As Chris Pine’s new Netflix movie Outlaw King drops, some fans are undoubtedly excited about watching a bloodthirsty historical epic about Scottish folk hero Robert The Bruce. But most of the anticipation is just plain thirsty – because yes, this is the movie with Chris Pine’s naked penis.
When the Outlaw King opened the Toronto Film Festival, Pine’s peen was all some outlets could talk about. The original cut of the film left audiences cold (director David Mackenzie cut nearly 23 minutes after that screening) but the buzz about the butt-naked Pine was hot. “Chris Pine’s Penis Dazzles Audiences” was the headline Vulture went with.
A blinding success.
It’s a lot of furore for a scene that lasts for about 12 frames: Robert has gone for a swim, and emerges from the water naked, shot from a fair distance away. That’s it. (You apparently see his bush during an earlier sex scene, but it’s not a full-on full frontal.)
Pine seems equal parts bemused and entertained by all the freakouts, and has rightly pointed out that Florence Pugh, the 22-year-old actor playing his wife Elizabeth de Burgh in the film, also has a full-frontal nude scene, but nobody’s losing their minds over that.
“I am not sure what that means,” he told British TV host Graham Norton. “Either people think they can’t comment or everyone expects women to get naked. Either way, it’s double standards.”
Pine surely knows that it’s the second one: everyone does expect women to get naked.
A 2016 study found women appear nude in films nearly three times as much as men do.
On TV, HBO has made a name for itself as the “Nudity Channel”, with Game Of Thrones being the most notoriously nude, even helping coin the term “sexposition” – and it’s definitely shown its share of schlongs. Overall, prestige and peak TV across the board has shown us more naked people than ever – but boobs still seem to be the kind of nudity most people (or at least network execs) are most comfortable with.
From Michael Fassbender’s famously above-average dong (which Pine acknowledges as the standard to beat) and Jason Segel’s devastating nude dumping in Forgetting Sarah Marshall to Ken Jeong in The Hangover Part II, full-frontal nudity from famous actors is still headline-worthy, while naked women are par for the course.
Pop culture site Fandom this year began a campaign called #BallsForBoobs, calling for an equal amount of screentime for both. And in 2015, Kevin Bacon – who you may recall as one of many people we saw naked in Wild Things – recorded a semi-satirical PSA for Mashable with the hashtag #FreeTheBacon, calling for more full-frontal male nudity in film and TV.
So why are we taking so long to give Kevin Bacon what he wants?
The main visual difference between cis male and female nudity is that the naked vulva is relatively shy and retiring compared to the more out-there physicality of the meat and two veg. No matter whether you think they’re nice to look at or not, there is something a little more attention-grabbing about dangly bits. And ratings regulators definitely agree – and that’s even before we get to discussing how erect a penis can (appear to) be, and in which directions it can flop before the censors call cut. (Basically, they can be seen, but not hard.)
There’s possibly more vulnerability involved for an established actor when it comes to showing his actual IRL penis.
It feels a little different to an actress showing her breasts or even her crotch, not just because of how normalised women’s nudity is – actresses are sadly used to the idea that they’re more likely to be asked to strip down – but also because of the way we talk about dick size and the importance we attach to it with regards to sexual performance. The subtext of “there’s Chris Pine’s penis” is “that’s what he’s working with”.
*Fans self*
The increased cultural prominence of straight women’s thirst, and indeed the general horniness of anyone attracted to men, means that we’re more comfortable than ever objectifying famous dudes. That can extend to a natural curiosity and collective fantasy about what they’re like in bed, just as fantasies about women might – and while that shouldn’t really be too centred on anyone’s parts, it’s, well, a part of it.
Almost everyone likes seeing hot people naked, and as a culture, we’ve become both more relaxed and generally more mature about onscreen nudity. We’re seeing fewer scenes where women inexplicably tie entire bed sheets around themselves to walk two metres for a post-sex shower.
All women after someone’s just seen them entirely naked for an hour of hot sweaty sex, apparently.
We’re seeing more scenes where nudity is portrayed in non-sexual, non-titillating contexts, to suggest vulnerability or just because it makes sense for a person to be naked in that situation.
One of the shows that does nudity best is the Starz period romance Outlander. Not only have we seen a range of scenes with its two stars having hot, romantic and explicit sex, including plenty of adoringly objectifying pans across Sam Heughan’s butt, but Tobias Menzies (who you’ll also recognise as Edmure Tully on GoT) had several full-frontal scenes as the sociopathic villain Black Jack Randall – all in the context of appalling sexual violence being inflicted by the character. None were gratuitous; they only added to the power of some of the most confronting scenes I’ve ever seen in mainstream TV.
The question is, what needs to happen in order to move the normalisation of onscreen nudity beyond “mostly boobs”? Will the response to a star as major as Pine hanging out with his wang out encourage or dissuade others from following his lead?
Perhaps it depends on how many people actually watch all of Outlaw King over this launch weekend, and how many skip straight to 1 hour, 27 minutes and 52 seconds.