Yesterday, Variety released a piece about male nudity and prestige films. The article starts with this question: "If you want to win an Oscar, does it help to have a nude scene?" Good news: this article focuses on male nudity.
The article points out how women have gone nude and taken home awards for their nude performances, but men who received critical acclaim for their nude performances did not even have the honor of being nominated. The article mentions Michael Fassbender in Shame as the prime example.
As the article also points out, this year there are a lot of great performances from men that include nudity. From Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog to Bradley Cooper's upcoming peen scene in the film Nightmare Alley, there is a lot of excitement over these hot guys and their hot performances. But will it be enough to nominate them?
Here's the thing I take issue with: men who go nude ARE nominated. They are! It's just that Hollywood, in general, has not been keen on male nudity. Male nudity has increased on camera in the past few years which is why we see cock and ass in non-humorous scenes much more often. That's something we've been talking about Mr. Man for the last few years. It is undeniable that male nudity has only gotten better.
I think the nominees in the last six years show that to be true as well. Viggo Mortensen was nominated for Captain Fantastic in 2016 when he proudly went full frontal and Eddie Redmayne was nominated for The Danish Girl the year before.
Neither of those men won (well, technically, Eddie DID win but it was for The Theory of Everything). Leonardo DiCaprio took home the trophy in 2016 for his performance in The Revenant in which he did briefly show his ass. But we are here for dicks - is it true that Hollywood ignores dicks?
While they might not win, they definitely get nominated! Here are the actors who have shown their cocks and gotten nominated.
Best Actor
1969: Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy.
Shocking, the Midnight Cowboy lost to the REAL cowboy: John Wayne who took home the award for his role in True Grit. Still, Dustin and Jon were nominated and Midnight Cowboy took home Best Picture, making it the first and only X-rated film to have this kind of mainstream success. I do feel like the Midnight Cowboys should have won this one, but True Grit was also something of a Swan Song for the beloved John Wayne.
1991: Robin Williams in The Fisher King
1991 was a good year at the Oscars mostly because of The Silence of the Lambs. That film swept the Oscars, so no one else really stood a chance. That being said, Robin Williams' performance was probably the second-best in the category that year (in my humble opinion). I don't think this was peen discrimination though. How could anyone beat Hannibal Lecter?!
1998: Edward Norton in American History X
There is nothing sexy about American History X except for Edward Norton's body which we see in the shower before he gets beaten up. This film was TENSE and his performance was great...but this is another year where no one stood a chance again Roberto Benigni. That's right: this was the year where he won and climbed on top of the seats in celebration.
Life is Beautiful was very adored and when you compare a movie about American Nazis to a movie set in the Holocaust where a father with a positive attitude tries to keep his son alive...it only seems right to give that award to the latter. It feels like bad karma otherwise!
2000: Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls and Geoffrey Rush in Quills
And now are in the New Millennium where the year 2000 had some surprises including two nominees who showed their peens. Both Javier and Geoffrey were up against Tom Hanks in Castaway and neither of them won. How did Tom Hanks not win?! Because Russell Crowe was in Gladiator, that's why. Gladiator was a HUGE film, but it was sorely lacking in nudity. These artsy performances, while beautiful, just didn't have the brute strength that Russell did.
2005: Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain
While most of us know that Heath and Jake used body doubles when they leaped nude off of a cliff into freshwater, we can all acknowledge that they had sex scenes and the gay content matter was relatively new for the Academy. 2005's Best Actor Category was a little stiff. Walk the Line was nominated, but it was Phillip Seymour Hoffman's dead-on portrayal of Truman Capote that took home the Oscar.
2007: Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises
Before he did Captain Fantastic - which again was nominated - he showed his cock in Eastern Promises. He did not win for this role, but that could be because he was up against the one and only Daniel Day-Lewis. If you're nominated alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, you simply don't stand a chance. Sorry, Viggo.
Best Supporting Actor
The same logic applies to Best Supporting, but Best Supporting had surprisingly less nudity. I think that is because these supporting characters generally are given less screentime and story which means less time to get naked. Here, however, are supporting actors who went nude.
1977: Peter Firth in Equus
Equus is a controversial story infamous for a man banging a horse (among a lot of other hard-to-watch things!). Peter Firth showed his horse cock in this movie, but it was also nominated alongside STAR WARS. Still, it was actually Jason Robards in Julia who won the prize this year.
1992: Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game
Now, THIS was a. tough category. Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino were both nominated for fantastic films, but there was a lot of attention on Jaye Davidson's portrayal of Dil in The Crying Game. While this is a wonderful performance that should have won (in my opinion), it was Gene Hackman who won the award that year. This is the one that I could see arguing discrimination against, but I don't know. The Academy loves Gene Hackman and Unforgiven was a good film. Who's to say what happened here?
1996: Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Maguire
WE HAVE A WINNER! Finally, we have a winner! Cuba Gooding, Jr. shows his cock in one locker room scene, but you can't see it that well. Regardless, he went nude and he won the Oscar for this critically acclaimed flick. Show me the money? No, show me the penis!
1999: Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley
Jude Law's nude bathtub scene was filled not only with a cock shot but with gay sexual tension. While I don't love that Mr. Ripley is a gay villain, I do actually like this movie a lot and I am consistently surprised by how mainstream this was for 1999. Speaking of 1999, this is one of the best years for films.
Let's look at the other nominees, shall we? Tom Cruise for Magnolia, Michael Clarke Duncan for The Green Mile, and Haley Joel Osment for The Sixth Sense. He saw dead people, but we saw cock! None of those people won, though. It was the legendary Michael Caine who took home his Oscar for The Cider House Rules (which might actually be the least remembered movie in this category).
Tough year, right? Those are huge films with great performances that are all talked about to this day. That only makes it more astonishing to me that The Talented Mr. Ripley was nominated! I consider that something of a win for Hollywood opening itself up to gay characters and nudity.
