The Case Against Nudity in Theatre
From left: Stephane Deschenes, Samantha Kaine Gruen, Prince Amponsah, Alice Snaden and Danny Ghantous are the cast in a play called Sheets. (Photo: BERNARD WEIL / TORONTO STAR)
Greg Ehrhardt, OnStage Blog Editorial Staff
The first camera was believed to be invented in 1816 by Joseph Niepce, with the first video camera not coming around until the 1890s. The advancement of camera technology has undoubtedly made our lives better in 2022, but in some ways, it has made our lives worse.
In the 19th century, it would have been impossible to do what happened to Jesse Williams, the Tony-nominated Broadway actor who had a picture taken of his nude self and shared on the internet. Despite cell phones being locked away during the performance, a rogue audience member took it upon themselves to violate Williams and shared his privates for the world to analyze, gawk, and potentially denigrate.
The audience member deserves the lion’s share of the responsibility of course, but this story should make us ask ourselves: “Should we have nudity in theatre in 2022?”
When it comes to questions like these, there are no clear answers. Like most questions, there are no absolutes, just choices. I’m not here to question whether we should have ever had nudity in theatre in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries; the question is should we have it in theatre in the world we live in today, going forward.
Nudity, as we know, has a rich history in theatre, going back to the ancient Greek days, and becoming so frequent this century that New York Times critic Ben Brantley observed back in 2013 that it is becoming a standard in every show.
Nudity in theatre is rarely titillating; it’s usually a device meant to convey vulnerability in dramas or farce in comedies. The theatre audience was mature enough to handle nudity.
Still, as sad as it is to admit, nudity causes more problems than we should tolerate.
Here are some reasons why we should end nudity on stage:
1) Social Media today makes it too easy to turn nude actors into objects.
Remember when I said theatre audiences were mature enough to handle nudity? Well unfortunately the rest of the world is not. Look, Second Stage Theater can employ a thousand people to remove cell phones; unless they are going to deploy metal detectors, someone is going to slip one through, or claim they are so important they have to have their phone on them. There will be future leaks because there’s no real way to catch every perpetrator.
It’s one thing for an actor to bare their body on stage, for mature audiences. It’s too much to ask to have them be the potential object of ridicule or ogling.
How many actors in the future will question whether to take the role with nudity the way social media is today?
2) Our media is not mature enough to act appropriately to these leaks
a. Exhibit A (tweet since deleted).
Unfortunately, our media (but thankfully not our theatre media, for the most part) still believe in “Sex Sells”.
3) Tan Bodysuits or similar alternatives are perfectly fine substitutes for nudity
a. This is the part where you tell me the nudity is worth it because of what it represents in the play. I agree nudity should not be taken out of any script, past, present, or future. But how we depict nudity can certainly change. Tan bodysuits are perfectly fine and will have the same effect as nudity.
Don’t want to wear a bodysuit? Fine, lighting or props be creatively used to block private parts from the audience.
We do this all the time with other effects. Fake cigarettes are used instead of the real thing, actors don’t REALLY get drunk on stage, and substitutes are used for real-world things on stage all the time. Audiences are asked to use their imagination for other aspects of production, and they can do the same for nudity
We think these three arguments are enough to make the case, but here are two more
4) There’s too much professional pressure for nudity, especially on women
a. Let me preface this by saying theatre is WAY less sexist about this than say, Hollywood. Women are 3 times more likely to be nude in movies than men. We couldn’t find a similar statistic for theater, but we would venture it is much more balanced. Again, theatre is way more mature than the rest of the world.
With that said, we know from a very young age that men have less societal pressure than women for nudity. Only 25% of victims of revenge porn are men. Women face the prospect of the casting couch at a much higher rate than men, and they face pressure to do nude scenes all the time.
People are constantly being pressured to be naked, especially women. Why add to that pressure in theatre?
5) Roles featuring nudity tend to be fatphobic
a. I couldn’t find any data to support this, but anecdotally, nude roles tend to be towards fit people, except for absurd comic situations. It is hard enough for overweight actors to get roles; adding nudity to the equation makes it that much harder.
Imagine what the social media reaction would be to Jesse Williams's Broadway pictures if he was 50 pounds overweight. Now imagine it if it was a heavy-set woman naked on stage instead.
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The case boils down to this; in 2022, everyone with a phone acts as their own digital publication, subject to their own independently decided editorial standards. Sadly, these standards are not the standards of the theatre industry. Theatre has to react to the world as it exists today and not the world of yesteryear. Theatre led the way in protecting its workers from COVID, unlike the rest of the entertainment industry.
It can, and should, lead the way with on-stage nudity because enough is enough with audience attempts to embarrass our finest Broadway performers.
In a better world, Jesse Williams shouldn’t have to risk global humiliation on Broadway in order to get a Tony nomination.