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By Martha Brockenbrough
Special to MSN Movies
It's hard to say if a prude is born or made. But I know for certain that I'd embraced my inner prude as early as 1977, when all the cool kids were watching "Star Wars" and I was sitting in a darkened theater watching "The Goodbye Girl."
For some reason I still don't understand, I ended up watching the movie twice. And although I was too young to understand what was happening on screen either time, I will never forget the sight of a nude Richard Dreyfuss sitting on the bed, with only a guitar between Little Richard and me.
"I didn't need to see that," I thought. And I really didn't need to see it a second time.
I am reminded of this as I endure the publicity for Sharon Stone's "Basic Instinct 2."
Though I watched the original, I believe I am the only person in America to have missed the fact that she wasn't wearing underwear during the infamous interrogation scene. I guess it's that prude thing again. I look at faces when people talk. And it goes without saying that I didn't need to see the sex kitten or her, um, kitty.
Even a prude like me couldn't miss the fact that Stone will be "nude nude nude naked" again in the sequel.
While on a Middle East peace tour, she actually said, "People just are sitting there going '... does she get naked in the movie? Is she naked? Nude nude nude naked... Do I see her boobies? I don't care what she's saying, I don't care, I don't care, is she naked?' So let's just get through to that ...YES!"
She's taken a similar message from here to Israel to Berlin, explaining in so many ways how easy it is for her to be naked. I get that. Underneath my clothes, I'm totally all nude myself.
But what's easy for her to do on screen isn't necessarily easy for the rest of us to watch from the seats. She told the Evening Standard, "I wanted to do the nudity in a way that's quite brazen. I wanted her to be very masculine, like a man in a steam room."
I don't think that means we can expect to see a porky Sharon Stone with back hair and a limp towel around her neck, though.
As she put it, "I wanted the audience to have a moment where they realize she's naked and then realize she's a 40-something woman and naked."
Because, as we all know, women older than 35 in America are not allowed to be nude. That just gives hope to our enemies, the terrorists, who want us to scare each other to death so they don't have to.
Lest I focus unfairly on Sharon Stone, who at least is trying to bring about peace in the Middle East, here are 10 other movies featuring bits of nudity that, frankly, I could have lived without.
"Alien" (1979)
I love Sigourney Weaver. She's beautiful, smart (even went to Stanford, where she wrote for their humor magazine). In short, she can be my gatekeeper any time. And in "Alien," which I was too young to see when it came out in theaters, but enjoyed thoroughly on video, she was an inspiration.
Except for her taste in underwear.
In the big reveal, she's fiddling with the controls on her spaceship while wearing nothing but a beige tank top and a pair of underpants too short even to be called briefs.
And although it's true that in space, no one can hear you scream, in a movie theater, everyone can hear people laughing at your exposed crack.
"S.O.B." (1981)
We all knew Julie Andrews' hills were alive with the sound of music. But we never expected to see them in the flesh, as it were.
For heaven's sakes, the woman is a nun. She has the voice and face of an angel. She even was the only good thing in "The Princess Diaries."
And yet, she bared her breasts in the 1981 film "S.O.B." And it wasn't a wardrobe malfunction, either. It was prolonged and on purpose.
The only thing that keeps me from singing "My Favorite Things" is that the movie (written and directed by her husband Blake Edwards) is about a has-been movie producer who wants to grab one more shot at glory by having a squeaky-clean actress nude up on the big screen.
I'm just glad the "Sound of Music" song wasn't about a valley. I'm not sure I could have handled that.
"Working Girl" (1988)
"Working Girl" is a classic '80s Wall Street flick. It's directed by Mike Nichols and stars Harrison Ford, Sigourney "bad panties" Weaver and Melanie Griffith.
Griffith plays Tess McGill, a struggling secretary from Staten Island, whose scurrilous boss steals her idea. (Of course, Tess steals it back -- and Harrison Ford in the bargain).
Starring alongside Griffith and Weaver are their voluminous hairstyles and power suits, a reminder that when it comes to fashion, there is no such thing as the good old days.
As painful as it is to admit, I'd prefer padded shoulders to what Mrs. Antonio Banderas wore in one scene: high heels, high-cut underwear, a vacuum cleaner... and nothing else.
It's hard to root for an ambitious secretary who doesn't have the good sense to vacuum in flats.
"9½ Weeks" (1986)
The marketing tagline for this sex romp was, "They broke every rule."
I wouldn't say every rule. They obeyed the one that says "all male leads in '80s movies must work on Wall Street." Mickey Rourke's character John works by day as a commodities broker. By night, he has all kinds of experimental (read: food-based) sex with Elizabeth, an art-gallery assistant played by Kim Basinger.
