MOVIE BOOBS!

Catch the Oscars this past weekend? I was watching and absorbing the fascination of our culture with celebrity and pageantry and beauty.

AND Boobs…

Such a Brouhaha!

Much like a high school prom, a Horde of Hollywood Honeys assembled and preened on the red carpet prior to the ceremony. We were given a dazzling display of their fine physical wares including a good deal more than cleavage, all of which complemented the apparent theme of this year’s Oscars…BOOBS!

We have Seth MacFarlane to thank for shining our collective consciousness on breasts. Honestly Seth, you have a great smile, but I don’t really get off on your style or sense of humour. But let’s be clear kids… he was just noticing something that we all, male or female, observe and gawk at…boobs.

Sorry Heidi Klum, which category were you nominated in?

Truthfully, when the musical number “We Saw Your Boobs” began I kind of chuckled… with just a tinge of annoyance … and male-lust guilt.

A common sinuous thread that runs through moviedom is whether an actress has exposed her breasts in a film. It’s like a Bar Mitzvah- you haven’t reached womanhood in Hollywood until we’ve admired your nipples. Seriously though, some moviemaking requires skin exposure to develop a story more fully. Many actresses agonize over this decision to bare it all, and hopefully we receive it in a respectful way.

Western culture is absolutely obsessed by mammaries and yet we have a love-hate relationship with the idea of putting them on view.It’s a contradictory conundrum. Women appear to want them to be noticed and admired when out on the red carpet, and yet get offended when we do notice and comment on them. There’s no hiding place (especially for men) when you’re screwed if you do and really screwed if you don’t.

Despite my early tee hee, I was initially a bit indignant with the song routine about womens’ breasts…it felt like it was lowering the dignity of the Academy Awards. And it was…but come to think of it, Billy Crystal and Bob Hope and the myriad of the other (mainly male) hosts through the years have made denigrating and crass jokes to mixed reviews. Is this year any different?

And of course, America is the worst offender when it comes to outlandish broadcasting choices.

The U.S. allows just about any degree of violence or drawn out blood-purging death scenes imaginable, but show a boob or say “shit”, and you are fucked. Break a guy’s arm or leg in the Super Bowl and everything is A-OK, but parade a nipple accidentally and kiss your broadcast licence goodbye.

Sexuality and beauty are wonderfully enriching aspects of the human experience that should be celebrated, so long as intellect and sensitivity come hand-in-hand too. And yet we act all outraged when scenes or acts of love and sensuality are portrayed.

So what is my deep-rooted issue in all of this?

My indignation stems from a sense of MALE EXCLUSION.

Just what’s SO wrong with the male penis that prohibits ITS exposure on our movie and TV screens (but not our computer terminals!). Breasts get all the press as if men have no taboo parts to be shown. I’ll grant you that the personable penis is not the most esthetically pleasing piece of human anatomy ever evolved, but I see lots of less attractive items on TV, like Steven Tyler, or Dog the Bounty Hunter. No censor has had the balls to scrub those scenes from my set.

I never get to feel like my penis is being celebrated in serious cinema. It makes me feel less of a man when I don’t feel the love that breasts are afforded in tinseltown. It’s outright discrimination.

I look ahead to the day when sober and thoughtful male actors like George and Brad stroll the red carpet with their penis’s and testicles wrapped and adorned in luxurious fabrics with just a hint of forbidden skin showing. The rapacious interviewers will seriously query them about who their “Johnson” designers are.

And I am so looking forward to next year’s Oscars already (I’m just like William Shatner, I can see next year’s headlines). Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will do a song and dance routine about viewing mens’ testicles to the tune of “Do Your Ears Hang Low“.

This equality stuff just feels so good.

“To breasts and testes in 2014”