Found this article on nudity on TIMES online

[Archaewok1]

http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/10/girls-and-nudity-why-naked-women-dont-have-to-be-titillating

The title drew me in, and it seemed interesting to some degree, though I wouldn't have minded to see more done with the article. Of course, articles these days tend to be shorter so that more articles can get web viewers traffic anyway, so meh. Largely talks about one show and one person in the show.

[nudetrail]

yes interesting article .

[ToneBender]

It's so funny how Tim Molloy can't wrap his head around it.

[AElf]

It seems that he views female nudity (maybe all nudity) as a commodity distributed for specific purposes rather than just being a normal part of a normal life.  If that is the case it is a sad state of affairs for his brain functions.  I would say that his opinion is the usual one for much of society, but not the normal one for humanity.  But then, I view the prevailing societal fear of innocent nudity as being abnormal.

[Ed]

However, at least he had the brains to just ask about it nicely, make it clear that the question was in the context of the art of a TV show, and wait for an answer - that's a lot better than most of the commentary about anyone who isn't ashamed of being naked...

If the transcript is accurate, I'm now also not a fan of Judd Apatow (as a disclaimer, I've never watched Girls and don't really know anything more about Apatow than he works on that show) - it's not at all helpful to take a question from someone who's being curious rather than openly hostile, twist it all out of proportion and then tell the guy he's being sexist, misogynist and offensive. Leaping down someone's throat straight off the bat like that is perhaps the fastest possible way to stophaving a conversation and start having an argument.

If he'd been critical of Dunham's nudity, or made a gender thing out of it, or something like that, sure. Tell him he's being an arsehole and then, if necessary, explain why. If it's really clear that he is, then maybe don't bother explaining if it's hassle you don't want -and shouldn't be expected - to deal with.

However, this just seemed like an honest question from a guy who wanted to understand a production decision better. I can't see anything remotely misogynistic or sexist about that, and treating it like it was instead of engaging with it properly a) demeans the efforts of people (Lena Dunham herself included) who try to fight properly bad acts and attitudes from actually bad people and b) just turns potential allies in that fight into neutrals at best. It's counterproductive and I want to see less of it. Gender equality lost out here, and that's disappointing.

Just to be clear, I do think it's a bit sad that Molloy couldn't look further than production decisions when thinking about a naked person in a TV show. However, that's his job, and I think it's also encouraging that he thought to try to find out more and expand his horizons a bit, to question something that didn't fit with his own experiences and to just ask instead of throwing toys out of the pram. Apatow then proceeds to throw his toys out of the pram, and it's just lucky that Molloy was decent enough to take it calmly and keep trying to understand even in the face of getting (metaphorically) shouted at.

I've just realised that this has turned into a wall of text, so I'm sorry about that. It's just that this kind of thing has ramifications for us as a group as well: if I met someone extremely prudish, who thought that the naked human body was weird, embarrassing and offensive (which is significantly worse than the position Molloy took, which seemed basically neutral), but was prepared to talk to me and ask me about my views and why I held them, would I make that person more or less accepting of my own views, and hence likely to change their own, by ranting at them about how they're so condescending and bigoted and just wrong about everything and it's so obvious and they need to JUST. STOP. NOW, or by engaging with them calmly and politely? I think the latter, and I think that's borne out by the absolutely brilliant tales of black Americans talking to and even befriending KKK members, and showing them the error of their ways (almost put 'showing them the light' then; realised it wasn't the most appropriate metaphor I've ever thought of) through being rational and friendly rather than confrontational.

I'm not saying that being confrontational is never the right answer - there are heaps of shitty people out there who have a warped mindset about women and their bodies, and sometimes calling them out on that and telling them exactly where to go is both a brave and brilliant thing to do. But at least to me, that's not what this is. This feels like an attempt at using a big soapbox to humiliate and bully someone smaller who you could have helped instead. And I think that just won't get us anywhere.

[ToneBender]

However, at least [Molloy] had the brains to just ask about it nicely, make it clear that the question was in the context of the art of a TV show, and wait for an answer - that's a lot better than most of the commentary about anyone who isn't ashamed of being naked...

True.

If the transcript is accurate, I'm now also not a fan of Judd Apatow (as a disclaimer, I've never watched Girls and don't really know anything more about Apatow than he works on that show) - it's not at all helpful to take a question from someone who's being curious rather than openly hostile, twist it all out of proportion and then tell the guy he's being sexist, misogynist and offensive. Leaping down someone's throat straight off the bat like that is perhaps the fastest possible way to stophaving a conversation and start having an argument.

