Why male nudity on screen remains taboo: Saltburn and The Dreamers compared

An article on Artribune by Alberto Villa compares the representation of male nudity in Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 film The Dreamers and Emerald Fennell's 2023 film Saltburn. Villa argues that male full-frontal nudity in cinema is still scandalous and rare, while female nudity is normalized. He cites the final scene of Saltburn, where Barry Keoghan dances naked to "Murder on the Dancefloor," as an example of how male nudity generates media frenzy, unlike female nudity. In contrast, The Dreamers presents nudity of both sexes as natural and progressive, with characters Michael Pitt and Louis Garrel appearing nude without spectacle. Villa references Naomi Wolf's book The Beauty Myth to explain cultural taboos: male nudity is seen as a loss of virility, while female nudity caters to the heterosexual male gaze. He concludes that this disparity reflects patriarchal structures in cinema, though recent years show change. The article was published on Artribune in January 2024.