And now for something completely different. I sat down with film professor Prof. Peter Lehman and horror scholar Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas to discuss male nudity in cinema. We discuss our connections with the topic, the phallus vs the penis, rape revenge, the pitfalls of “respectable cinema,” the prosthetic penis and a lot more. I’m so glad and grateful that I had a chance to talk to these bona fide experts about a topic that I have been wondering about for a very long time. I hope you take something away from this unusual film exploration.
A Selection of Peter Lehman’s Work:
Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body
Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture
Pornography: Film and Culture
Peter Lehman’s Arizona State University Profile
A Selection of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ Work:
Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study
1000 Women In Horror, 1895-2018
The Giallo Canvas: Art, Excess and Horror Cinema
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ Website
Watching Rape, the book Alexandra mentions
Wesley Morris’ NY Times article on Black male sexuality
Films mentioned:
The Virgin Spring (1960)
Drive, He Said (1971)
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
Last House on the Left (1972)
I Spit On Your Grave (1978)
Sweet Savage (1979)
A Room with a View (1985)
Drifting Into Chaos (1989)
The Pillow Book (1996)
Traps (1998)
Baise Moi (2000)
Django Unchained (2012)
PVT Chat (2020)
Zola (2020)
Minx (2022-)
Kevin Bacon’s penis PSA
Lastly, thank you to Karolin Schnoor for the encouragement and for making the brilliant illustration!