October 10, 2023 • 36 mins
From the sex-shaming of early cinema legend Hedy Lamarr to trapping Jane Fonda in an exploding orgasm piano, Hollywood’s relationship to female sexuality is complicated, controlling and sometimes just plain weird. Roy is joined by correspondent Desi Lydic and Daily Show writer Kat Radley for a stimulating discussion about the depiction of female pleasure onscreen.
Watch the original segment:
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Original air date: July 27, 2021
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey back in the day, they knew it wasn't just
enough to slap Apollo thirteen on a DVD. The people
demanded more. They wanted to hear Ron Howard and Tom
Hanks talking over the movie about how Craft's services was
that day. Well that's us, baby, We're your DVD special features,
bringing you commentary, deleted scenes, and maybe some half ass
pixelated storyboards if we feel like it. Welcome to Beyond
(00:30):
the Scenes. I'm your host, Roy Wood Junior, and this
is the podcast where we take a deeper dive into
some of the most complex issues covered on The Daily
Show with Trevor Noah and speaking of Tom Hanks. Today
we're talking about female orgasms on screen. A brief history
hist Hurry, you did it. This is a piece that
(00:50):
originally aired on the show back on March twenty third
to twenty twenty one. You know what year it is
played a clip.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's no secret that women's on screen portrayal have evolved
throughout history. We've gone from playing secretaries being saved by
James Bond all the way to nuclear scientists being saved
by James Bond. But I want to focus on one
specific aspect of female depictions the orgasm. It's when a
woman is stimulated to the point of climax, causing a
(01:19):
physical and neurological response that scientists refer to as fantastic.
And over the years, depicting female pleasure on screen is
something that's changed more than the batteries in your vibrator.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So today with me, I have Daily Show correspondent Desi
Leideck and writer Aimy nominated writer Cat Ratley to walk
me through how the segment came together, and then we're
going to go beyond, because that's what we do. It's
in the damn title, what's going on, y'all? How you doing?
I Roy?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I'll say, Rory. Don't assume people know what year it
is that is up for debate. Completely lost track Bine
is from twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
One in March.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Why does it matter? More?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So? In this segment you all went through, you dug
into crates and you found basically a track record of
just showing the misrepresentation of women's sexuality on film and television.
How did that all come to? Kat?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
One of our researchers in our deep dive department, Madeline Kunes,
she came up with this idea just from kind of
organically noticing how different the portrayal is of female versus
male orgasms on screen and all that. And she just
kind of went down the rabbit hole of looking through
film pretty much over the past hundred years, and she
(02:38):
just found so much great stuff that we were able
to put it together for a segment.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
She went way down the rabbit hole and then back
up the rabbit hole, and then down again a little
bit deeper, and then she found up for air just
the right spot, and then she found the perfect spot.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, and then it was a scientist.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I'm not going to join in, you know. I have
jokes in my head that I could join in on that,
but I just don't. I don't want to be the
weird getting guess. And then she's stayed in that rabbit
hole for three days?
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Did I art?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I think I spend the euphemism card too early. I
should have held on to it. There's so many more opportunities.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Let's get into the actual nuts and bolts of this daisy.
As a correspondent, when someone brings you this piece, what
was your first thought.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I was so excited because I had this reaction like,
oh my god, why haven't We talked about this before,
and I think on a subconscious level, it's always bothered
me that I feel like I haven't seen that many
representations of female sexuality and like an honest, authentic or
even really funny way. But it didn't hit me the
(03:48):
depths of it until I read the script. We're always,
you know, trying to figure out what topics we want
to dive into, and we look for things that are
that feel like they've been under reported, something we want
to shine a spotlight on, and they tend to be
you know, we go deep with the information and we
go through the history of something and in the trap
(04:11):
is that it would be something that can feel a
little dry, right, Well, this one immediately is like, oh,
that's fun to talk about.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
That's like, this one was very wet.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
This was very wet.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
This was the opposite of dry.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Thank you kat. We'll get them. We'll get them halfway through.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
But this was I wrote it with Lauren, another writer
who is amazing, and the two of us have written
a couple things for Desi, and it seems like it's
just I mean, writing for Dozi is super fun and
we kind of knew like, all right, this can be
like a touchy, difficult subject. And I mean, Desi totally
nailed the performance. So I'm glad that she was as
(04:57):
on board and excited about it as we were, because
writing it was it was fun to actually, like, like
as he was saying, for women's history. Months sometimes we
do like, all right, let's look at you know, voting
rights and the suffragette movement, which is important and great,
but not as fun as talking about you know, Barbarella
or Meg Ryan's oreasm. And when Harry met Sally, oh
(05:20):
oh god, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, oh oh.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Oh god, I'll have what she's having.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
We haven't really done a segment like this on the
show before, so I feel like it was like a
fun aspect of women's history that wasn't as like serious
and heavy as you know, having our rights taken away.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
But it also just the subject matter itself.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It was something that I sort of like subconsciously knew
in my brain that I wasn't saying a lot of
this out there, but I really it wasn't it and
hit me until I read everything in that discussion, like
oh my god, yes that is how women are represented.
That early on, I had no idea about the Hetty
Lamar thing. The first known female orgasm on the silver
(06:14):
screen was in the nineteen thirty three German film Ecstasy,
when Hetty Lamar took the Broughtwurst Express all the way
to pleasure Burg. Turns out the world wasn't ready for this.
Everyone denounced it, from Hitler.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
To the Pope, And if you ask me, the Pope
has no place weighing in on sex scenes. He's celibate.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I mean, when we need your opinion on the best
stain removers for white fabrics, then.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
We'll call you.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I didn't realize that she was the first woman to
have an orgasm on screen, and then not only that,
but like she was basically came up with the start
of what is wi FI now, so she was a genius.
Like I had no idea about all of that until
I read it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, but they low key sex shamed her the rest
of her career for daring to be that open on camera.
Do you all think that men being in control of
the narrative of sex in the entertainment industry? I mean
less so now, but definitely still more so than women.
(07:15):
How much did that play into it when you look
at over the decades and decades of just the way
women have been portrayed to just you are the male,
the man controls you, and it's never really connected to
what a woman really wants in the bedroom or properly
portraying what a woman wants in a bedroom.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
The Hettie Lamarthin went back to like the nineteen thirties,
so that's like kind of where the started nineteen thirties
films up till now. And yeah, when you think about it,
it was mostly and still is mostly men writing and
directing and producing these movies. So they're the ones who
are determining, you know, what a female organism should or
shouldn't look like on screen, because I because it didn't
(07:57):
make you wonder like, okay, well why is this and
you're like, oh yeah, because men control everything for all
of the beginning of time. So I do think that
has a lot to do with it, just like who's
writing these stories, who's telling these women and directing them
how to act on the screen.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, so now in this next page, you're gonna really
erupt with pleasure. I want you to just scream and
bang the hit board so that everyone can h.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
While it's like ten seconds in and nothing has happened,
and you're like, oh, that is that all it?
