After years of chaste superhero movies dominating the box office and frequent laments for the death of the sex scene, full frontal nudity is making a comeback on screen in a crop of summer comedies, with female stars daring to bare all for laughs.
In Adele Lim's new Asian-led comedy Joy Ride, which channels the raucous spirit of Bridesmaids, there is a gasp-out-loud scene in which Stephanie Hsu's character, Kat, a soap opera star, has her skirt whipped off at the end of a dance sequence to reveal a lurid devil tattoo on her vulva. It is an outrageous stunt that is hilariously cringeworthy. Hsu, though, has been keen to point out that a body double was used (“Make sure my mother gets that memo,” she told Elle).
Scarlett Johansson also has a blink-and-you-could-miss-it nude scene in Asteroid City, Wes Anderson's latest comedy. Playing an actor named Midge, she drops her towel while practicing some lines, as love interest Augie (Jason Schwartzman) watches dumbstruck from his cabin. There is a charged frisson of romance between them, but as this is an Anderson film, it is a moment more concerned with aesthetics – a tasteful shot in a full-length mirror – than raging lust.
Jennifer Lawrence strips off in the sex comedy No Hard Feelings, in which she plays broke 32-year-old Maddie, employed to seduce an awkward 19-year-old. The pair go skinny-dipping before they are interrupted by some gobby teens who steal their clothes for a laugh. Lawrence gives chase and starts to fight them, her Hunger Games training in full evidence, all while completely naked. She even gets punched in the groin for her troubles.
Why is explicit nudity creeping back on to our screens? "Movies are trying to bring back joy and fun after the Covid years," says critic Kristen Lopez, film editor for the Wrap. “I think we're seeing this response to the last [few years] of sadness and trauma. What's the best way to do that? To bring back frivolity and nudity.”
Nudity, of course, has never strayed too far from the big screen, with more women than men getting naked. A 2019 study looked at 2018's Top 100 films at the US box office and found that 27.3% of female characters took their clothes off, compared with 8.5% of men. But in a post-#MeToo landscape, it seems as if nudity is less about desire than laughs.