I was thrilled. Male frontal nudity. On purpose, in a mainstream romantic comedy, not just in arty, little seen, independent and foreign films.
Like wow!
Vindication!
For years, I tell you, years, I've complained to anyone who would listen that I thought it was as unfair as hell that we women were being deprived of our fair share of shots of the male genitalia. While at the same time we were having bare breasts crammed down our throats.
Must I remind all of you in the movie industry that women get to look at a perfectly fine pair of bare breasts everyday of their lives? So the ...thrill of bare, on screen, isn't?
This weekend a movie arrived in which male frontal nudity prevails. 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'. A big to-do was made of this earth-shattering moment. While I was put off by the male entitlement that seeped in between the lines...nowhere was anyone announcing this nudity was being done to gratify us poor, deprived women. No, the hype was that Jason Segal (the star and writer of this film) and Judd Apatrow and crew, thought it would be a hoot to finally show some scrotum to break a few taboos.
Okay, beggars can't be choosers. I closed my ears to the male reasons why this grand moment was nigh, hired a jet, and flew up to LA from the OC, just for the occasion. I brought binoculars.
Well, darn it. I mean it. DARN IT.
It was no big deal. It was so no big deal, I was simply reminded of married days, in the morning in the bathroom, getting ready to go out. My naked breasts, his naked scrotum, brushing our teeth, gargling.
All there was was a flash, at the beginning of the movie, and at the end, just so we wouldn't feel deprived. A flash of Jason Segal's family jewels hanging there quietly, minding their own business, while his girlfriend, fully clothed, breaks up with him.
HAR HAR? Or, all the sexiness of a naked baby standing there sucking his thumb.
So I ask myself, what did I want? All these years whining about the lack of male nudity in films, what had I expected?
Well, all I know is, in a zillion years I hadn't expected Jason Segal's naked you know to remind me so fondly of the comforts of married life.