Nicole Ritchie

This month brings us The Prestige, a flick about dueling magicians, as well as being yet another in a string of movies released this year to star the dewy blonde fleshpot, Scarlett Johansson. And while many people will be going to see Batman and Wolverine duke it out to see who gets to kill David Blaine’s great-great grandfather, an even greater number of people will be going for one simple reason: to see if Scarlett finally, at long last, gets naked. Well, I’ll save you all some time. She doesn’t. And she won’t in any movie for the foreseeable future. And that sucks. Because as the reigning sex symbol in Hollywood she sells herself as the personification of adolescent male fantasy, yet seemingly refuses to bestow us the honor of showing us the chest pillows we men dream of laying our heads on. What kind of modern sex symbol would be so selfish?

Pam Anderson barely needs a wolf whistle to drop top (not that we want to see it anymore). Heather Graham gave us the duel kindness of showing some skin and promoting proper rollerskate use (she’s quite the humanitarian). Angelina practically has it written into her contract that she gets to unleash her Jolie’s on a grateful nation (as well as kissing girls that now appear on Lost. Which now, come to think about it, Jack really needs to rethink his shitty attitude towards Elizabeth Mitchell. If Gia is any indication, he has a better than average chance of convincing her and Kate to get into a little communal island love. Beat that, fish biscuit-eating Sawyer.). Even Marilyn Monroe, more than forty years ago, gave herself unto us with multiple nude layouts. And she would have done it on-screen if censors hadn’t been such a-holes back then (yet another reason why I don’t watch movies made before 1975. No nudity.). All these confirmed movie hotties were gracious enough to show us the goods, yet Scarlett won’t deign to provide us even a fleeting glimpse of her hugemongous knockers. And I for one am offended.

I think the idea of onscreen nudity has gotten muddled by the existence of the Maxim’s and FHM’s of the world. Aspiring actresses can slut it up in print and still keep their innocence (after all, Allison Hannigan did a 12 page spread in Maxim and she’s the picturesque image of milquetoast dorky Americana). And while we enjoy seeing all the nubile flesh and peek-a-boo hairflips of the third billed lead in the latest lame sport movie, the magazines have robbed us the opportunity to peer pressure hotties into some most excellent gratuitous movie nudity. Girls like Scarlett can say they’ve gotten near nude in various fashion and print layouts, so why do they need to show that extra inch or so of skin, onscreen. What difference would it make? Oh, let me tell you, it makes a difference.

Getting naked doesn’t hold the same stigma it once did. It used to be that if you stripped onscreen you were branded, or typecast, as someone cheap enough to disgrace the acting profession with their evil jumblies. Case in point, Meryl Streep has never been naked in a movie (not that we’d want to see it). But now we don’t think poorly of someone who exposes her blouse bunnies. In fact, we commend them. We applaud their willingness to give their all, to bare their entirety, to us, the little people. That they grace us with their nude presence makes them heroes to a nation of men so overloaded with sexual imagery in advertising and pop culture as a whole, that the only thing that really holds weight anymore is classic movie nudity. Trust me, internet porn is all well and good, but it doesn’t compare to being pleasantly surprised by Katie Holmes’s Cruise-less boobies in the third act of The Gift. That’s Joey from Dawson’s Creek, those are her boobies, and the screen is sixty feet big! Tell me how you top that with a low res jpeg on your Apple iBook? You can’t! Movie Nudity has become the classiest smut on the market. It’s almost high class. And as anyone who’s seen Charlize Theron’s nude work in Two Days in the Valley can attest, it may even be art.

Further, and more to the point, getting naked in a movie can help your career. Look at Halle Berry; she was an above average cutie with female lead potential, but no true star power, until she bribed the producers of Swordfish to give her half a million to introduce her little Bond girls to the world. Six months later she’s crying her eyes out on the Oscar stage. And now she’s an internationally-known movie star with a huge comic book franchise, above the title billing and industry-wide acceptance. Coincidence? I think not.

Or take Alyssa Milano, patron saint of the nude arts, whose hardwork, dedication and unyielding willingness to expose herself in countless low budget Skinemax flicks over the years has turned her into a small screen leading lady, a household name that any show can build an audience on (ditto Jamie Pressly here).

Or follow the example set by Kate Winslet, whose brave decision to get drawn in the buff in Titanic led directly to the film becoming the highest grossing movie of all time (sure, it may have had something to do with emotions, the special effects and grandeur and all that, but for the sake of serving my point, let’s just say it was her ta-ta’s that did it, and call it a day). Think about that. Her British Betties prompted the sale of more than $1.5 billion dollars worth of tickets, worldwide. Those are truly some business booming bazoomers.

When an actress comes on to the scene, and is even remotely attractive, men across the world start an unofficial clock in their heads, that counts down to the moment they get naked onscreen. It’s why we buy those magazines like Stuff and FHM; we’re hoping to catch a preview of future naked goods to come. And when they finally do get naked, we rejoice and thank the girl for her generosity. And we become lifelong fans. Do you think the Cruise-Holmes ship would be so frenetic if she was merely the lead female in a crappy, now-canceled WB teen drama? I think not. But when you give like she gave, we give back. So you see nudity can help build a loyal fanbase. Nudity can help make you seem vulnerable in the eyes of critics and Academy voters. Nudity can buy you a house in Malibu (assuming you are as shrewd an extortionist as Halle). From where I, and rest of the male population stand, nudity has no downside.