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Okay? Well, I guess that's how it works. It's just
uh that simple.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Huh. It's like almost like sounds like you're getting murdered,
but not quite. There's like a fine line between the two.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Feed the ego of the man, so he knows he's
killing it. Yeah. Yeah. So when we do race stories
on the show, the question is always sues the intended audience, right,
because black people, to a degree, kind of already know
some of the stuff we're talking about. So in a way,
you're having to present new information to half of the
audience that already knows this topic while also presenting it
(09:06):
like with CP time, it's stuff that black people may
or may not have already known. But here's a couple
of jokes and we go a little deeper on the issue.
And if you are not black, then this is a
whole wealth of new information. Because I'll be honest, as
a man, this is something I've never paid attention to.
So who was the d When you think about the
intended audience, was it to serve a dual purpose or
(09:30):
was it to educate meatheads like myself?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I mean I think it's always like, in my opinion,
it's always about kind of starting a conversation across the board, right,
And the feeling that I felt when I read it
for the first time was what I would hope that
other women felt when they saw it, and that they
felt heard and seeing like, Oh, I've been feeling this
way too, I've been missing this in TV and film,
(09:57):
and we do have some more work to do and
then all so to maybe perhaps educate a few viewers
who maybe did not know some of this or thought
about it in that way, and yeah, start a conversation
about it.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I remember growing up watching a lot of movies and stuff,
and this is how like. Watching this segment it in
my brain and I started thinking back. There's a scene
in waiting to exhale. Oh shit, oh this is good.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh yeah he he he can we say or I'll
say orgasms? This is beyond the scenes and we are
a very tasteful show. Yes, so he bus way before
the woman did.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Does he think he just did something here?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Shit? I could have had a V eight. I could
have had a V eight was the line. That's a legendary.
It's a legendary line. But women and not getting an orgasm.
It's almost seen as ha ha, you didn't get any
pleasure growing up. What was you all's personal experience and
(11:09):
seeing female pleasure depicted on screen? Can I ask that?
Let me ask that in a more hr way as
you all were matriculating as young women, how much.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's menstruating, it's menstruating.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
As you administrate it to But you know, what was
your what was your experience seeing the way sex was
depicted on screen?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I think, like you said too, that it's funny that
it was so often used as a punchline, and I
feel like that's kind of something that became ingrained without
me realizing, because it is, you know, it's either funny
that she doesn't get pleasure, or like two of the
movies we do is like a Catherine Heigel scene and
Jennifer Anderson Stein from Bruce Almighty, where like their pleasure
(11:58):
is like so over the top and exaggerated that it's
like it's the comedy, it's the butt of the joe.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
In the years that followed, female pleasure became.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
More and more common on screen, but they were still
often treated as punchlines, like Jennifer Aniston getting unexpected magic
Himaxes and Bruce Almighty, or Catherine Heigel accidentally orgasming at
dinner when a little boy grabbed her remote control vibrating underwear.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Okay, there is so much wrong with this.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It's non consensual, it's a kid doing it, and it
perpetuates the dangerous myth that vibrating underwear gives you anything
but a five alarm electrical burn.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I was like, oh, okay, like it's it's the way
we do it is funny, or like we're kind of
used as a punchline as opposed to like taken seriously.
And I don't really know how that affected me because
I feel like we were just kind of getting messages
like that from all over. So I'm kind of like, well,
this is the way it is until you kind of
learn that it is different. Still getting to learn.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That scene in particular, I have so many mixed feelings about.
I feel like that because as as like an actor
doing comedy, you when you get a scene as a woman,
like you want to have the joke you want to
get to do, like the big performative joke in this
set piece, and so and men get to joke about
(13:20):
their orgasms all the time, like it's all over the place, literally,
and how many are we at now?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Three?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Four?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Still early, but like there were so many problems in
that scene itself. Like Kat said, we were kind of
like punching at the wrong thing. The punchline was aimed,
it seemed in the wrong direction. And also just like
there was really no consent. It was kind of against
their will. It was happening to them and they weren't
(13:50):
participating in it, which felt kind of weird.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
And I think those movies were when Laura and I
were writing it, we were like, wait, what year was this.
I want to say it was like two thousand and nine,
like it was ten to fifteen years ago, when like
consent was not like a term people were thinking about
are throwing around in probably like movie sets at all.
And I'm like, oh yeah, like you are like giving
(14:13):
Catherine Heigel this orgasm in a restaurant and it's funny,
and I'm just like, ooh man that they didn't even
have the C word anywhere in their brain like at
this point in time. So I was like, I was like,
there's so there's so much wrong with.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
This And it was a kid right like it was.
It was a kid, eight year old kid toy with it.
You're like, no, stop.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of problematic old school sex scenes
that you can go back and watch now and be like.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah, I can. I can remember.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I just recently rediscovered the movie Young Frankenstein, which I
is like a classic mel Brooks and Gene Wilder and
so many funny performances in that movie. Terry Garr and
Madeline Khan are comedic geniuses. And I remember seeing that
scene of Madeline Khan with the monster when he comes
(15:09):
in to like take her and he drops his pants
and then suddenly she's like very into it and they
have this whole sex scene.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Oh oh, you can't be serious. I'm like, oh my god,
I'm I'm engaged. And once he took it, but I didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
It was never all the oh.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I've fallen you.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It is like a toured deforce in her comedic performance,
it's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
She should have won all the awar for this scene.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And then it cuts to them sitting there side by
side and they're smoking a cigarette. But in watching it
in recent years, you go back and you're like, wait,
he took her against her will? Wait, there was no
he was kidnapping her. It was so problematic on so
many levels.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Is the implication that, so Frankenstein has a big dick,
Like that's what the application was. Yeah, I mean, I
guess that makes sense. If you're able to like piece
together a human, you're like, I guess I'll give him
the going all out, biggest dead dick I can find.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
If young boys get weird science, we can at least
have Frankenstein like get my side.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, I remember. The thing that I remember most about
sexuality as a man growing up and just watching films
like just you know, we're talking from that middle school
through high school years was just how animalistic sex was,
and a lot of black romantic films like you got
to just get it and dominate the woman, Like I
(16:56):
remember Jason's lyric was one detailed the scene, but they
were banging in an alley like it was just it
was consensual, but it was just the dude just ravaging
the woman. And then it was the same thing in
Belly with DMX and whoever he had the sex scene with.
