Anne Hathaway’s boobs

They ruin my cinematic experience.

I don’t know what it is about nudity in films or Anne Hathaway’s unrelenting nudity in general, but it doesn’t work for me.

You’d think I’d be more receptive. I grew up in Europe, after all.
I didn’t squeeze my eyes shut at nude beaches. It never bothered me at the Schwimmbad to see wrinkly, naked bodies relaxing in the water.

In those instances, it felt natural. People were just being people.

In film, nudity doesn’t capture people just being. Instead, it feels very affected and forced upon the audience.

Nudity is a strange tool.

I can understand writers and directors wanting to portray characters at their most vulnerable, but generally these attempts to develop character seem gratuitous and result in a tedious five minutes.

Seeing Hathaway’s boobs transformed into hundreds of thousands of pixels on the big screen hasn’t provided me any insight into her characters, so far.

When an actor bares it all, does it reveal anything meaningful about his or her character, or does it only reveal the collective success or failure of his or her DNA strands?

Nudity is often used comically, with varying levels of success.

Getting an eyeful of Jason Segel in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” admittedly split my sides.

Watching Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds have an uncomfortable, unclothed run-in in “The Proposal” felt more like an exploitation of both actors’ god-like bodies than a genuinely funnymoment.

It makes me wonder, too, whether an actor’s attractiveness has anything to do with how effective his or her nude scene is.

As a means of challenging our society’s prudish standards, I can see in what instances nudity becomes valuable.

But, again, these challenges feel more like ploys to garner attention by way of spectacle.

Instead of feeling more comfortable with nudity, I feel less comfortable because it’s treated like an apparatus instead of a natural part of our being.

I wonder at the differences of using nudity in filmic performances versus other art forms.

Posing for paintings doesn’t bother me the same way.

In that instance, it feels more like capturing and exposing the human form than exploiting a model’s bare body for spectacle.

I am open to the idea of nudity’s useful and productive possibilities in non-pornographic film.

As of now, I can’t get past the artifice.

Maybe I’m not on the same page as the rest of society.

Maybe other people who don’t mind Hathaway’s boobs go to the theater simply to be aroused.

As for me, I wish she would put those things away. They eclipse her talent.

­— ambhendr@indiana.edu