Has Hollywood forgotten what eroticism is? That's the thesis of a two-part blog contribution to Big Hollywood by Alicia Colon. And she's wrong on almost every count.
Usually I wouldn't give a post on Big Hollywood a second glance, other than to read it when InstaPutz or Sadly, No! makes fun of Breitbart and his merry band of idiots. Such was the case when I first read Sadly, No's do "shorter than" on Colon, but I went ahead and clicked through to the original anyway. What impressed me most was that Colon writes nonsense on two levels. She starts with a "they don't make 'em like they used to" theme and digresses into full-blown, cat-lady, get-off-my-lawn craziness.
(more after the jump)
Erotic films first. Colon longs for the days of the Hays Code, with its incredibly tight restrictions on anything from nudity to adultery to miscegenation. Now, this article comes from Breitbart's site, so I'll grant there is potential to analyze the wingnuttia behind some of Colon's points, but let's take them at face value.
I'm OK with Colon's definition of eroticism:
Erotica should be what arouses sensuality and sexual desire in the imagination. Pornography is a cheap substitute to genuine sensuality by replacing it with naked thrusts and bursts of faux gasps of passion.
No problem here, and modern Hollywood is still pretty good at "genuine sensuality." I'm trying to see where Colon draws the line, though. Take this example:
Another eye opening oldie was with Marlene Dietrich in the 1933 torcher "Song of Songs". Dietrich portrays an innocent country girl who meets a handsome sculptor. She agrees to pose nude for him but we only see her from the shoulders up. The artist however, is molding a full size nude statue and as he slowly caresses and smoothes the clay over its breasts-whew! That’s erotica.
So, feeling up clay is erotic, but feeling up Marlene Dietrich isn't? Just because William Hurt and Kathleen Turner go beyond the restrictions of the Hays Code in their 1981 film, Body Heat, doesn't mean the film is in any way less erotic. It's more a situation where the two directors have different sets of tools.
What's particularly creepy is Colon's Tarzan-movie fetish:
Laugh if you will but Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O’Sullivan generate more heat in this 1932 action adventure film then any of the actors and actresses starring buck naked and writhing in today’s features.
Funny how Colon fails to mention a 1934 Tarzan outing with Weismuller, where the ape man and Jane are indeed buck naked:
And every one of these pictures features a sensuous swimming scene ("Swim!" Tarzan says, again and again, a suggestion erotic in its stripped-bare austerity). The most infamous -- and loveliest -- of these is the one in the uncut version of "Tarzan and His Mate" (airing on AMC at 9 p.m. Friday), in which Weissmuller, a former Olympic swimming champ, performs a shimmery underwater ballet with a completely nude Jane. Weissmuller's partner isn't O'Sullivan here, but Olympic gold medalist Josephine Kim, and because "Tarzan and His Mate" was made before the Hays Code, she really is totally nude.
No clay-feeling here. Again, this is about making the best of the work environment. The use of a body double for nude scenes goes much further back than folks like Colon would admit (although I suspect Josephine McKim was chosen more for her swimming skills). O'Sullivan's costume in this film was also much skimpier than the one she wore in the post-Hays films Colon fetishizes. No doubt Tarzan movies would have continued to feature Jane sans her jungle two-piece had Hays not been enforced. Let's not lessen the accomplishment of directors who worked their imaginations overtime to stay within the Code. Still, don't think for a minute there wouldn't have been jungle-humpin' if they could've gotten away with it.
It's at this point (part 2) where Colon becomes the old cat lady who lives down the street and says crazy shit whenever you walk past her house. On modern films:
Movie-going statistics have dropped significantly among older adults and that’s understandable since most fare today cater to hormonal adolescents without a clue as to the true appeal of sensual art.
Just below this, she features a photo of Ava Gardner:
Yeah, that's certainly no appeal to hormones. Gardner was signed by MGM at the age of nineteen. We can argue that Hollywood has pushed the age envelope downward nowadays, but a post-adolescent Gardner was signed to ooze sex. There's very little difference between Gardner and watching Lindsay Lohan in her first few films, or one of the more-current teen kittens like Miley Cyrus.
Next comes Colon's rant on locations:
Who decides to add these charm-busters to films? What is it about major appliances like washing machines that attract sexual activity? In the film, "Little Children," Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson drop their drawers to perform sexual gymnastics in the laundry room and several other inappropriate venues. " Annette Bening has her head banged against a motel headboard while her adulterous lover humps her energetically in the Oscar winner "American Beauty." Did we have to see Viggo Mortensen’s bare butt as he had sex with his wife on the stairs ( note: stairs are a very uncomfortable place to indulge in this activity) in " A History of Violence?" Of course not and every film would have generated better box office without these unnecessary insertions — pardon the double entendre.
Colon then puts up a photo of Winslet and Wilson in bed, with Winslet showing nothing more than Gardner did. It's ironic that sneers at the on-screen adultery of Annete Benning's character while overlooking the fact that Ava Gardner was a real-life adultress. Naturally, I wouldn't expect Colon to mention the rumors of Dietrich's flirtation with Teh Gay, either.
As to the comfort of doing it on the stairs, that's a matter of personal opinion, and many don't share Colon's. And while I don't particularly have a desire to see Viggo Mortensen's bare butt, I have a number of female friends who feel differently.
Which leads me to Colon's attacks on modern actresses. Either she is ignorant of the numerous Hollywood sex scandals of the 1930s and 1940s, or she's just in full-on get-off-my-lawn mode here. Colon's rips Madonna, Julianne Moore, and Dame Helen Mirren, while referring to Gardner as having a "checkered love life." I'll give her that Madonna made "skank" chic, but Helen Mirren? Dame Helen has had quite the successful thirty-year career since her appearance in Caligula. Characterizing Mirren as a "skank" is just crazy-cat-lady talk.
Even a cursory glance at Colon's writing indicates she's not just the crazy cat lady down the street, but rather a full-on wingnut. She authored a biography of Cindy McCain and thinks NYC is still too "wounded" to try terrorists.
One final thought on the "Golden Age of Hollywood." If Colon had her way and the Hays Code were still enforced, the current Disney animated movie, The Princess and the Frog would never have been made.
Hays banned all portrayals of miscegenation.