Like that type of stuff was what informed me. The
(17:16):
thing that really made it awkward though, was being in
the movies and this type of stuff coming up with
our parents. And I don't want to say that my
parents failed me, but in those awkward sexual moments in cinema,
I kind of wouldn't have knowing what I know now,
it would have been dope for my mom or my
(17:36):
dad to put me in to cigncle. Just so you know,
that's not how sex. You don't do that.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Women don't like being taken next to a dumpster. Just
said something, Well.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
This woman did. She was with it, and you wonder
our dudes try you at a dumpster for the next
twenty years because Tretch.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Well, this has been great. What do you say? I
take you out back behind the dumpster.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
After the break, I want to talk with you all
a little bit about some of the potholes in a
story like this, because you know, as we do with
the Daily Show, we juggle a little bit of dynamite,
and so I want to talk a little bit about
some of the things that you wanted to avoid and
some of the things that you wish you'd had space
to add to the story. This is beyond the scenes.
We'll be right back. When you all were researching the story,
(18:24):
what were some of the biggest things that you didn't
know before the research.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
We got like a giant file that has like all
the research in it that our research department could find,
so more than what you saw on the segment, like
plenty was left out because there was no way to
do all of it. The one thing I was most
surprised at was the stuff from like the mid twentieth century,
Like so the Hetty Lamar movie, which was like nineteen thirties.
(18:52):
The fact that there was even a female a female
orgasm betrayal back then just shocked me. I was like, wait,
they let this shit happen the thirties. And then the
stuff that was from the sixties and seventies that wasn't
technically porn, and some of it was porn with like
deep throat, but just how graphic it was in the
(19:13):
sixties and seventies, I feel like I was like, Wow,
I can't believe they actually like did this.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's weird because it's such a stark contrast because around
that same time in sitcoms, they wouldn't even let the
mom and dad be in the same bed.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
That's one thing we touched about the Hayes Code, which
we mentioned briefly, but it was the you know, censorship
guidelines that they used, which kind of came in place
after the thirties and forties.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
This is a set of censorship guidelines that banned movies
from explicitly showing or discussing sex. Even married couples had
to be shown in separate beds, or as it's now
called the reverse chocolate factory with.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
A four you bedmridden for the past twenty years. It
takes a lot of work to keep this family going.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
No one was getting off, didn't they call it? Like
one foot on the floor, Like you always had to
have one on the floor at all times if there
was a scene in the bedroom that married couples couldn't
even you couldn't even show them sleeping in the same bed.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Sometimes one foot on the floor is even better too.
I mean they didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Truly to be able to really get some lamorability.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, there not going to join in on the.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Same from the thirties, like they show like they use
a pearl necklace to like they show a pearl necklace
being dropped on the floor that we assume is meant
to like symbolize the orgasm. And then the there were
a couple other like a lot of symbolic things of
like lots of like cigarette smoking, like the things they
(20:41):
would do to try to get around it, Trains going
through tunnels, Like there was a lot of innuendo in these,
like anytime you see a train film, like it's it's
sex in the fifties and sixties, like, so just the
dumb things they would do to try to work around it.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
We went from a pearl necklace falling on the ground
to Cameron Diaz having a literal pearl necklace in her
head and something about Mary.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
So just the start contrast was like how like we
kind of boomeranged back the other way. But the Barbarella scene,
I mean, we have to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
My favorite America was embarking on a sexual revolution, so
female pleasure.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Came back on screen.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Unfortunately, it was often treated as a novelty that existed
for men's amusements, so you got scenes like the one
in nineteen sixty eight's Barbarella. We're Evil Doctor Eyebrows over
here traps Jane Fonda and a machine that's supposed to
give her orgasms until she dies, except that she climaxes
so hard she breaks the machine.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Goodness.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
At the time, it was considered a campy, sexy thing,
but looking at it now, it's a violation. Remember everyone,
if you're going to put a woman in a machine that.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Orgasms her to death, you need consent.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
First, we watched that clip, like we had it in
our research file, and I watched it being like what
the fuck is this? Like how did people like? How
is this made? And who was this for? But it
like and Jane Fonda really sold it too. I was
like that woman committed, like sheol.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Audition for that role.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You're in a giant pipe organ and you're being pleasured
to death, but you don't want to die, but you
do want to be playing. There's a lot of conflict,
internal conflict in the face. She played that scene very well.
I have to know it's just.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
The face too, because the whole pipe organ orgasm machine
covered her from the waist down or the neck down,
so it was just her face like that was the
only indication. It was her face. And then like you know,
shitty graphics of like sparks and smoke coming out of
the machine.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
It's also really misleading for young women to watch that
and to assume that you can only climax if there
are sparks and smoke.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
How hard is it to find the right tone because
you don't to diminish the topic. But we are on
Comedy Central, which we have to have some fucking comedy
in there. Sometimes. What were some of the landmines that
you all wanted to avoid?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
There are so many great representations of female pleasure or
sexuality or something that might feel very authentic and truthful
and honest and a performance, but it might not be
something that feels like it's appropriate to make jokes about.
You want to feel like whatever we talk about is
(23:34):
kind of fair game to make laughs about.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
A second later, one thing that we also like fully
acknowledged to as we were writing it. It's like a
lot of the kind of the mainstream, big touchstone moments
in the film too tended to be you know, white women,
CIS women, hetero sexual relationships. So we like don't have
the representation we'd like ideally in this uh segment overall,
(24:02):
but we like saying with DESI noticed like, okay, if
this is going to open up a bigger conversation about
how does this very based on race, how does this
very based on gender? How does this very based on
you know, sexual orientation? And that was something. We were like,
we could write, we could make this a thirty minute piece,
or we could do like, you know, a five part thing,
(24:24):
but we're like, okay, this is one segment. So we're like,
we're just gonna kind of touch on the mainstream, you know,
big moments like the when Harry met Sally the Barbarrella.
But we fully acknowledged what we were writing it. We
were like, we know that this isn't fully inclusive of
every aspect of these portrayals, but we want to make
sure that you know, we aren't making light of something
(24:46):
that is a more serious scene or more serious film.
We also talked about two making jokes about the movies
that are comedies, whereas like you know, most of these
like when Harry met Sally, Bruce Almighty, like those are
big comedies. So we were like, okay, well, we don't
want to write jokes about jokes, but we could like
(25:09):
make fun of the fact that it's used as a joke,
because it feels weird sometimes to write comedy about something
that is meant to be comedy.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
That makes perfect sense. So then to that point about
the portrayal of nudity in comedy, why is it man naked,
funny woman naked, or it's rarely hilarious. Like the only
(25:36):
thing that I even think comes close to a joke
that would play the same for a woman as a
guy in a comedy is Melissa McCarthy shitting her pants
and Bride.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
No No look away, Mega, No look away.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Such a double standard, and it's not It really isn't
fair that you know. It seems like when men are
naked in a comedy, it's hilarious and it's maximized for comedy.
