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| Image of Hollywood |
Nudity seems like the norm in many movies today and is in fact used as a basis for professionalism for many secular artists, but it is right? and who is to blame?
During her appearance on
the Armchair Expert podcast,
actress Salma Hayek opened up about a traumatic experience on the set of her
breakout film, Desperado. After Hayek went through six auditions
and a screen test, securing her role as the female lead, the studio added
something that wasn’t included in the original script—a sex scene:
I had a really, really
hard time with that. . . . I started to sob: “I don’t know that I can do it, I
don’t know that I can do it. . . .” I was not letting go of the towel, and they
would try to make me laugh and things, and take it off for two seconds, and
then [making crying noise] I started crying again. But we got through it. Hayek
is not the first movie star to face sexual coercion. In the entertainment
industry, the pressure placed on actors — and women in particular — to undress
or sexually act out for the camera is tragically commonplace.
In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall, actor abuse has come into sharper focus,
but the problem is far from solved.
The blame game
When evaluating a
situation like Salma Hayek’s, it’s easy
to simplify matters so as to lay the blame at the actress’s feet: “Well, she
shouldn’t have done that.” The reality, however, is more complex, and Scripture
can help us better discern this complexity. Consider the following stories:
- In response to Judah’s willful neglect of her widowhood, Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and tricks him into getting her pregnant. When the truth of the whole situation comes to light, Judah confesses his wrongdoing in the matter, saying, “[Tamar] has been more righteous than I” (see Genesis 38).
- Esther chooses to obey King Xerxes’ command to sleep with him rather than refuse and risk retribution (see Esther 2:12-14). For
whatever reason, the Biblical narrative never comments on Esther’s failure
to take a stand for sexual purity.
- When the Pharisees present Jesus with a woman caught in
adultery (see John 8), Jesus refuses to play along in their charade (after
all, they didn’t bring the adulterous man as well). Instead, Jesus confronts
the manipulative religious leaders before even addressing the woman and
her actions.
Each of these situations
shows men abusing their positions of authority and using women as pawns. And in
each situation, God, through Holy Scripture, refuses to simply point the finger
of blame first — or solely — at the women involved.
Coming back to Salma
Hayek’s situation in Desperado: ignoring the blatantly coercive
actions of those in control gives the appearance, if not the reality, of victim-blaming. We can fault actresses all day long for caving in to pressure. They
are, after all, moral agents just like the rest of us, culpable for their
actions. Nevertheless, we fail to mirror our Savior’s heart for undeserving
sinners when we refuse to even acknowledge the amount of coercion some
actresses receive.
The ugly, the bad, and
the good
We could lay the blame
at the feet of the film’s producers. The studio executives who threaten and
bully and intimidate share a hefty portion of the guilt. It is their position
of authority and influence, leveraged against those under them, that has
created what TIME Magazine has called “a
tradition of objectifying female characters.”And yet, merely blaming studio
executives is still simplistic. Megalomaniacs like Harvey Weinstein are easy
targets, but the obvious bad guys aren’t the only ones playing the role of the bad
guys. Sometimes even the good guys wear black hats (so to speak).
In the case of Desperado,
Hayek shares how director Robert Rodriguez and his then-wife, Elizabeth
Avellán, “were amazing” and “so magnificent” in how they didn’t rush her during
the bed scene. But as two of the four producers on the film, Rodriguez and
Avellán could have used their positions with even greater efficacy, fighting
against the inclusion of the sex scene in the first place (which they apparently
did not).
Even Antonio Banderas,
whom Hayek says “was an absolute gentleman and super nice,” contributed to the
problem. He treated the gratuitous sex scene as no big deal, which only
exacerbated Hayek’s anxiety: “[F]or him, it was like nothing and that scared
me…and I was so embarrassed that I was crying.”
Furthermore, says Hayek,
Banderas “was like, ‘Oh, my God, you are making me feel terrible.’” So here is
a woman distraught over the situation she’s been forced into, and her scene
partner layers on the guilt (inadvertently, to be sure) by proclaiming how
uncomfortable her discomfort is making him.
Suppliers and demanders
At this point, it might
be tempting to proclaim a blanket condemnation on all “depraved entertainers”
and leave it at that. But there’s one more guilty party whose involvement
warrants examination. This participant, while less obvious, is no less
culpable. It is the collective entity of the viewing audience. In other words,
it’s moviegoers like you and me.
Films and shows with
problematic content exist because of supply and demand. The entertainment
industry is a money-making machine, and it gives us what we ask for. We demand
and it supplies.
“Demand” may sound like
an unfair description, especially for those of us who decry hypersexualized
entertainment. But here’s the reality: when we financially support a piece of
pop culture that objectifies its actors, we are perpetuating the very thing we
say we deplore. We may fast forward through the sex scene, or close our eyes
during the nudity, or use a filtering service to avoid objectionable
content, but we are failing to recognize our role as consumers. From an
economic standpoint, there is no functional difference between begrudging
patronage and willing patronage. Both actions communicate to Hollywood what we
consider acceptable fare.
In the hard-hitting
words of Christian film critic Steven D. Greydanus,
You can justify your
lack of empathy, or even sympathy, for women working anywhere in the world by
shrugging and saying “They shouldn’t be rolling around [in the mud] with pigs.”
. . . Incidentally. If you watch movies or TV? You are creating the demand for
“mud.” Yes, women have a choice, but so do you, and if you’re paying for it,
and you are in one way or another, then you don’t get to shrug your shoulders
about what goes on in that world as if it had nothing to do with you.
“More like this, please”
According to the parable
of the Good Samaritan, actresses like Salma Hayek are our neighbors. Even if we
don’t personally know them. Even if we simply pass by them on the other side of
the movie screen. Even if we only pay them indirectly to entertain us.
But they are our
neighbors. And we are called, not to condemn them like self-righteous
Pharisees, but to love them in word, thought, and deed. And those deeds involve
the tickets we buy, the media we purchase, and the shows we stream.
There’s a saying worth remembering: “Hit
movies will only ever tell studios one thing: ‘More like this, please.’”
“More like this,
please.” Is that what we want the creators of sexualized entertainment to hear
from us?
Let me know what you think akinyemiwande1@gmail.com
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