appeared in several full-frontal nude scenes in A History of Violence, which was rated R. Many films that were once rated X have been "re-rated" R; the rating on Midnight Cowboy, for instance, was so changed in late 1970 (the year after its original release).

Few mainstream American films show male or female genitalia (in what is often called a full frontal nudity scene). While it is not entirely uncommon for women to appear in full frontal nude scenes, female genitalia are not uncommon in this day and age. In 2007, Judd Apatow announced "I'm gonna get a penis or a vagina in every movie I do from now on. . . . It really makes me laugh in this day and age, with how psychotic our world is, that anyone is troubled by seeing any part of the human body." The cases where a penis appears fully or semi-erect in mainstream films are extremely limited, in part due to ratings pressure from the MPAA, which finds it more acceptable for a male's genitals to be depicted in a flaccid state.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), The Hangover (2009) and Observe and Report (2009) all featured frontal nudity in the context of comedy. Another movie, the mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, has a very brief scene in which Borat shows a full-nude frontal picture of his son. Borat and his producer, Azamat Bagatov, have a full nude fight scene, where Borat's genitals were censored with a black bar. Azamat, because of his weight, did not need one, because it was not visible during the film. The film was rated R by the MPAA.

Actors and actresses are usually informed of nude scenes well in advance, and nudity waivers require directors to state what will be shown and how it will be presented. Actress Anne Hathaway said in an interview with National Public Radio, "The director submits a shot list, and you look over them for approval. And a lot of times, if an actor feels the shot demands a lot of them, they'll demand money for it."

The tastefulness of nude scenes is hotly debated in the United States. In the 2000s, adding nudity to films may hurt a film's commercial potential. Some movie critics view gratuitous nudity (that which is not necessary for the plot) negatively. Various actors have refused to appear on film in the nude, citing either their personal morals or the risk to their reputations and/or careers. Since 2000s, very few American films featured the nudity of A-list actresses (most of them are arthouse films), like Kate Winslet in The Reader (2008), Amanda Seyfried/Julianne Moore in Chloe (2010), Anne Hathaway in Love & Other Drugs (2010) and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine (2010). Still, some nudity-required dramatic roles in upscale films could still help some young actresses to gain more acting opportunities in Hollywood, like Eva Green in The Dreamers (2003), Emily Blunt in My Summer of Love (2004), Abbie Cornish in Somersault (2004), Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) and Emily Browning in Sleeping Beauty.

European cinema

Europeans were more relaxed about nudity in film than the U.S. In Austria, cinemas in the early 1900s would organise men-only theatre nights (called Herrenabende) at which adult films would be shown. Johann Schwarzer formed his Saturn-Film production company which between 1906 and 1911 produced 52 erotic productions, each of which contained young local women fully nude, to be shown at those screenings. Before Schwarzer's productions, erotic films were provided by the Pathé brothers from French produced sources. In 1911, Saturn was dissolved by the censorship authorities and the films destroyed.

In France, in the 1920s a topless Josephine Baker was filmed performing exotic dance routines for French cinema. The 1922 Swedish/Danish silent film Häxan contained nude scenes, torture and perversion; an edited version was shown in the U.S. The 1929 Russian film Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov features nudity within the context of naturism.

The 1931 Greek film Daphnis and Chloe by Orestis Laskos featured the first nude scene in a European fiction film, showing Chloe bathing in a fountain.

The opening sequence in Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, a documentary of the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, is noteworthy for its idealized, non-exploitive use of male and female nudity. Another less artistic film from Germany, Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956), featured Marion Michael as a topless female variant on the Tarzan legend.

Other notable examples from Europe include Gustav Machatý's Extase (1933) with Hedy Lamarr, which was very controversial on its release in the United States and credited with contributing to the repressive regime under the Hays Code; and Alessandro Blasetti's La cena delle beffe (Dinner of fun, 1941) which had Clara Calamai topless in what is credited as being the first topless scene in an Italian film; Era Lui, Si Si (1952, with Sophia Loren); Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953); Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur (1956, with Isabelle Corey, then aged 16); François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960); Brigitte Bardot's casual nude scenes in Contempt (1963) by Jean-Luc Godard; the French film The Game is Over (1966, with Jane Fonda); Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour (1967, with Catherine Deneuve); and Isadora (1968, with Vanessa Redgrave).