But if a woman shows up naked in a comedy,
it's were objectifying her or it's it becomes about sex
instead of the laugh. I don't know if you guys
(26:23):
remember Isla Fisher's performance in The Wedding Crashers.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
I'm not wearing any pennies.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Oh it's rare.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, Okay, that's.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
What hilarious, total breakout role for her.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
She was genius in it. She maximized every second that
she was on camera. And I believe she talked about this,
and forgive me if I get it wrong, but she
talked about there being a discussion there was a sex
scene in that movie, and there was a discussion about
whether she was going to be topless and how much
they were going to show, and I think they wanted
(26:57):
her to be completely topless.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
And at all.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And she basically was like, look, if you see my nipples,
I lose my laugh and I'm going to protect my laugh.
So you got to shoot it in a certain way
because I want to get the comedy.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I don't want this to be about objectifying. And I
think the problem is I'm not being adventurous enough for you, Gory.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I'm pretty sure that is not what I've been saying
to you.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Baby.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I'm gonna make ah your fantasy's comtory.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And it's like, you know, Will Ferrell probably would not
have had to have that conversation, right.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
His nipples are hilarious.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
His nipples are very funny to the.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Point where nudity enhances the scene. Ken Jong talks about this.
He's talked about it on the record here and there,
but he told me on another comedian friend of mine,
the story of him coming out the trunk naked in
the original Hangover movie. In that original the scene as
(28:07):
it was written, he had clothes on, and Ken went
to the director and said, Hey, I should be naked,
and they were like, what yeah, my character, he should
come out the trunk naked. I think it'll be more
of a blah blah blah blah blah. And to his credit,
he was right naked, literally catapulted. He stole that film.
(28:32):
It held up the shoot for two hours because they
had to get the clearances and the lawyers and oh yeah,
whatever the hell is. I don't know what happens when
Dick's come out on set, but apparently it's a lot
of paperwork.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
But we talk about women's breasts too. I was thinking of, like,
there's so much in Uh, there's something about Mary, but
isn't his neighbor, like the old lady who's like always tanning.
They show her boobs, but they're you know, like old
Wrinkley ski slopes and it's like and that is funny
because they can mean, they made her look as you know,
(29:07):
unsexy as possible in order to do it. And I'm
you know, I give a lot of credit to that
woman for you know, for bearing it all for that,
but I mean that was funny, Like that was like
one instance where women's boobs were funny, but they made
them look as little boob like as possible, like they
are almost unidentifiable.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
They just have to keep sending her back to the
makeup trailer. Nope, sorry, still a little too sexy. They
look like road.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
I'm like, yeah, there we go. That's perfect. Now we
can do it.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
As much as I would love to continue talking about
breast and nudity and all of that stuff, we have
to see where we're going towards the future. This is
beyond the scenes. We'll be right back, ken John. If
I wasn't supposed to tell that stories saw too late.
It's been twenty years. Let that shit go. So we've
talked during this podcast ladies about how the portrayal of
(30:02):
women in their sexuality and how that can inform and
influence us from a very early age. But should the
movies be where people are even learning about all of this?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I mean it what is seen in the movies and
on TV matters. It certainly like carries a lot of weight.
But I think it matters more because kids aren't really
learning a lot about sex ed in a full, comprehensive,
inclusive way in school, so they're left to learn this
(30:35):
stuff from seeing shows and movies. And that's like, to me,
that kind of puts too much pressure on what's supposed
to be entertainment to kind of like solve the world's problems.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, I think if anyone needs these movies, it's Catholic
school kids, because I can tell you right now they
are not teaching them shit they need that they actually
need to know. It's I went to out like high school,
and I would think, like, you know, that was twenty
years ago, that it would be better, But I don't.
Like it's like, as he was saying, it's not like
sex education is still pretty bad at least in America,
(31:12):
and most kids are getting their knowledge from TV movies
and you know, unless someone has like a cool older brother.
But other than that, like there's not really many resources
to get like like the real authentic stuff of what
sex is actually like.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Do you think also in addition to the lack of
sex ed, is there more sexual censorship in America that
also keeps kids from learning about stuff like just I
saw Mortal Kombat. Okay, I saw the new Mortal Kombat
movie earlier this year. Blood and guts everywhere. Yeah, but
(31:50):
then you can go overseas and they pardon my French,
they got breasts and just commercials. Nudity is just so regular,
Like it's just a commercial about buying shampoo, and it's
just a woman get out to shine a breast around
and yeah, shampoo.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Wouldn't it be nice if Americans had more shame surrounding
violence than shame surrounding the human body and all of
its sexuality. It's so crazy. I mean even I have
a five year old and the stuff that when I'm
trying to look for something that is appropriate for him
to watch, we are always stumbling upon stuff that's like, well,
(32:25):
that's still violent, or there's a some like you know,
weapons are being thrown around and there's some fight or
there's some and I would much rather my son see
naked boobies on screen, you know, than see like a full,
full on, knockdown, drag out violent fight.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
As Americans, we probably don't even realize how much violence
we're seeing every day because it's just something we've grown
up with at this point. Yeah. I remember when I
went to Europe for the first time. I think like
as a teenager, I went as like a French exchange student,
and I remember seeing like boobs on a billboard and
I was like, do they know that those are up there?
Like I was like Uh, someone's gonna get fired because
(33:06):
there's some chits. Just like at a department store.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You have to act normal as an American. Yeah, boobs out,
totally normal. Yeah, no big deal. Yeah, are things as
a whole improving? Do you think you know when we
have programs like say Pose, which is ending their run
coming up now in e FX does how does the sexuality,
heterosexuality in the portrayal of that, How does that fit
(33:33):
into the wider discussion of bipocking LGBTQ sexuality on film
and TV.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
I mean, I think definitely, I mean having more people
behind the camera, but then also just seeing those relationships
like like I May Destroy You was like I feel
like so revolutionary and how it portrayed sex and sexuality,
and that was one thing that that was in our research.
(33:59):
But we were like, that's such a heavy show. I
was like, that doesn't the tone doesn't feel right to
conclude that. So I think more shows like that where
it's no longer this big deal because it's revolutionary and
like the only one of its kind that should be
now our standard. Like most more shows, especially like the dramas,
should be able to show those relationships of like people
(34:20):
being more fluid with gender and more open to different
sexual experiences, but also make sure consents always involved, because
that's just something we've really started putting into film and
television in the past like four years, which is not
that long, seeing how movies have been around for over
a hundred. So those are like all things I think
(34:40):
that revolve around this like kind of the same issues.
They're all connected.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
The way that MICHAELA.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Cole was able to explore and dissect sexual assault and
that whole experience that her character went through and her
also the supporting characters in that story felt so like
truthful and authentic and you know, shocking. It was really,
(35:08):
like Kat said, revolutionary and also shocking because we have
never seen it like that before, talked about in that way.
