Good for her 2 (Scarlett Johansson—update)

Last fall Scarlett Johansson’s email was hacked (along with several other celebrities), and a couple of nude photos of her were “leaked” on the internet.

I wrote briefly about it back then. (12-8-2011 “Good for her”)

In a new interview about her life (in May 2012 Vogue)

Johansson comments about the incident, “I don’t want to be a victim and say, ‘Oh, well’ and just hide my head in shame.” But she also expresses a sense of “paranoia”...that when she’s out in public, she knows that people have seen those pictures and may be thinking about it.

I wonder about that sometimes. I sense that some people I know seem more distant toward me since I’ve been doing this blog, like maybe they’re not sure how to interact with me now. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seems real. 

Ercole su’l Termodonte (naked opera 5)

"Non sia della vittoria" 

from Ercole su'l Termodonte (Hercules in Thermodon) 

by Antonio Vivaldi, 

sung by Zachary Stains as Ercole (Hercules)

Spoleto Festival, Italy, 2006 directed by Alan Curtis

“Onde chiare che susserate” 

also from Ercole su'l Termodonte

sung by Marina Bartoli as Ippolita (Hippolyte)

For some reason there are Spanish subtitles.

The entire opera (same production) is here: "Vivaldi Ercole sul Termodonte 2006"(with no subtitles).

If you’re gonna have naked ladies, it’s only right to have a naked dude too.

Okay, actually there are no naked ladies in this production. There are some one-bare-breast-ladies. And some transparent-ish tops on a few ladies.

Anyway, bravo to this Zachary Stains fellow. He’s basically naked most of the time he’s on stage.

And bravo Mr. Vivaldi,

for writing this naked opera role.

Okay, fine. You're right; he probably didn’t write it as a naked role. But that Hercules does look like the classical Hercules. 

NOS

So, while working on yesterday’s "naked opera" blog, I discovered a new (to me) acronym: NOS. It stands for “Nude On Stage”.

There are fans, lists, web threads. Here’s one: nakedonstage.forumfree.it. However, sometimes these threads devolve into movies with some nude scene or set in a strip club.

I’m a fan of nudity, and a fan of live stage performance—music, theatre, dance—so I’m certainly a fan of the idea of on stage nudity. Haven’t seen any nude opera performances, that I recall. But I have seen some onstage nudity...that didn’t involve a pole. I mean, I’ve seen that too.

I saw a production of God’s Country (at least, I think it was God’s Country, by Steven Dietz) in which there was, at the end of act 1, an unnecessary, super-brief, topless girl. I don’t think it had anything to do with the play or the scene. And if you weren’t looking at the right part of the stage for those couple of seconds, you’d never know it happened.

I saw a production of Bent by Martin Sherman. The script indicates there’s a naked guy in one scene, but this production had another naked guy in another scene. But in the context, it made sense. Great play, by the way, if you don’t know it. There’s also a movie version which is good. But I think I prefer the play. It’s more gutsy, visceral.

I’ve seen Equus, which has some nudity. Also a really cool play, and there’s a movie of it too. (By the way, a recent-ish production stared Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter movie fame. Yes, he was naked. And yes, apparently you could totally see his “wand”.)

Anyway...

I’ve seen a couple of dance pieces that had nudity. One of them was at a dance festival, and the point of the “nudity” seemed to be something like, “ha-ha, we’re naked ladies back here, way upstage, but you’ll never know for sure, as we slowly inch across stage seated, and facing upstage. But, oh yeah, we’re naked. Heh-heh.” It was just a short part of medium-length piece, and seemed to me kinda pointless, really. The other piece was a longer work about the 7 Deadly Sins, and had some bits of nudity here and there, as well as a more extended solo and duet.

So... Sometimes onstage nudity is pertinent to the work—the play or dance or whatever. And sometimes it’s not; it’s more “hey, let’s have some nudity here”.

Now, I’m all for nudity, whether it’s making a point or if it’s more recreational in nature. But, I think onstage nudity in some works can be...inappropriate. That’s not a word I like much, when it comes to life—people interacting with each other and that sort of thing. But, I feel strongly that in an artistic work there can be choices that are not appropriate for that piece. Now, if the point of the piece is to shock, then great, shock away. But to insert something for shock value, or for your own personal/political/social/etc. agenda that doesn’t pertain to the work is inappropriate. That’s not to say one can’t find new and different ways to present some existing work. But don’t superimpose some idea or element that doesn’t make sense and can’t be justified by what’s already in the work—in the script or score or whatever.