In 1966, the British-Italian film Blowup became the first mainstream English-language film to show a woman's pubic hair, although the particular shot was only a few seconds long. (Some sources, such as Playboy magazine's History of Sex in Cinema series, have stated that the pubic hair exposure was unintended.)

Two Swedish films from 1967, I Am Curious (Yellow) and Inga, were ground-breaking—and notorious—for showing explicit sex and nudity. Both were initially banned in the U.S., and were rated X when they were shown in 1968.

In the United Kingdom, the Ken Russell film Women in Love (1969) was especially controversial for showing frontal male nudity in a wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates. Glenda Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in that film, the first performer to win for a role that included nude scenes.

The films of Catherine Breillat, a French filmmaker, are notorious for containing explicit nudity. Her film Une vraie jeune fille (1975) contains close-ups of actress Charlotte Alexandra's vulva and actor Bruno Balp's penis, some of which are particularly graphic in nature (including a sequence where an earthworm is inserted into Alexandra's vagina). This resulted in the film not officially being released until 1999. Other actresses who have appeared in explicit full-frontal nude scenes in Breillat's films include Caroline Ducey in Romance (1999) and Roxane Mesquida in Sex is Comedy (2002).

European attitudes towards depictions of nudity tend to be relatively relaxed and there are few taboos around it. Showing of full frontal nudity in movies, even by major actors, is common and it is not considered damaging to the actors' careers. In recent years explicit unsimulated sexual intercourse occurs in movies which target the general movie-going audience, albeit those usually labeled 'arthouse' product; for example, Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs and Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots.

The Finnish documentary Steam of Life about men in saunas shows nudity throughout the film.

In the Dutch movie All Stars 2: Old Stars the main characters stay in a nudist campsite. Much full frontal nudity is displayed, but not of any of the main characters.

East Asian cinema

Full-frontal male nudity (in which genitals are fully revealed) has traditionally been taboo in cinema from East Asia (and for actors of East Asian origin living outside East Asia), in sharp contrast to the situation in mainland Europe, but similar to the US. A rare example of a challenge to this taboo occurred in Japan in 1976, with explicit sexual scenes featuring Tatsuya Fuji in the historical story In the Realm of the Senses. However, the unexpurgated version of the film has never been shown in Japan, and the film negatives had to be secretly shipped out of the country to France for developing.

However, a number of recent films have lifted this taboo. Among them are: the full-frontal appearance of Hong Kong Chinese actor Michael Lam, who was the lead in Bugis Street (1995), as his clothes and underwear are torn off by his lover, fully exposing his genitals; a variety of East Asian actors in The Pillow Book (1996); of Hong Kong Chinese lead actor Sunny Chan in a bathroom scene as he enters a shower, fully revealing his genitals for a few moments, in Hold You Tight (1997); of mainland China lead actor Liu Ye in Lan Yu (2001), whose genitals are shown as he lies naked on a bed; a variety of East Asian actors in Under One Roof (2002); of French Vietnamese actor Steve Tran whose genitals are shown as he walks naked in a high school locker room in Cold Showers (2005); of Singapore Chinese actor/director Zihan Loo, who removes all his clothes, uncovering his genitals, and while waiting to meet a prostitute, masturbates on camera, eventually revealing his fully erect penis, in Pleasure Factory (2007); a variety of Taiwanese Chinese actors who dare each other to skinnydip in Winds of September (2008), and of lead actor Ron Heung and the Hong Kong National Baseball Team, who are shown naked in City Without Baseball (2008), with their genitals fully revealed on camera. South Korean lead actor Song Kang-ho appears frontally naked in Thirst (2009). Hong Kong Chinese actors Sean Li and Osman Hung appear frontally naked in Permanent Residence (also 2009), as do the lead Hong Kong Chinese actors Byron Pang and Hong Kong half-Chinese/half-British actor Thomas Price in Amphetamine (2010), and numerous Hong Kong Chinese actors in the film Love Actually... Sucks! (2011). These appearances contrast with those nearer the beginning of the decade: the much briefer nude (side) appearance of young mainland Chinese actor Cui Lin (in which his genitals are shown) at the beginning of the shower scene in Beijing Bicycle (2001), and the brief full-frontal appearance of a Singapore Chinese actor in the film 15 (2003), and of Japanese puppeteer Sota Sakuma, whose body and genitals are fully revealed but shown briefly, in a nude beach scene in EuroTrip (2004), and even the brief frontal view of mainland China lead actor Guo Xiaodong in Summer Palace, later in the decade (2006).

