Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

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Thelma Adams on Reel Women: Naked Girls!: Carey Mulligan in “Shame,” Kirsten Dunst in “Melancholia,” and Kristen Stewart in “Twilight”

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Carey Mulligan, Best Supporting Actress,Shame,Michael Fassbinder,Full Frontal

Mulligan, bare shoulder

My latest column from AMC Filmcritic.com:

Write a post about actress Carey Mulligan stripping naked in Shame and suddenly you’re in search-engine heaven: Carey Mulligan naked, Carey Mulligan nude, Carey Mulligan nudity Shame. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Pretty, naked girls stop traffic on the street, and drive traffic on the web, and to the movie theater.

Why does Mulligan, an Oscar nominee for An Education, feel compelled to take it off, all off? Partially, it would seem, to shed that chilly BBC debutante image: Look, it’s a Bennet sister out of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice without the empire-waist period gown to hide behind!

But nudity is only brave, really brave, in context [Click to read full column]

Take it Off: Does nudity equal bravery for actresses?

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Sculpture, Venus de MIlo, Nudity, Naked, Nude

Yes, but would we take Venus seriously today?

Mulling: do actresses have to take their clothes off to be taken seriously? Think Carey Mulligan in Shame. The “brave” Elisabeth Olsen of Martha Macy May Marlene shedding all for a performance being floating as an Oscar contender. Is it a rite of passage? Or can it be reduced to sex sells, or the idea that producers/directors cast women they’d like to see naked? Thoughts?

Paula Bomer I think it’s that men and women like to see naked beautiful women- producers, directors, actors, viewers. I sort of understand, though, how many actresses – think Uma- even when quite young, decide to stop doing nude scenes.

Sheila Weller I don’t know, but it does seem that actresses (especially beautiful ones) have to gain weight to be taken seriously (and then they mysteriously lose it again). Charlize Theron, Renee Zellweger (well, that was a lighthearted role but still…) and a few others whose names escape me now, but I’m sure you know them….

Susan Wloszczyna What flashed in my mind was Julianne Moore standing there pants-less for several minutes in Short Cuts. It was very specific nudity that got people talking. And it was not so much a turn-on as a statement that maybe got her taken more seriously because it somehow seemed brave. But poor Carey standing in the shower like a bottle blonde rat? No one is really talking Oscar here. She just seemed miscast in an impossible role. I think they took her quite seriously enough after An Education. What she should strip off now are these dreadful worshipful girlfriend roles in Wall St 2 and Drive.

Lewis Beale I think it’s an individual choice. Bombshell Raquel Welch never appeared nude. Around the same time, Angie Dickinson was naked in half the films she appeared in.

Sasha Stone Someone like Natalie Portman who was known as a kid star merely has to undress for that not to be the case anymore. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not. If you’re not respected to begin with stripping down isn’t going to make it happen for you. If you’re already respected and it doesn’t really matter — translation, you’re British [Read more…]

Naughty, Naughty: Carey Mulligan’s nude in “Shame,” too

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Carey Mulligan, Best Supporting Actress,Shame,Michael Fassbinder,Full Frontal

Mulligan, bare shoulder

I’m feeling a little bad for Carey. After seeing Shame, all the fuss seemed to be about her co-star Michael Fassbender baring his junk, swinging the thing like a patrolman with a billy club.

But what about Carey? What about her needs? What about her risks?

Mulligan’s character makes her entrance stark naked, in a shower stall, bare-breasted (they’re perky!), bottle-blond hair soaked to reveal dark roots, darkish pubic hair. This is not your BBC Mulligan, nor the mother on the pedestal of Drive. Not only does she dress  and sing like Marilyn Monroe, she has that bruised blond Bus Stop attitude, the beauty of the butterfly about to be stomped by the steel-toed boot of male brutishness.

Full-frontal nudity is a rite of passage for actresses. And so Mulligan’s Sissy enters the frame, like brother Brandon, naked as birth, but not nearly so daring.

And, yet, Sissy may as well be clothed for all that is revealed about her character, despite her physical nudity, her painfully slow rendition of “New York, New York,” and what definitely amounts to a genuine and wrenching performance. Again, it’s the Jessica Rabbit problem: “she’s not bad; she’s just drawn that way.”

Mulligan’s abused, possibly incestuous, self-mutilating sister has a character arc that goes from bad to worse. She’s just a plot punching bag. While she shares the screen with Fassbender’s Brandon, it’s her impact on him that commands director Steve McQueen’s full attention, as if he were the parent who only has enough love for one child.

And, stripped bare, what’s Brandon’s takeaway? To quote Babs, “people, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.”