Which is why I’m going to give some career advice to a handful of female actors out there, who I think could improve their careers with a little “T” (we’ll save “A” for another column). Hopefully these fine ladies will heed my words and do what they can find an opportunity to display their breasasists in such a manner that it improves the quality of life for them and for us, be it professionally or awesomely, respectively. Ladies, listen close…

KIRSTEN DUNST

Reason To Get Naked: Anything to get me to stop staring in horror at her ugly vampire teeth.

THE OLSEN TWINS

Reason To Get Naked: To prove they’re not really aliens disguised as humans (and if they are, man alive those aliens have bad human disguise making machines. I’ve seen better trickery in Amanda Bynes tranny comedies.).

HILARY DUFF

Reason To Get Naked: To prove she wants more than just a career of Lizzie McGuire movies and vapid TRL appearances. And seriously, with all the work she’s had done, she’s gotten mere minutes until the nation of men collectively start to shudder at her appearance (something Tara Reid knows all about). She needs a reason for us to like her, and that reason is boobies.

WINONA RYDER

Reason To Get Naked: Because we’ve stood by her for all these years, from her still funny performances in Heathers and Beetlejuice to the insufferable Little Women, from the craptacular Autumn in New York to her inglorious shoplifting trial. We’ve watched her bounce from one low-life musician to the next and never judged her choices (Adam Duritz, really?). I think we men have earned the right to get a little unobstructed areola action. So I say “Free Winona (‘s boobies)”!

JENNIFER CONNELLY

Reason To Get Naked: Unless she’s planning on ever cracking a smile on film again, I’m gonna need another reason to drop $14 bucks on her depressing ass movies.

SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR

Reason To Get Naked: Showing her little slayer girls may have a Halle Berry effect of finally getting her out of genre movie hell, and onto the A-list (not to mention making my friend Galvez very happy).

SANDRA BULLOCK

Reason To Get Naked: To finally, at long last, replace all those crappy post-Speed, fake nude pics that every guy under 25 downloaded on AOL back in the mid-90’s, with something real.

DENISE RICHARDS

Reason To Get Naked: To remind us all why we began paying attention to her in the first place (because it certainly wasn’t her non-bravura Bond girl performance as a nuclear scientist in The World Is Not Enough).

JESSICA BIEL

Reason To Get Naked: If she ever wants to stop the talk of her looking more and more like a dude with every passing day, she’s gonna have to show us her female naughty bits (note to Biel: please stop working out. No guy wants to look at a girl and think she could kick their ass. It’s not sexy. Just ask Demi Moore.)

WILLA FORD

Reason To Get Naked: It would give America another reason to sit up and go “Who’s Willa Ford?”

ASHLEE SIMPSON

Reason To Get Naked: There’s really only one way to atone for lip-synching her way to a pop career and deceiving millions of people who were forced to listen to her “Pieces Of Me” song, and not be able to get the damn thing out of their head for like two weeks. And that way is boobies.

DAKOTA FANNING

Reason To Get Naked: Just Kidding! (Now Emma Watson on the other hand…)

ELISHA CUTHBERT

Reason To Get Naked: As penance to all the men who paid to see her play a pornstar in The Girl Next Door, only for it not to be worth it because she never got nude. How can you play a pornstar and not put your mammoth mammory glands on grand display? That’s like playing a lasso-wielding stripper in a graphic R-rated movie who doesn’t get gloriously topless even though we paid good money to support her career, to the point where we watched Idle Hands and all we got was two hours of Devon Sawa mugging for the camera. Just pure insanity!

KATE BOSWORTH

Reason To Get Naked: To show the world that her nipples are not multi-colored like her eyes (Though wouldn’t it be cool if they were? Like one pink one, one blue one? Now that would be a Blue Crush I’d be interested in seeing.).

TARA REID

Reason To Get Naked: Because horror shows are in right now.

BRITTANY MURPHY

Reason To Get Naked: There’s nothing hotter than B-list, anorexic, bat shit crazy cokehead boobies (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little).

PENELOPE CRUZ

Reason To Get Naked: There’s only one real way to cure her Box Office Poison disease: (say it with me now) boobies.

ALICIA SILVERSTONE

Reason To Get Naked: Anything to help us forget the one-two shit punch of Excess Baggage and Batman & Robin, and help us remember why she was the ultimate fantasy of millions of guys who religiously watched Mtv ten years ago in the vein hopes they’d replay the Aerosmith “Crazy” video (where she strips down with Liv Tyler and throws money at her), before the next episode of The Real World: San Francisco.

BEA ARTHUR

Reason To Get Naked: Dude, it’s Bea Arthur!

NICOLE RITCHIE

Reason To Get Naked: Little boys take their shirts off all the time.

ORLANDO BLOOM

Reason To Get Naked: Wait, he’s not a chick?

KERI RUSSELL

Reason To Get Naked: Because The Jay has been a very, very good boy this year.

Bangarang!