Throughout cinema history, there have been some iconic nude scenes that have transcended the bounds of the films in which they appeared. Our weekly column Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy will take an in-depth look at these scenes, their history, their deeper meanings, and their legacy. This week, Will Smith goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid kissing his co-star on screen in 1993's Six Degrees of Separation.
John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation was a scathing indictment of the upper-class liberal yuppies living in Manhattan in the late 80s and early 90s. A well-off white couple named Flan (Donald Sutherland) and Ouisa (Stockard Channing) are paid a visit one evening by Paul (Will Smith) a young black man who has just been mugged, but claims to be acquainted with their Harvard-attending sons. He charms his way into their home, in the middle of a dinner party, where Paul soon charms the assembled guests with his cooking skills, his witty repartee, and his claim to be the son of illustrious actor and civil rights activist Sidney Poitier.
This couple and their friends, so eager to prove their bleeding heart credentials by lending a hand to this man, turn a blind eye to many red flags and inconsistencies within his story. Flan and Ouisa invite Paul to stay with them, give him money, and basically welcome him into their home by taking his story 100% at face value. Of course, when they return after running errands the next morning, they discover Paul in bed with a hustler (Lou Milione, credited simply as Hustler), causing chaos in the house...
There's nothing overtly controversial in the scene itself, other than the fact that a rising star was clearly naked in bed with a VERY naked man, and extended male full frontal in 1993 wasn't the norm just yet. Will Smith wasn't quiteWill Smith just yet either, so even the mere suggestion of him playing a gay character seems commendable... until you dig into the controversy surrounding the shooting of another scene in the film. A little after this scene, we get a flashback showing that Paul didn't attend Harvard so much as he was homeless in Boston at the same time a computer nerd named Trent (Anthony Michael Hall) was attending the school.
Trent served as a sort of Henry Higgins to Paul's Eliza Doolittle, training him in the ways of the upper class so he could convincingly pull this same con, time and again, and make it convincing. In exchange for the names, crucial information, and addresses to the parents of several of Trent's classmates, he requests sexual favors from Paul. The first request he makes is for a kiss, which is shot from behind Hall's head, completely depriving the audience of that crucial moment in Paul's descent as a character.
The reason it was shot that way is because Will Smith refused to kiss another man on camera. As there's no way to excuse whatever his reason was for doing this, let's simply put it in the context of his career. While he had started The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1990, he had only just made his film debut the year prior in 1992's youth ensemble drama Where the Day Takes You. That film stalled, but earlier in 1993, he had a breakout supporting turn in the mostly forgotten comedy Made in America with Ted Danson and Whoopi. His run on Fresh Prince would continue until 1996, with him making only one other film—1995's Bad Boys—in the interim.
The early 90s had seen a small explosion in queer cinema, with Paris is Burning, My Own Private Idaho, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Crying Game, and even Philadelphia—also released in December 1993—but it was still a far cry from the mainstream. Tom Hanks obviously won an Oscar for Philadelphia and had no problem kissing Antonio Banderas on screen, but Smith wasn't as far along in his career as Hanks. Hanks had a decade between the end of Bosom Buddies and Philadelphia, Smith would still be tangling with Carlton for three more years. According to legend, Hanks' Philadelphia co-star Denzel Washington was the one who advised Smith against kissing another man on screen.
I'm not in any way, shape, or form saying that this is an excuse, but it's why Will Smith in 1993 decided he didn't want to risk the fallout from kissing another actor on screen. Just as NewNowNext found out with their column about the kiss controversy, it's tough to find the exact quote now, but Wesley Snipes was the only prominent African-American actor to call Smith out at the time...
Around the same time another black actor, Wesley Snipes, was asked for a comment: What did he think of Will Smith’s refusal and would he kiss another man onscreen. Snipes said something along the lines of “It’s called acting, stupid! Get over it.” (I wish I could provide a link for you and the exact early 1990’s quote, but I searched everywhere and it doesn’t seem to be online.)
So yeah, bravo Wesley Snipes, boo Will and Denzel, unless the rumors aren't true and Denzel is innocent of all charges. As much as you want to hand it to Will Smith for even playing a gay character in the first place—he also has sex, off screen, with Eric Thal—he has yet to play a gay character since then and all of his "gay" scenes happen exclusively and strategically off camera. Six Degrees of Separation is still a very good film with some excellent performances from Sutherland, Channing, Hall, and Ian McKellen, but one can't help but wonder what the film would have been like had Smith passed and another actor, unafraid of stigmas, took it instead.
Hey Hollywood, might be time for a remake, especially in the age of the 1%
Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy...
—Two of History's Manliest Men Wrestle Naked in Women in Love
—Ewan McGregor Has Got It, Flaunts It in Velvet Goldmine
—A Pair of Stars are Born in Y Tu Mamá También
—Harvey Keitel Goes Hog Wild in Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant
—Viggo Mortensen is Naked From Every Imaginable Angle in Eastern Promises
—There's No Shame is Michael Fassbender's Dick Game
—Kevin Bacon Steals the Show Going Full Frontal in Wild Things
—How We Met Jason Segel's Dick in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
—Jack Reynor is Uniquely Vulnerable for a Man in Midsommar
—Jaye Davidson Knows All There is to Know About The Crying Game
—David Bowie Battles Rip Torn for Dick Supremacy in The Man Who Fell to Earth
—Al Pacino Doesn't Get In All That Deep for William Friedkin's Cruising
—John Cameron Mitchell's Ass Gives Hedwig and the Angry Inch the Perfect Ending
—Ross Lynch Makes One Sexy Future Serial Killer in My Friend Dahmer
—Rocketman Not-So-Boldly Goes Where Bohemian Rhapsody Refused
—Color of Night Brings Us the Return of Bruno's Dick
—Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu Get Serviced in Bertolucci's 1900
—Future Oscar Winner Mark Rylance Gets Real and Really Nude in Intimacy
—Louis Garrel Lets It All Hang Out in the French New Wave Biopic Godard Mon Amour
—Bronson Makes Tom Hardy and His Uncut Cock a Star
—Henry June Ushers in the NC-17 Rating with a Distinct Lack of Parity in Nudity
—The Gay Cowboys of Brokeback Mountain Do More Than Eat Pudding
—Pretty Boy Eddie Redmayne Makes One Very Pretty Danish Girl
—Tom Cruise's Dick Has All the Right Moves
—Christopher Atkins Rises Above the Curly Blonde Pack in The Blue Lagoon
—A Pre-Fame Sylvester Stallone Shows Us His Italian Stallion
—9 Songs Combines Real Music with Real Sex
—Willem Dafoe Gets a Hardcore Assist in Lars von Trier's Antichrist
—The Naked Men of A Room with a View are Real Period Pieces
—John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus Pushes Every Button in Reach
—Okay, So What's Up with Ben Affleck's Abnormally Smooth Dick in Gone Girl?
—Mysterious Skin Helps Joseph Gordon-Levitt Move Beyond 3rd Rock from the Sun