So stories like that, stories like you know, Ryan O'Connell's
show Special and he has like there's a scene of
him having sex with another man that was I've heard
him speak about it on the press tour before about
(35:31):
it being like just a really authentic, honest interaction that
he hadn't seen on camera before.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Phoebe waller Bridge in Flea.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Bag and the way she talks about sexuality and shame
and you know her. Her being able to tell that
story and it being such a massive success, I think
gives me hope that we're moving in the right direction.
We're starting to get more diverse stories being told, and
that's important.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Well, the verse stories are told because we have a
wonderfully diverse cast of people working in the building. Thank
you all so much for bringing me up to speed
on women's orgasms. I will now go on the same
deep dive that Madeleine went on, and then two minutes
later I will wait an hour and try to go
on that deep dive again. There there's your sextuck.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
We did it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Like That's all the time we have for today. A
special thanks to Kat Radley and Desi Laddeck. Hopefully now
we've taken you beyond the scenes, take care of your body.
I'm sorry, Ken, John, I love you. Listen to The
Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app,
(36:46):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey back in the day, they knew it wasn't just
enough to slap Apollo thirteen on a DVD. The people
demanded more. They wanted to hear Ron Howard and Tom
Hanks talking over the movie about how Craft's services was
that day. Well that's us, baby, We're your DVD special features,
bringing you commentary, deleted scenes, and maybe some half ass
pixelated storyboards if we feel like it. Welcome to Beyond
(00:30):
the Scenes. I'm your host, Roy Wood Junior, and this
is the podcast where we take a deeper dive into
some of the most complex issues covered on The Daily
Show with Trevor Noah and speaking of Tom Hanks. Today
we're talking about female orgasms on screen. A brief history
hist Hurry, you did it. This is a piece that
(00:50):
originally aired on the show back on March twenty third
to twenty twenty one. You know what year it is
played a clip.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's no secret that women's on screen portrayal have evolved
throughout history. We've gone from playing secretaries being saved by
James Bond all the way to nuclear scientists being saved
by James Bond. But I want to focus on one
specific aspect of female depictions the orgasm. It's when a
woman is stimulated to the point of climax, causing a
(01:19):
physical and neurological response that scientists refer to as fantastic.
And over the years, depicting female pleasure on screen is
something that's changed more than the batteries in your vibrator.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So today with me, I have Daily Show correspondent Desi
Leideck and writer Aimy nominated writer Cat Ratley to walk
me through how the segment came together, and then we're
going to go beyond, because that's what we do. It's
in the damn title, what's going on, y'all? How you doing?
I Roy?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I'll say, Rory. Don't assume people know what year it
is that is up for debate. Completely lost track Bine
is from twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
One in March.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Why does it matter? More?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So? In this segment you all went through, you dug
into crates and you found basically a track record of
just showing the misrepresentation of women's sexuality on film and television.
How did that all come to? Kat?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
One of our researchers in our deep dive department, Madeline Kunes,
she came up with this idea just from kind of
organically noticing how different the portrayal is of female versus
male orgasms on screen and all that. And she just
kind of went down the rabbit hole of looking through
film pretty much over the past hundred years, and she
(02:38):
just found so much great stuff that we were able
to put it together for a segment.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
She went way down the rabbit hole and then back
up the rabbit hole, and then down again a little
bit deeper, and then she found up for air just
the right spot, and then she found the perfect spot.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, and then it was a scientist.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I'm not going to join in, you know. I have
jokes in my head that I could join in on that,
but I just don't. I don't want to be the
weird getting guess. And then she's stayed in that rabbit
hole for three days?
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Did I art?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I think I spend the euphemism card too early. I
should have held on to it. There's so many more opportunities.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Let's get into the actual nuts and bolts of this daisy.
As a correspondent, when someone brings you this piece, what
was your first thought.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I was so excited because I had this reaction like,
oh my god, why haven't We talked about this before,
and I think on a subconscious level, it's always bothered
me that I feel like I haven't seen that many
representations of female sexuality and like an honest, authentic or
even really funny way. But it didn't hit me the
(03:48):
depths of it until I read the script. We're always,
you know, trying to figure out what topics we want
to dive into, and we look for things that are
that feel like they've been under reported, something we want
to shine a spotlight on, and they tend to be
you know, we go deep with the information and we
go through the history of something and in the trap
(04:11):
is that it would be something that can feel a
little dry, right, Well, this one immediately is like, oh,
that's fun to talk about.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
That's like, this one was very wet.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
This was very wet.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
This was the opposite of dry.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Thank you kat. We'll get them. We'll get them halfway through.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
But this was I wrote it with Lauren, another writer
who is amazing, and the two of us have written
a couple things for Desi, and it seems like it's
just I mean, writing for Dozi is super fun and
we kind of knew like, all right, this can be
like a touchy, difficult subject. And I mean, Desi totally
nailed the performance. So I'm glad that she was as
(04:57):
on board and excited about it as we were, because
writing it was it was fun to actually, like, like
as he was saying, for women's history. Months sometimes we
do like, all right, let's look at you know, voting
rights and the suffragette movement, which is important and great,
but not as fun as talking about you know, Barbarella
or Meg Ryan's oreasm. And when Harry met Sally, oh
(05:20):
oh god, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, oh oh.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Oh god, I'll have what she's having.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
We haven't really done a segment like this on the
show before, so I feel like it was like a
fun aspect of women's history that wasn't as like serious
and heavy as you know, having our rights taken away.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
But it also just the subject matter itself.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It was something that I sort of like subconsciously knew
in my brain that I wasn't saying a lot of
this out there, but I really it wasn't it and
hit me until I read everything in that discussion, like
oh my god, yes that is how women are represented.
That early on, I had no idea about the Hetty
Lamar thing. The first known female orgasm on the silver
(06:14):
screen was in the nineteen thirty three German film Ecstasy,
when Hetty Lamar took the Broughtwurst Express all the way
to pleasure Burg. Turns out the world wasn't ready for this.
Everyone denounced it, from Hitler.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
To the Pope, And if you ask me, the Pope
has no place weighing in on sex scenes. He's celibate.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I mean, when we need your opinion on the best
stain removers for white fabrics, then.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
We'll call you.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I didn't realize that she was the first woman to
have an orgasm on screen, and then not only that,
but like she was basically came up with the start
of what is wi FI now, so she was a genius.
Like I had no idea about all of that until
I read it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, but they low key sex shamed her the rest
of her career for daring to be that open on camera.
Do you all think that men being in control of
the narrative of sex in the entertainment industry? I mean
less so now, but definitely still more so than women.