As a professional singer friend of mine put it:

“...throwing naked bodies onstage just to have naked bodies and shock the audience is disgusting. There's a fine line between tastefully done and just doing it because you want to do it. It's like baking a cake. Do you take your time? Measure the ingredients, mix them well and then decorate it beautifully? Or do you just throw all of the shit into the oven and hope a beautiful cake comes out?
There has to be thought and meaning into why there is a naked body onstage.”

Okay, rant over. 

silly newscasters

This is pathetic.

Really?

If you’re gonna bring it up, fine. Talk about it. But what’s with the giggling? How old are they?

People are stupid.

weird dream

I had what I think was a weird or disturbing dream last night. But all I can remember is this:

I cut my head off, or took it off somehow, and clearly wasn't supposed to be able to do so. It should've killed me. I wasn’t expected to survive such a thing by whoever else was in this dream. I suspect that I was even unsure it would work.

And then, I put it back on my body, and it was totally fine. Everything worked. It was slightly off: not centered, or not on straight or something, even more than my head is currently off.

Weird. I suppose that’s what happens when I watch a movie like The Human Centipede 2 not long before I go to bed.

Not a great movie, by the way. I saw the first one some time ago, and I have pretty-much the same critique of the sequel: that I wanted more story, more explanation, something to make this guy’s behavior make some kind of sense. It just seemed to be gore and weirdness for the sake of gore and weirdness.

The creepiest thing about it was a few of the shots with the actual centipede.

disappointment, sadness, and anger

The world is full of people who are not as good, or smart, or open, or comfortable with themselves as I think they should be, or want them to be, or maybe even need them to be.

I think this will forever be a source of great sadness, disappointment in the world, and anger with myself for continuing to hope for, look for and expect, even see those qualities where they do not, and probably never will, exist. 

Double Standards

“I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience.”

-Shelley Winters

childhood myths

For a long time I’ve had an interest in nudity. In the past when I’ve looked at photography and paintings I was generally more interested in, found more appealing, people—portraits, figure studies, etc.

Anyway, I was thinking about this interest not long ago, and I remembered something from my childhood.

My family are not nudists. Or even casually naked at home. Seeing people naked was not something that happened in my family’s house while I was growing up. When my younger siblings were babies, I may’ve occasionally seen them naked. But not my parents. I n ever saw my mother naked. I think I may’ve seen my father naked maybe twice—in a changing room at the beach or somewhere like that.

And while my parents were never super preachy at home about nudity or sexuality being sinful, I did have instilled in me this sense that being naked was inappropriate. And, of course, at church I learned that sex outside of marriage was a sin, etc.

What was emphasized by my parents was intelligence, knowledge, studying, learning. We knew how to use a dictionary and we had a full set of the World Book Encyclopedia. And we were encouraged to look stuff up if we didn’t know how to spell it or what it meant. So the encyclopedia was a good thing, full of useful, important information.

Well, at some point I discovered a few exciting entries in the encyclopedia: “sculpture” (or maybe “art”?) and “mythology”. What was exciting was that there were pictures of nudes in these entries.

(You know, stuff like that.)

I was maybe 10 years old or so—definitely pre-pubescent. So, my interest, my excitement was not of an adult sexual nature. In other words, I wasn’t masturbating to those pictures. I would sit on the floor behind the couch, in front of the shelf where the encyclopedias stayed, and look at these entries. It was the same as when I would look at other entries. I wasn’t trying to hide it, exactly, although I did have an awareness that I could get caught and that would be bad.

I never did get caught. I had some sense that nudity was forbidden or naughty or something. But, at the same time, this was in the encyclopedia, which was supposed to be a good thing. Confusing, eh?

I think at some isolated times as a child I saw some National Geographic nude natives. Again, it wasn’t exactly a mature sexual thing. But I had what seems like a natural interest in seeing nudity as a child. And as an adult, I’m still interested.

Of course, nudity gets all mixed up with sex. That’s where the naughty/inappropriate thing comes in. I mean, I don’t think that sex should be considered naughty or inappropriate, but that’s what we get in our culture.

Sad.