"
Tasteful nudity" is the phrase used to
advertise the fact that, yes, there will be naked
body parts shown on
film of the type that the
law prudishly requires people to keep to themselves, but that this
display is necessary because,
goddammit, it's
art!! Perhaps the best example of tasteful nudity in movie
history is to be found in the culmination of the
1997 version of
The Wings of the Dove, which has
Helena Bonham Carter buck naked for what seems like
twenty minutes while she engages in impassioned
dialogue with another character.
To be fair, nudity is not inherently
distasteful, and it is only our
suppressed obsession with
reproduction that makes some
feel shameful at the thought of the bodies into which we were born being viewed without covering the titillating bits. But, such is the
nature of our day that we still must pretend there's something unpleasant about nakedness unless it is wrapped in a tragic
morality play written a century or so ago. On the other hand,
my but how the times are changing -- with the positively ridiculous opposite extreme of graphic (and, yes, often tasteless) nudity available on the
internet, the next
generation coming up into that is likely to shrug off naked nudity, and discern keener distinctions between what is truly tasteless, and what is just the human body at work and play.