Possibly exactly what he (Apatow) was looking for - controversy can be good for business OR maybe he's an ass who assumes people have motives and attitudes that they may or may not actually have.

I was struck by Apatow's remark as well and the only way it makes sense to me is that if someone is offended by a woman's nude body or in another context their sexuality then they would in fact be 'sexist, misogynistic and offensive' of course that assumes facts not in evidence. We don't have the whole transcript so who knows?

However, this just seemed like an honest question from a guy who wanted to understand a production decision better. I can't see anything remotely misogynistic or sexist about that, and treating it like it was instead of engaging with it properly a) demeans the efforts of people (Lena Dunham herself included) who try to fight properly bad acts and attitudes from actually bad people and b) just turns potential allies in that fight into neutrals at best. It's counterproductive and I want to see less of it. Gender equality lost out here, and that's disappointing.

I was with you until 'Gender equality lost out'; this only makes sense if male nudity is ok and female isn't (which would lend credence to Apatow's attack) but what we're actually talking about is nudity in art as an expression of one's humanity.

Just to be clear, I do think it's a bit sad that Molloy couldn't look further than production decisions when thinking about a naked person in a TV show. However, that's his job, and I think it's also encouraging that he thought to try to find out more and expand his horizons a bit, to question something that didn't fit with his own experiences and to just ask instead of throwing toys out of the pram. Apatow then proceeds to throw his toys out of the pram, and it's just lucky that Molloy was decent enough to take it calmly and keep trying to understand even in the face of getting (metaphorically) shouted at.

Agreed

I've just realised that this has turned into a wall of text, so I'm sorry about that.

No worries.

It's just that this kind of thing has ramifications for us as a group as well: if I met someone extremely prudish, who thought that the naked human body was weird, embarrassing and offensive (which is significantly worse than the position Molloy took, which seemed basically neutral), but was prepared to talk to me and ask me about my views and why I held them, would I make that person more or less accepting of my own views, and hence likely to change their own, by ranting at them about how they're so condescending and bigoted and just wrong about everything and it's so obvious and they need to JUST. STOP. NOW, or by engaging with them calmly and politely? I think the latter, and I think that's borne out by the absolutely brilliant tales of black Americans talking to and even befriending KKK members, and showing them the error of their ways (almost put 'showing them the light' then; realised it wasn't the most appropriate metaphor I've ever thought of) through being rational and friendly rather than confrontational.

Yes.

I'm not saying that being confrontational is never the right answer - there are heaps of shitty people out there who have a warped mindset about women and their bodies, and sometimes calling them out on that and telling them exactly where to go is both a brave and brilliant thing to do.

^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

But at least to me, that's not what this is. This feels like an attempt at using a big soapbox to humiliate and bully someone smaller who you could have helped instead. And I think that just won't get us anywhere.

Excellent!

[Ed]

I was with you until 'Gender equality lost out'; this only makes sense if male nudity is ok and female isn't (which would lend credence to Apatow's attack) but what we're actually talking about is nudity in art as an expression of one's humanity.

This was last night while tired, but what I think I was getting at was that a lot of the work Lena Dunham - and by extension Judd Apatow - do is geared towards fighting for gender equality. When Apatow took a question about artistic nudity, regardless of gender, and out of nowhere produced a strawman argument about sexism and misogyny at a guy who really wasn't engaging in either, that made the job of actually fighting for gender equality harder in the future (even if only a tiny bit), because people won't remember the obvious, rational and humane reasons we should treat everybody like an actual human being, they'll remember Apatow flipping out for apparently no reason at someone.

It's like, you know those strawman feminists that those nasty, slimy guys who occasionally crawl out of the internet's anus like to create, to 'prove' that all feminists hate men and think that everything everywhere is misogyny, etc? For a moment there Apatow actually turned himself into one of those previously-imaginary strawmen, and so the next time someone gullible or easily-swayed ends up talking to an actual sexist pig, that pig can point to this and go 'see? I told you so!' and the job of pointing out how wrong they are just gets that little bit harder.

I know, and completely agree, that the burden is not, and must not be, on the shoulders of feminists to prove sexists wrong. But as a pragmatic approach I think there are things which help to solve the actual problem, and there are things which do the opposite; I think this is one of those second things :P