No Ifs, Ands, or Butts! From Ryan Reynolds to Will Smith: The Butt is Being Overused in Hollywood and It's Getting Ass-inine!
[ Note: I understand that this article will spark some controversy. It is a difficult subject, one that maintains an array of varying opinions. Someone had to bring it up. That person is me.]
Hollywood is overusing the bare butt, and it needs to stop.
While it is a stretch to say "almost every", I would attest that a shocking amount of television shows and movies feature an absolutely POINTLESS scene in which one of the characters is just simply not wearing any clothes while we get a full screen-shot of a birthday-suited behind. Still not sold that this is a problem? While none can negate the inherent comedic potential of the posterior, this body part's overuse has become a multi-genre problem. Will Smith in I, Robot, Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool, Keira Knightly in The Aftermath, Tom Hiddleston in Crimson Peak, Liam Neeson in A Million Ways to Die in the West, Lena Headey in Game of Thrones are just a few notable deriers we have seen on our screens. While several of them opted for a body double, we, the audience members, saw the same thing: a lot of butts.
I'm not saying that all butts should be eradicated from our movies and television shows. When the story necessitates it, go forth! For example, when discussing the sexuality and nudity in Crimson Peak, Tom Hiddleston said, "I actually felt it was really necessary." He continued to explain that the director, Guillermo del Toro, has a real knack for violence and in order to maintain the prevalent, inherently gothic balance between violence and sexuality, the sexuality needed to be as intense as the violence. "We all knew, in order for the film to have balance, that the sexuality had to be present as well." This is a well constructed logic behind the use of a behind. Not all projects have that.
It is not the butt itself but it's overuse that has become inherently ass-inine (see what I did there?) In comedic movies, it is quite literally overused as the butt of the joke. In dramatic films, it is used to represent raw-real reality or animalistic, human sexuality. The more and more it is used, the more and more the bare-butt strategy becomes nothing but a cinematic cop out. The rear end has become a cinematic trope, originally intended to elicit profane-adjacent shock value, which now falls incredibly flat.
Why was the butt overused in this way?
For starters, we all have one. (If this is news to anyone, perhaps go do some Googling and then make your way back here when you are ready.) For this reason, it is considered a more appropriate allusion to sexual activity or naked-ness. Within the confines of this reasoning, however, its presence often becomes more jarring, for it often implies it is within the confines of a film or show where other nudity is not allowed. It startles an audience more than it compliments the story line. It takes the audience out of the story (and creates many unnecessary awkward moments for those who are trying to watch a movie with their families.)
I would like to challenge production companies, film makers, and directors alike to explore subtlety. Many television moments could be far more powerfully expressed without requiring an actor to make an ass of themselves. Conventions and rules breed drama. In resisting the urge to show everything on screen, the bar is raised and more tension is created. There is a reason that in the olden days seeing an ankle was considered scandalous. They were always covered, and it was considered suggestive to flash them. While we can recognize in the modern day that this standard is insane, the high standards created a structure in which breaking them in a tension-filled-high-stakes manner was easy and fascinating.
The same principles apply to cinema. By allowing there to be higher standards and rules within the world of the story, subtlety is able to read even louder than straight up nudity. Even when it comes to cinematic moments of sexuality, subtlety frequently makes the biggest impact. Viewers everywhere are still fangirling over the SLIGHT, almost UNMISSABLE hand movement in Pride and Prejudice (2005). Can you think of a butt moment that has inspired the same conversation?
Even in scenarios in which nudity is required, it is often more powerful when it is cinematically implied. In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, when Ferris is in the shower, we don't see anything, but it allows for the humor of the story to carry better. In Elf, when Walter Hobbs tells Buddy to, "lose the tights as soon as possible," and Buddy exposes himself to Emily Hobbs, we see only two screaming faces. Instant comedy. Implied nudity. The butts would just have gotten in the way.
Really what I'm saying is that in order to redeem the cinematic power of the butt, it has to be more sparingly used. Before you put a naked behind in your carefully crafted production, take a moment and ask yourself: Butt do I have to?