(07:15):
How much did that play into it when you look
at over the decades and decades of just the way
women have been portrayed to just you are the male,
the man controls you, and it's never really connected to
what a woman really wants in the bedroom or properly
portraying what a woman wants in a bedroom.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
The Hettie Lamarthin went back to like the nineteen thirties,
so that's like kind of where the started nineteen thirties
films up till now. And yeah, when you think about it,
it was mostly and still is mostly men writing and
directing and producing these movies. So they're the ones who
are determining, you know, what a female organism should or
shouldn't look like on screen, because I because it didn't
(07:57):
make you wonder like, okay, well why is this and
you're like, oh yeah, because men control everything for all
of the beginning of time. So I do think that
has a lot to do with it, just like who's
writing these stories, who's telling these women and directing them
how to act on the screen.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, so now in this next page, you're gonna really
erupt with pleasure. I want you to just scream and
bang the hit board so that everyone can h.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
While it's like ten seconds in and nothing has happened,
and you're like, oh, that is that all it?
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Okay? Well, I guess that's how it works. It's just
uh that simple.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Huh. It's like almost like sounds like you're getting murdered,
but not quite. There's like a fine line between the two.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Feed the ego of the man, so he knows he's
killing it. Yeah. Yeah. So when we do race stories
on the show, the question is always sues the intended audience, right,
because black people, to a degree, kind of already know
some of the stuff we're talking about. So in a way,
you're having to present new information to half of the
audience that already knows this topic while also presenting it
(09:06):
like with CP time, it's stuff that black people may
or may not have already known. But here's a couple
of jokes and we go a little deeper on the issue.
And if you are not black, then this is a
whole wealth of new information. Because I'll be honest, as
a man, this is something I've never paid attention to.
So who was the d When you think about the
intended audience, was it to serve a dual purpose or
(09:30):
was it to educate meatheads like myself?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I mean I think it's always like, in my opinion,
it's always about kind of starting a conversation across the board, right,
And the feeling that I felt when I read it
for the first time was what I would hope that
other women felt when they saw it, and that they
felt heard and seeing like, Oh, I've been feeling this
way too, I've been missing this in TV and film,
(09:57):
and we do have some more work to do and
then all so to maybe perhaps educate a few viewers
who maybe did not know some of this or thought
about it in that way, and yeah, start a conversation
about it.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I remember growing up watching a lot of movies and stuff,
and this is how like. Watching this segment it in
my brain and I started thinking back. There's a scene
in waiting to exhale. Oh shit, oh this is good.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh yeah he he he can we say or I'll
say orgasms? This is beyond the scenes and we are
a very tasteful show. Yes, so he bus way before
the woman did.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Does he think he just did something here?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Shit? I could have had a V eight. I could
have had a V eight was the line. That's a legendary.
It's a legendary line. But women and not getting an orgasm.
It's almost seen as ha ha, you didn't get any
pleasure growing up. What was you all's personal experience and
(11:09):
seeing female pleasure depicted on screen? Can I ask that?
Let me ask that in a more hr way as
you all were matriculating as young women, how much.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's menstruating, it's menstruating.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
As you administrate it to But you know, what was
your what was your experience seeing the way sex was
depicted on screen?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
I think, like you said too, that it's funny that
it was so often used as a punchline, and I
feel like that's kind of something that became ingrained without
me realizing, because it is, you know, it's either funny
that she doesn't get pleasure, or like two of the
movies we do is like a Catherine Heigel scene and
Jennifer Anderson Stein from Bruce Almighty, where like their pleasure
(11:58):
is like so over the top and exaggerated that it's
like it's the comedy, it's the butt of the joe.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
In the years that followed, female pleasure became.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
More and more common on screen, but they were still
often treated as punchlines, like Jennifer Aniston getting unexpected magic
Himaxes and Bruce Almighty, or Catherine Heigel accidentally orgasming at
dinner when a little boy grabbed her remote control vibrating underwear.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Okay, there is so much wrong with this.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It's non consensual, it's a kid doing it, and it
perpetuates the dangerous myth that vibrating underwear gives you anything
but a five alarm electrical burn.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I was like, oh, okay, like it's it's the way
we do it is funny, or like we're kind of
used as a punchline as opposed to like taken seriously.
And I don't really know how that affected me because
I feel like we were just kind of getting messages
like that from all over. So I'm kind of like, well,
this is the way it is until you kind of
learn that it is different. Still getting to learn.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That scene in particular, I have so many mixed feelings about.
I feel like that because as as like an actor
doing comedy, you when you get a scene as a woman,
like you want to have the joke you want to
get to do, like the big performative joke in this
set piece, and so and men get to joke about
(13:20):
their orgasms all the time, like it's all over the place, literally,
and how many are we at now?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Three?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Four?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Still early, but like there were so many problems in
that scene itself. Like Kat said, we were kind of
like punching at the wrong thing. The punchline was aimed,
it seemed in the wrong direction. And also just like
there was really no consent. It was kind of against
their will. It was happening to them and they weren't
(13:50):
participating in it, which felt kind of weird.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
And I think those movies were when Laura and I
were writing it, we were like, wait, what year was this.
I want to say it was like two thousand and nine,
like it was ten to fifteen years ago, when like
consent was not like a term people were thinking about
are throwing around in probably like movie sets at all.
And I'm like, oh yeah, like you are like giving
(14:13):
Catherine Heigel this orgasm in a restaurant and it's funny,
and I'm just like, ooh man that they didn't even
have the C word anywhere in their brain like at
this point in time. So I was like, I was like,
there's so there's so much wrong with.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
This And it was a kid right like it was.
It was a kid, eight year old kid toy with it.
You're like, no, stop.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of problematic old school sex scenes
that you can go back and watch now and be like.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah, I can. I can remember.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I just recently rediscovered the movie Young Frankenstein, which I
is like a classic mel Brooks and Gene Wilder and
so many funny performances in that movie. Terry Garr and
Madeline Khan are comedic geniuses. And I remember seeing that
scene of Madeline Khan with the monster when he comes
(15:09):
in to like take her and he drops his pants
and then suddenly she's like very into it and they
have this whole sex scene.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Oh oh, you can't be serious. I'm like, oh my god,
I'm I'm engaged. And once he took it, but I didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
It was never all the oh.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I've fallen you.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It is like a toured deforce in her comedic performance,
it's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
She should have won all the awar for this scene.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And then it cuts to them sitting there side by
side and they're smoking a cigarette. But in watching it
in recent years, you go back and you're like, wait,
he took her against her will? Wait, there was no
he was kidnapping her. It was so problematic on so
many levels.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Is the implication that, so Frankenstein has a big dick,
Like that's what the application was. Yeah, I mean, I
guess that makes sense. If you're able to like piece
together a human, you're like, I guess I'll give him
the going all out, biggest dead dick I can find.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
If young boys get weird science, we can at least
have Frankenstein like get my side.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, I remember. The thing that I remember most about
sexuality as a man growing up and just watching films
like just you know, we're talking from that middle school
through high school years was just how animalistic sex was,
and a lot of black romantic films like you got
to just get it and dominate the woman, Like I
(16:56):
remember Jason's lyric was one detailed the scene, but they
were banging in an alley like it was just it
was consensual, but it was just the dude just ravaging
the woman. And then it was the same thing in
Belly with DMX and whoever he had the sex scene with.
