Sex in Cinema 1994

Put 1994 down on the books as the year that the sexes finally achieved equality on-screen: Men and women now share the right to let it all hang out. Moviegoers have become accustomed to the sight of unclad female bodies, but only a few audacious filmmakers have ventured to debrief their male stars. Oh, there were earlier hints of a change--last year Harvey Keitel, Jaye Davidson and Sylvester Stallone (in The Piano, The Crying Game and Demolition Man, respectively) bared what were once known as their privates. But in 1994 full exposure for actors as well as actresses became a genuine trend. Bruce Willis' frontal nudity in Color of Night was the talk of the Cannes Film Festival (as were his underwater exploits with an equally nude Jane March). One might expect a flash of flesh in a film called Naked in New York, and Eric Stoltz, featured in its dream sequence, obliges. So does James Woods, playing a drunken rancher who strips to the buff in Curse of the Starving Class. The same may be said (text concluded on page 146) for the daring actors in Sirens and Desperate Remedies, erotic features from Australia and New Zealand. As usual, the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings mavens fell off the bandwagon. Although they tolerated the scene from Six Degrees of Separation in which a male hustler cavorts in the nude, the MPAA raters balked at a shot from the movie's trailer: Michelangelo's naked Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. By the time an embarrassed MPAA backed off from its attempt to censor one of the world's artistic treasures, the trailer had already been re-edited.

Bare-and-equal sexual liberation does not stop with dropping trou. In the movies, the man of the Nineties sheds his inhibitions in more ways than one, making cross-dressing and gay themes appear not only accessible but downright popular. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert showcases England's handsome veteran Terence Stamp as a transsexual performer who journeys across Australia's outback with a pair of drag queens. Similarly, Hollywood's own Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo hit the road in drag as beauty contestants in the upcoming To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Johnny Depp portrays the title role in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, a biography of the cross-dressing director whose bad movies (including Glen or Glenda?, the sappy tale of a transvestite's trauma) are bottom-of-the-barrel classics. Also among the guys dressed as dolls: Adrian Pasdar in Just Like a Woman, Jorge Sanz in Spain's Oscar-winning Belle Epoque and Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

Homosexuality--a theme in Belle Epoque, Naked in New York, the overtly lesbian Go Fish and France's Savage Nights will also be dealt with in upcoming film versions of several plays: Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (Barbra Streisand directing) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America, slated for Robert Altman.

Altman will be making additional contributions to screen sex. His Prêt-à-Porter, a multistar vehicle about the Paris fashion world, reportedly climaxes with a startling shot of naked models parading down the runway to vociferous cheers. Also bucking the early-1994 trend toward family-style fare are such fall and winter releases as The Specialist, teaming Sharon Stone and Sly Stallone in a steamy shower scene, and the movie version of Michael Crichton's novel Disclosure, with Michael Douglas leveling sexual harassment charges against Demi Moore. There is skin to spare in Exit to Eden, the Garry Marshall comedy about an island catering to its clients' sadomasochistic fantasies. Alan Parker's The Road to Wellville, with Anthony Hopkins as Dr. John Kellogg, the breakfast-food visionary who ran a health spa in Michigan decades ago, spoofs the American preoccupation with fitness and sexual potency.

As the sexual agenda advanced, there were a couple of welcome blasts from the past. Newly packaged versions of Midnight Cowboy and A Streetcar Named Desire, complete with footage that had been scissored from their original releases, updated those classics. It just goes to show: It's never too late for progress.