“It never made sense why we can celebrate the body in art, but fear it in cinema.”
Demi Moore
Famous works of art throughout history in different countries and cultures celebrate the nude body. Only the pathologically prude or the sanctimoniously spiritual object to paintings or sculptures that depict nude subjects. The rest of us can look at “Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli or “Lady Godiva” by John Maler Collier with artistic admiration and not prurient interest.
It is ironic that in the digital age when the most extreme expressions of hardcore porn are easily accessible on our phones, laptops and tablets, that there are still people who fear nudity in cinema, the Broadway stage and in books.
Religious fundamentalists may appreciate “Mother and Child” By Gustav Klimt in a museum but wax apoplectic if a woman is depicted breastfeeding in a movie, or horror of horrors, if she is breastfeeding in public.
Religious fundamentalists, whether they are Islamists or evangelicals, feel a religious zeal to cover up the female body regardless if it’s a work of art or a real woman with the temerity to express her freedom and autonomy in the way she dresses.
Women who “dress scantily” are sometimes raped not because they pose too much of a temptation to mean with a weak will, but because they post a threat to the patriarchal order to men with weak minds.
The female nude in popular culture shouldn’t be feared, despised or banned, but admired and celebrated.