Like that type of stuff was what informed me. The
(17:16):
thing that really made it awkward though, was being in
the movies and this type of stuff coming up with
our parents. And I don't want to say that my
parents failed me, but in those awkward sexual moments in cinema,
I kind of wouldn't have knowing what I know now,
it would have been dope for my mom or my
(17:36):
dad to put me in to cigncle. Just so you know,
that's not how sex. You don't do that.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Women don't like being taken next to a dumpster. Just
said something, Well.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
This woman did. She was with it, and you wonder
our dudes try you at a dumpster for the next
twenty years because Tretch.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Well, this has been great. What do you say? I
take you out back behind the dumpster.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
After the break, I want to talk with you all
a little bit about some of the potholes in a
story like this, because you know, as we do with
the Daily Show, we juggle a little bit of dynamite,
and so I want to talk a little bit about
some of the things that you wanted to avoid and
some of the things that you wish you'd had space
to add to the story. This is beyond the scenes.
We'll be right back. When you all were researching the story,
(18:24):
what were some of the biggest things that you didn't
know before the research.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
We got like a giant file that has like all
the research in it that our research department could find,
so more than what you saw on the segment, like
plenty was left out because there was no way to
do all of it. The one thing I was most
surprised at was the stuff from like the mid twentieth century,
Like so the Hetty Lamar movie, which was like nineteen thirties.
(18:52):
The fact that there was even a female a female
orgasm betrayal back then just shocked me. I was like, wait,
they let this shit happen the thirties. And then the
stuff that was from the sixties and seventies that wasn't
technically porn, and some of it was porn with like
deep throat, but just how graphic it was in the
(19:13):
sixties and seventies, I feel like I was like, Wow,
I can't believe they actually like did this.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's weird because it's such a stark contrast because around
that same time in sitcoms, they wouldn't even let the
mom and dad be in the same bed.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
That's one thing we touched about the Hayes Code, which
we mentioned briefly, but it was the you know, censorship
guidelines that they used, which kind of came in place
after the thirties and forties.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
This is a set of censorship guidelines that banned movies
from explicitly showing or discussing sex. Even married couples had
to be shown in separate beds, or as it's now
called the reverse chocolate factory with.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
A four you bedmridden for the past twenty years. It
takes a lot of work to keep this family going.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
No one was getting off, didn't they call it? Like
one foot on the floor, Like you always had to
have one on the floor at all times if there
was a scene in the bedroom that married couples couldn't
even you couldn't even show them sleeping in the same bed.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Sometimes one foot on the floor is even better too.
I mean they didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Truly to be able to really get some lamorability.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, there not going to join in on the.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Same from the thirties, like they show like they use
a pearl necklace to like they show a pearl necklace
being dropped on the floor that we assume is meant
to like symbolize the orgasm. And then the there were
a couple other like a lot of symbolic things of
like lots of like cigarette smoking, like the things they
(20:41):
would do to try to get around it, Trains going
through tunnels, Like there was a lot of innuendo in these,
like anytime you see a train film, like it's it's
sex in the fifties and sixties, like, so just the
dumb things they would do to try to work around it.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
We went from a pearl necklace falling on the ground
to Cameron Diaz having a literal pearl necklace in her
head and something about Mary.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
So just the start contrast was like how like we
kind of boomeranged back the other way. But the Barbarella scene,
I mean, we have to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
My favorite America was embarking on a sexual revolution, so
female pleasure.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Came back on screen.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Unfortunately, it was often treated as a novelty that existed
for men's amusements, so you got scenes like the one
in nineteen sixty eight's Barbarella. We're Evil Doctor Eyebrows over
here traps Jane Fonda and a machine that's supposed to
give her orgasms until she dies, except that she climaxes
so hard she breaks the machine.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Goodness.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
At the time, it was considered a campy, sexy thing,
but looking at it now, it's a violation. Remember everyone,
if you're going to put a woman in a machine that.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Orgasms her to death, you need consent.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
First, we watched that clip, like we had it in
our research file, and I watched it being like what
the fuck is this? Like how did people like? How
is this made? And who was this for? But it
like and Jane Fonda really sold it too. I was
like that woman committed, like sheol.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Audition for that role.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You're in a giant pipe organ and you're being pleasured
to death, but you don't want to die, but you
do want to be playing. There's a lot of conflict,
internal conflict in the face. She played that scene very well.
I have to know it's just.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
The face too, because the whole pipe organ orgasm machine
covered her from the waist down or the neck down,
so it was just her face like that was the
only indication. It was her face. And then like you know,
shitty graphics of like sparks and smoke coming out of
the machine.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
It's also really misleading for young women to watch that
and to assume that you can only climax if there
are sparks and smoke.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
How hard is it to find the right tone because
you don't to diminish the topic. But we are on
Comedy Central, which we have to have some fucking comedy
in there. Sometimes. What were some of the landmines that
you all wanted to avoid?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
There are so many great representations of female pleasure or
sexuality or something that might feel very authentic and truthful
and honest and a performance, but it might not be
something that feels like it's appropriate to make jokes about.
You want to feel like whatever we talk about is
(23:34):
kind of fair game to make laughs about.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
A second later, one thing that we also like fully
acknowledged to as we were writing it. It's like a
lot of the kind of the mainstream, big touchstone moments
in the film too tended to be you know, white women,
CIS women, hetero sexual relationships. So we like don't have
the representation we'd like ideally in this uh segment overall,
(24:02):
but we like saying with DESI noticed like, okay, if
this is going to open up a bigger conversation about
how does this very based on race, how does this
very based on gender? How does this very based on
you know, sexual orientation? And that was something. We were like,
we could write, we could make this a thirty minute piece,
or we could do like, you know, a five part thing,
(24:24):
but we're like, okay, this is one segment. So we're like,
we're just gonna kind of touch on the mainstream, you know,
big moments like the when Harry met Sally the Barbarrella.
But we fully acknowledged what we were writing it. We
were like, we know that this isn't fully inclusive of
every aspect of these portrayals, but we want to make
sure that you know, we aren't making light of something
(24:46):
that is a more serious scene or more serious film.
We also talked about two making jokes about the movies
that are comedies, whereas like you know, most of these
like when Harry met Sally, Bruce Almighty, like those are
big comedies. So we were like, okay, well, we don't
want to write jokes about jokes, but we could like
(25:09):
make fun of the fact that it's used as a joke,
because it feels weird sometimes to write comedy about something
that is meant to be comedy.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
That makes perfect sense. So then to that point about
the portrayal of nudity in comedy, why is it man naked,
funny woman naked, or it's rarely hilarious. Like the only
(25:36):
thing that I even think comes close to a joke
that would play the same for a woman as a
guy in a comedy is Melissa McCarthy shitting her pants
and Bride.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
No No look away, Mega, No look away.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Such a double standard, and it's not It really isn't
fair that you know. It seems like when men are
naked in a comedy, it's hilarious and it's maximized for comedy.
