Without going through the history of nudity in cinema, which I'm kind of prepared to do, I think I can safely say that everyone understands movies aren't the hot beds of lust they once were, and as much as that has to do with foreign markets, the fact that you can watch whatever porn you desire on whatever device you're using to read this is a bigger factor. People used to go to movies for pornography, like how people used to masturbate to clothes catalogs. And though there are people who will tell you that the hint of sex is more erotic than sex itself, and that there's something infinitely more erotic about seeing but maybe not seeing a nipple or the hint of areola than someone spread eagle showing all, the former takes work, and involvement. Porn skips to the end.
Which is why it was something of a big deal for an actress to play the lead in FIFTY SHADES OF GREY because that book talks about the "Dirty Sex" that one woman wanted the leads in TWILIGHT to have, so it's something of a bait and switch. You might be drawn in by the idea of butt plugs and leather, but the end result is of course, marriage and domesticity. Having only worked on it without watching in total in the final film, they get married and I don't think anything actually naughty happens by the end. They have married sex. No one gets peed on. The sex contracts are a thing of the past because Christian is I believe "cured." Because it's a pornographic fantasy. No one's throwing a finger in the other's butt for old times sake because that would connote a real relationship.
Taking on the role of the girl (I am not looking it up, its Anastasia Steele or something IIRC) in the film was a big deal, and made Dakota Johnson's career. And yet the films - like the books - have fallen off the world. Though recently How Did This Get Made did the first film, and I think they were planning on watching all three (they still might) but I got the impression that the film sucked too much for them to continue. As Jason Mantzoukas so eloquently put it "Why am I bored when there's this much nudity on screen?" Which is basically asking the question "Why isn't it erotic when Dakota Johnson is naked?"
I'm about to show some NSFW images of Miley Cyrus to make a point. So, if you're embarrassed easily, I'm sorry.
Hopefully you've seen these before, I'm only using them to make a point. But here we see Miley Cyrus felating both a Billy club and an actual dildo. These are provocative images, and you can make an argument that Cyrus is bold and transgressive for doing this.
But, and hear me out: What if she's not? What if instead of this being revealing (and there are less censored versions of these images), she just doesn't actually care? And that lack of care is actually just privilege?
For generations, people who have posed nude for photos and cinema knew what they were doing and that it could come at a societal cost. Or if nothing else they were being revealing, that they were showing themselves in a way that was - for lack of a better word - naked. That people were so desperate to see Halle Berry topless that she could get paid a million dollars to do a nude scene. That attractive people could get naked and make a living at it. There is good and bad to this, but it isn't my point. Outside of actresses seemingly convinced they should after the big phone hacking, most new starlets don't really want or have to do nude scenes any more because that's the province of television. But we've seen a lot of nepo babies being almost cavalier about nude scenes. Dakota Johnson, Zoe Kravitz, Margaret Qualley, Maya Hawke, Lily Rose-Depp, etc. etc.. But at a time where most stars don't have to.
But as the math is different, a lot of their nudity doesn't feel revealing or intimate. When Miley Cyrus is doing what she's doing in the pictures above, it might be shocking but I don't think it reads as erotic. Arguably it isn't meant to be erotic. It achieves a blatancy as does a lot of aggressively sexualized behavior that it's no longer recognizably human. You may want to sex someone so hard their eyes cross and their toes curl, but you can cross that line into it being so performative it isn't actually about the thing anymore. These are pictures that are so about sex they aren't. Because I don't believe Cyrus is wrapping her lips around that police pole with the intention of getting cops turned on, nor is it much of a commentary on policing, etc. It's pointless provocation and weirdly sexless sexuality. But maybe the point is its pointless if - and only if - Miley does it. From a semiotics viewpoint, she isn't giving anyone pleasure but herself, it's pictures of auto-fellatio. She's sucking her own dick, not anyone else's.
There's the old quote about rich people not being like you or I, but one thing that's changed is that the ability to be bubbled is greater than it's ever been in the history of the world. Angelica Huston saw some shit, but a lot of these nepo talents, born into fame and into ridiculous money, given the best private schools, told that they are special from birth, gifted into an industry through easy connections, never having to worry about paying for things or needing things or not getting free things... perhaps there is an entire class of people who - if not removed from humanity - have no idea how it functions for everyone else, and have no interest. Maybe we can feel that Johnson doesn't care. Maybe what's happening is that we know they're bragging that they can do this and there will be no consequences because they've proven they can do it without consequences so it doesn't have an erotic charge of being revealing. Maybe Miley Cyrus isn't celebrating the freedom that everyone can suck a cop's Billy club and not get in trouble or have people look at you funny, or in any way endanger your career. Maybe she's showing that she can, and most everyone else can't. And maybe Dakota Johnson isn't bad at acting or line deliveries, maybe she's just trying to act like a normal person but doesn't know how to, because she doesn't actually understand things like hunger or desire on a primitive level as she's never experienced them. And maybe we've got an entire generation of famous actors children who are incapable of emoting certain levels of remorse or despair because it's just not in their wheelhouse. Why should it be, they didn't have to work to get it.