"9½ Weeks" did break one unbreakable rule. John and Elizabeth had exuberant sex in a New York staircase. Even Roger Ebert, who liked the film, objected to the "improbable gymnastic events" depicted therein.
My objections are more practical. This scene makes it look hot to debase a public staircase. This is the sort of thing that makes stairwells smell like pee, or worse. Also, it was raining during the scene, and they literally showered and drank water from a downspout. Don't they know malaria lasts a lot longer than 9½ weeks?
"The Terminator"(1984)
Although Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't have any unhygienic sex in "The Terminator," he did darken an alley with his naked profile for no good reason.
Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg from the future, sent back to exterminate Sarah Connor before she gives birth to the man who'd later lead humanity in its war against the machines.
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: If they can figure out how to send a man through time, why can't they figure out how to send clothes? Even a Speedo?
No one wants to see a buck-naked governor of Cal-ee-forn-ee-a. These days, it only increases his chance of becoming president.
"The Fisher King" (1991)
It's possible that I'm permanently scarred by the brief love scene from "Moscow on the Hudson" I glimpsed one afternoon on the television. "Please, God," I vowed, "May I never have to see Robin Williams' man-pelt again."
God apparently has a sense of humor.
Though I haven't had to gaze upon Mork's fur sweater, I have had to see the hairy devil himself dance naked in Central Park, in a dimly lit scene from 1991's "Fisher King," where Williams plays a crazy transient in search of the Holy Grail.
The bottom line: He would have been better off hunting for a pair of pants that fit.
"Like Water for Chocolate" (1993)
Don't get me wrong. I loved this movie. Any plot based on unrequited love, which is almost always nudity-free, appeals to a prude.
Alas, the operative word here is almost. "Like Water for Chocolate," released in 1992, has a nude scene that is not only long but also worrisome.
Poor Tita never gets to marry her one, true love. Instead, she pours her passion into the food she cooks.
Her dishes make people cry, laugh and -- in one case -- strip naked, set an outhouse on fire with body heat alone, then run through the desert until being scooped onto the saddle of a passing bandit's horse.
In the throes of passion or no, it gives bareback riding a new and painful connotation.
"Short Cuts" (1993)
Let's say you spilled something on your pants and the tag says DRY FLAT and so you don't want to chance ruining them in the dryer and besides, you're in an argument with your husband and you're not gonna give him the satisfaction of seeing you all damp and disheveled, so instead of drying them the prudent way you thought you'd just whip them off and blast them with a blow dryer.
I mean, who's gonna care if you're not wearing any underwear?
Though this 1993 film is a Robert Altman classic, based on short stories by the brilliant Raymond Carver, viewers unused to seeing angry people in billowing white blouses and no pants have perhaps forgotten anything else that happened in the movie, besides the fact that Julianne Moore appears to be a natural redhead.
Would it have been so hard for her to air-dry? Or wear panties?
On the other hand, maybe Altman should have just re-titled this, "Shorts, Cut."
"True Lies" (1994)
Jamie Lee Curtis is beautiful, hilarious and married to the wittiest man in Hollywood.
So I can only assume her pole-dancing bedroom scene in 1994's "True Lies" was meant as revenge on Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays her on-screen spouse, for his unnecessary nudity in "The Terminator."
Though she's in fantastic shape and never takes it all off in this extended dance mix of a striptease, it's painful to watch. Like you'd walked in on your parents on one of their "special" Thursday nights.
And Schwarzenegger apparently agrees. His expression in the scene says one thing only: I'll never be back.
"About Schmidt" (2002)
To me, the idea of Jack Nicholson as a sympathetic character or charismatic leading man makes about as much sense as classifying the tomato as a fruit. Yeah, it grows on a vine and it's got its seeds on the inside. But it's a tomato. No way is that stuff nature's candy.
And Jack Nicholson is not dessert. He's dangerous -- to anyone with prudish sensibilities, that is. As evidence, I offer up 2002's "About Schmidt," where Nicholson plays a man who's lost everything and must find himself.
This is all well and good until he finds himself standing next to a hot tub full of Kathy Bates, whom I'll always remember as the queen of torture in "Misery."
In the scene, which to me is the new misery, Bates gets naked, and while many have commented on the size and buoyancy of her breasts, they are only somewhat larger than Nicholson's.
I know that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and all. But a workout? That might not be such a bad idea.
What nude scene has scarred you for life? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com
They forgot the unwanted nudity of Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, James Garner and Tommy Lee Jones in Space Cowboys. They also forgot Rene Russo's insane marathon sex monster romp with Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair remake.
Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.