The appearances of mainland Chinese teenage lead actor Xu Dialing in Red Cherry (1995), of Lee Kang-sheng in The Wayward Cloud (2005), of Joseph Chang and Bryant Chang in Eternal Summer (2006), of Korean lead actors Lee Yeong-hoon and Kim Nan-gil in No Regret (also in 2006), of Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in Lust, Caution (2007), and of Qin Hao and Chen Sicheng in Spring Fever (2009), are all described as featuring full-frontal nudity, although no genitals are shown.

Another example of nudity (but with simulated genitals) in East Asian cinema is the Japanese film Hanzo the Razor (1972). It is the first part of a trilogy, depicting Officer Hanzo Itami's foiling of a plot by corrupt officials in Edo period Japan. Simulated male and female genitals are shown in various scenes. There are also scenes showing Hanzo using sexually aggressive tactics in order to extract secrets from women who associated with Hanzo's suspects.

Animation

See also: adult animation which includes a mix of adult themes and situations including nudity

In animated films in the U.S., nudity is limited. Only a few mainstream animated films like Fritz the Cat, Fantastic Planet, and Heavy Metal have contained significant female full frontal nudity. The Simpsons Movie (2007) has a brief scene in which Bart Simpson is fully nude, and carries a PG-13 rating. Another famous exception is South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999), which carries an R rating, and shows both nude female breasts and full frontal male nudity.

In the Franco-Belgian Kirikou animated films, full-frontal nudity of the titular little boy appears throughout the film, in addition to female nudity in the form of exposed breasts.

In Canada, Rock & Rule (1983) features brief female toplessness.

In Japanese cinema, nudity taboos have evolved greatly since the dawn of animation, and anime, the general category of animated films, includes some films with a spectrum of nudity and sexual situations. The Toei Animation films Hols: Prince of the Sun in the 1960s and Tatsu no ko Taro in the '70s include brief full nudity of their titular characters. The popularity of OVA (Original Video Animation) direct-to-video series in Japan has been a major factor in the unique blend of content in Japanese anime. Starting in the mid-1980s when video tape players became common home appliances, themes of nudity and sexual content flourished in Japanese animation with the hallmarks of many modern sub-genres being established early with such films and OVA series as Lolita Anime, Cream Lemon and Urotsukidōji. Such sexually explicit films or those with significant nudity are referred to as hentai outside of Japan.

See also

• Depictions of nudity
• No-nudity clause
• Nudity in American television
• Sex in film
• List of mainstream movies with unsimulated sex

Further reading

• Hosoda, Craig (2001). The Bare Facts Video Guide. Bare Facts. ISBN 0-9625474-9-2.
• Jones, Marvin (1996). Movie Buff Checklist: Male Nudity in the Movies. (5th ed.) Panorama City, Cal.: Campfire Productions. ISBN 1-888211-04-0.
• Mr. Skin (2004). Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia: the A-to-Z guide to finding your favorite actresses naked. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-33144-4.
• Storey, Mark (2003). Cinema au Naturel: a history of nudist film. Naturist Education Foundation. ISBN 0-9740844-0-9.

External links

• History of Sex in Cinema
• Mr. Skin, The Ultimate Database of Nudity in Movies