When I was a kid, I always wondered why you never saw the actors go to the bathroom. I remember seeing FUN WITH DICK AND JANE starring Jane Fonda and George Segal – I just imdb’d it, so I was about 9 years old – and in that film, Jane Fonda, while talking to George Segal, her husband, casually sits on the toilet, pees and wipes. It was a revelation to me, because I had always wondered why you never saw this. After all, my mother would talk to me while she was peeing. But the other thing I remember was that people in the theater applauded. Now, looking back on it, I’m pretty sure it was just women applauding and they were cheering on Jane for breaking another feminine taboo, jumping one more boundary in the cause of women’s equality. (People did that in the 70’s, didn’t they? Who knew that peeing could be such a political act!) But it was a strange thing to see in what was otherwise an average, Hollywood comedy because they suddenly added this little touch of reality. It was a nice thing to see.
I’ve grown to realize why they don’t show people going to the bathroom in films very often. The simple reason is that nothing very interesting happens in there (and what does is gross!). But I’ve never lost the idea that there are plenty of things that we never see in a film that there is really no good reason not to.
I was watching a trailer of some upcoming film and it had a shot of some beautiful girl’s ass. Of course, she had the kind of perfect ass that only a 26 year old actress who works out four hours a day and is powdered up to perfection could have. It’s a wonderful thing to see, but isn’t that what we see in every movie where we see that ass shot? Think about this: when was the last time you saw a stretch mark on an ass shot in a film? I’m not talking about the superfat ass shot of a girl in a bikini who everybody is making a joke about. I’m talking about a real girl’s ass, with a little bit of sag and a stretch mark or two. It’s not an unattractive thing to see. I remember walking up the stairs behind a girl I had a crush on and seeing a few stretch marks under her ass and thinking it was totally sexy. She must have been about 25 and was by no means fat.
Even films in the 70’s, back when things were more natural and shaving everything was considered weird, if at all, the women were pretty near perfectly beautiful. Jane Fonda wouldn’t have peed on that toilet if her ass was going to hang over the edge of the seat. Jane Fonda, to this day, hasn’t had a sag on her. Obviously, the problem here is as much to do with an actresses vanity as it is with the reality that you and I live in. A shot of cellulite on an actress could kill her career, so why shouldn’t she demand perfection.
But this is just one thing that you don’t see. The interesting stuff always happens behind that door and you shouldn’t always be comfortable with what you see when you go in there. It’s not that there is a price to pay for our voyeurism when we go to a movie, but if you want to look into the life of a character in a film, don’t you want the whole picture? Isn’t that going to mean more to you than the glossed over look of a world so beautiful that it is completely absent of humans?
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