General Movie Discussion

Despite Kevin Bacon’s flaunting-it shower exit in Wild Things, Harvey Keitel’s self-crucifying baring of body and soul in Bad Lieutenant (he would go full-frontal again in The Piano), and Bruce Willis’s erotic skinny-dip in the pool with Jane March in Color of Night, the American penis (long may it wag) has stayed a relative stranger on the movie screen. Note: We’re talking about the real, warm-blooded item, not some prosthetic impostor, such as Mark Wahlberg’s porn-stud stocking stuffer in Boogie Nights, or, allegedly, Vincent Gallo’s ram horn in The Brown Bunny, which he fanatically grips as if it might come unglued. Until recently the organic penis has led a shy, shadowy life on-screen, seldom brought out and formally introduced to the guests. Directors play peekaboo with it, dodging an R rating or worse by deploying a variety of cute fig leaves, such as a hurriedly grabbed teddy bear as an emergency groin protector. Steam discreetly clouds it in the gym shower and sauna. Bedsheets are draped with the care of Saks window displays to shelter the little fella from view even as the actress in the scene goes total nudie. That’s what makes Michael Fassbender so exceptional in Steve McQueen’s Shame, where he portrays an orgasm addict (to quote the title of a Buzzcocks song) whose libido drills like a woodpecker on a staccato rampage.