Released this year, The Challenger is a film about tennis players:
Zendaya's professional tennis player hovers between his current and ex in a strange love triangle.
(Stills from "The Challenger")
The evaluation of the film by a certain petal in China is varied, but the evaluation of the Western media is surprisingly consistent:
Zendaya, who was described by the media as a "sexy actress" and "super hot girl", as the central character of the love triangle in the film, did not have a large-scale shot in the whole film......
(Stills from "The Challenger")
In fact, it can be seen from this evaluation that once actresses are linked to beauty and sexiness, in the eyes of the media, large-scale appearances seem to have become a homework they must hand in.....
Many media commented that this movie looks like an old-school love sports movie. Some media complained quite bluntly:
Totally abstinent, a film nominated for the sexiest film of the year, but with little to no sexy elements.
In European and American film and television works, which have long been accustomed to visual stimulation, they seem to feel that the audio-visual products in recent years have become more and more conservative.
This phenomenon even attracted the attention of the well-known economic media "The Economist", which summed it up:
In recent years, there has been a significant reduction in sexual scenes (mainly referring to female nudity) in mainstream cinema films, which means that the era of Hollywood making money by women exposing their flesh has ushered in drastic changes...
(Hollywood's Sexy Symbol, Widowed Sister Scarlett Johansson)
In the minds of many people, since the 50s of the last century, Hollywood has been a place of sexy actresses.
Singer and film actress Doris Day, who almost ushered in the era of sexy actresses in Hollywood.
(Hollywood veteran sexy actress Doris Day)
From the 50s to the 60s, she starred in almost all the blockbuster films, and she herself was known as the "box office queen". But along with it, she has more and more nude shots in the film.
Since then, producers have equated female star exposure with box office guarantees.
In the decades that followed, Hollywood became more and more unscrupulous in consuming women's bodies. From a generation of sexy actress Marilyn Monroe
(Marilyn Monroe's life photos)
To Sharon Stone.
(Sharon Stone's masterpiece "Instinct")
From widowed sister Scarlett Johansson
(Scarlett Johansson)
To the eldest cousin Jennifer Lawrence, it seems inevitable that top actresses will have to be naked in front of the camera to please the audience.
(Jennifer Lawrence has a lot of large-scale shots in "The Cardinals")
Now, people are finally pleasantly surprised to find that female nudity and sexual suggestion in mainstream films have begun to decline dramatically in the last decade.
The Economist has made a statistic for this:
As of 2019, more than half of the 250 most successful commercial films in more than a decade have no sexually suggestive (or female nudity) shots, and there are 40% fewer sexually related shots and content than in the early 2000s.
For such a trend, some Hollywood directors are happy to see it.
For example, director Suzie Halewood believes that the quality of the film is the only thing that matters, and there is no need to pile up unnecessary nudity:
"Too many scenes of sex and nudity make it feel like an exploitation of the actress and redundant to the film's narrative."
"I don't mind cutting back on nudity, I just wish the film was made better."
(Female director Susie Helwood)
Helwood also believes that in recent years, the drastic reduction in sexual and nudity is a sign of Hollywood's attempt to clean up the screen, and it deserves to be recognized.
In addition, the #Me too movement, which was sparked by the sexual harassment case of famous Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein a few years ago, has also contributed to this trend to a certain extent.
In the wake of the #Me too movement, Hollywood producers began to add "nudity clauses" to actress contracts, which required the actor's consent to shoot nudity.
(Hollywood Little Flower, "Sister Stone" Emma Stone)
In the past, such terms were only available to Hollywood A-list actresses, but nowadays, they are becoming more and more common among ordinary actresses.
Zendaya's recent film has not featured nudity, and media speculation is a reflection of this clause.
In addition to her, some actresses who are not big names also came forward to say that they have signed "non-nude contracts".
(Recent photo of Zendaya)
However, an interesting phenomenon of the ensuing symbiosis is:
Actresses gradually stopped showing their flesh, and male actors began to strip more and more.
This phenomenon has been reflected in many TV dramas in recent years.
For example, in "The White Lotus Hotel", the male protagonist has a lot of large-scale nude shots.
(Stills from "The White Lotus Hotel")
For example, last year's British-American co-production "Sutterburn".
(Stills from "Sutterburn")
The American drama version of "One Day"
(American drama "One Day")
In these episodes with a large number of male nudity scenes, not only is the scale of male nudity getting bigger and bigger, but individual actors even use prostheses in order to achieve "better results"...
It seems that Hollywood actresses are gradually getting rid of exposed flesh, while male actors are rolling up in nude scenes.
In director Helwood's view, everything is still about profit.
She commented on this point:
After all, Hollywood is a business circle, and once everyone finds out that exposing meat can make more money, it is inevitable that the old scene will come back...