But if a woman shows up naked in a comedy,
it's were objectifying her or it's it becomes about sex
instead of the laugh. I don't know if you guys
(26:23):
remember Isla Fisher's performance in The Wedding Crashers.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
I'm not wearing any pennies.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Oh it's rare.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, Okay, that's.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
What hilarious, total breakout role for her.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
She was genius in it. She maximized every second that
she was on camera. And I believe she talked about this,
and forgive me if I get it wrong, but she
talked about there being a discussion there was a sex
scene in that movie, and there was a discussion about
whether she was going to be topless and how much
they were going to show, and I think they wanted
(26:57):
her to be completely topless.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
And at all.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And she basically was like, look, if you see my nipples,
I lose my laugh and I'm going to protect my laugh.
So you got to shoot it in a certain way
because I want to get the comedy.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I don't want this to be about objectifying. And I
think the problem is I'm not being adventurous enough for you, Gory.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I'm pretty sure that is not what I've been saying
to you.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Baby.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I'm gonna make ah your fantasy's comtory.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And it's like, you know, Will Ferrell probably would not
have had to have that conversation, right.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
His nipples are hilarious.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
His nipples are very funny to the.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Point where nudity enhances the scene. Ken Jong talks about this.
He's talked about it on the record here and there,
but he told me on another comedian friend of mine,
the story of him coming out the trunk naked in
the original Hangover movie. In that original the scene as
(28:07):
it was written, he had clothes on, and Ken went
to the director and said, Hey, I should be naked,
and they were like, what yeah, my character, he should
come out the trunk naked. I think it'll be more
of a blah blah blah blah blah. And to his credit,
he was right naked, literally catapulted. He stole that film.
(28:32):
It held up the shoot for two hours because they
had to get the clearances and the lawyers and oh yeah,
whatever the hell is. I don't know what happens when
Dick's come out on set, but apparently it's a lot
of paperwork.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
But we talk about women's breasts too. I was thinking of, like,
there's so much in Uh, there's something about Mary, but
isn't his neighbor, like the old lady who's like always tanning.
They show her boobs, but they're you know, like old
Wrinkley ski slopes and it's like and that is funny
because they can mean, they made her look as you know,
(29:07):
unsexy as possible in order to do it. And I'm
you know, I give a lot of credit to that
woman for you know, for bearing it all for that,
but I mean that was funny, Like that was like
one instance where women's boobs were funny, but they made
them look as little boob like as possible, like they
are almost unidentifiable.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
They just have to keep sending her back to the
makeup trailer. Nope, sorry, still a little too sexy. They
look like road.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
I'm like, yeah, there we go. That's perfect. Now we
can do it.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
As much as I would love to continue talking about
breast and nudity and all of that stuff, we have
to see where we're going towards the future. This is
beyond the scenes. We'll be right back, ken John. If
I wasn't supposed to tell that stories saw too late.
It's been twenty years. Let that shit go. So we've
talked during this podcast ladies about how the portrayal of
(30:02):
women in their sexuality and how that can inform and
influence us from a very early age. But should the
movies be where people are even learning about all of this?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I mean it what is seen in the movies and
on TV matters. It certainly like carries a lot of weight.
But I think it matters more because kids aren't really
learning a lot about sex ed in a full, comprehensive,
inclusive way in school, so they're left to learn this
(30:35):
stuff from seeing shows and movies. And that's like, to me,
that kind of puts too much pressure on what's supposed
to be entertainment to kind of like solve the world's problems.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, I think if anyone needs these movies, it's Catholic
school kids, because I can tell you right now they
are not teaching them shit they need that they actually
need to know. It's I went to out like high school,
and I would think, like, you know, that was twenty
years ago, that it would be better, But I don't.
Like it's like, as he was saying, it's not like
sex education is still pretty bad at least in America,
(31:12):
and most kids are getting their knowledge from TV movies
and you know, unless someone has like a cool older brother.
But other than that, like there's not really many resources
to get like like the real authentic stuff of what
sex is actually like.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Do you think also in addition to the lack of
sex ed, is there more sexual censorship in America that
also keeps kids from learning about stuff like just I
saw Mortal Kombat. Okay, I saw the new Mortal Kombat
movie earlier this year. Blood and guts everywhere. Yeah, but
(31:50):
then you can go overseas and they pardon my French,
they got breasts and just commercials. Nudity is just so regular,
Like it's just a commercial about buying shampoo, and it's
just a woman get out to shine a breast around
and yeah, shampoo.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Wouldn't it be nice if Americans had more shame surrounding
violence than shame surrounding the human body and all of
its sexuality. It's so crazy. I mean even I have
a five year old and the stuff that when I'm
trying to look for something that is appropriate for him
to watch, we are always stumbling upon stuff that's like, well,
(32:25):
that's still violent, or there's a some like you know,
weapons are being thrown around and there's some fight or
there's some and I would much rather my son see
naked boobies on screen, you know, than see like a full,
full on, knockdown, drag out violent fight.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
As Americans, we probably don't even realize how much violence
we're seeing every day because it's just something we've grown
up with at this point. Yeah. I remember when I
went to Europe for the first time. I think like
as a teenager, I went as like a French exchange student,
and I remember seeing like boobs on a billboard and
I was like, do they know that those are up there?
Like I was like Uh, someone's gonna get fired because
(33:06):
there's some chits. Just like at a department store.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You have to act normal as an American. Yeah, boobs out,
totally normal. Yeah, no big deal. Yeah, are things as
a whole improving? Do you think you know when we
have programs like say Pose, which is ending their run
coming up now in e FX does how does the sexuality,
heterosexuality in the portrayal of that, How does that fit
(33:33):
into the wider discussion of bipocking LGBTQ sexuality on film
and TV.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
I mean, I think definitely, I mean having more people
behind the camera, but then also just seeing those relationships
like like I May Destroy You was like I feel
like so revolutionary and how it portrayed sex and sexuality,
and that was one thing that that was in our research.
(33:59):
But we were like, that's such a heavy show. I
was like, that doesn't the tone doesn't feel right to
conclude that. So I think more shows like that where
it's no longer this big deal because it's revolutionary and
like the only one of its kind that should be
now our standard. Like most more shows, especially like the dramas,
should be able to show those relationships of like people
(34:20):
being more fluid with gender and more open to different
sexual experiences, but also make sure consents always involved, because
that's just something we've really started putting into film and
television in the past like four years, which is not
that long, seeing how movies have been around for over
a hundred. So those are like all things I think
(34:40):
that revolve around this like kind of the same issues.
They're all connected.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
The way that MICHAELA.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Cole was able to explore and dissect sexual assault and
that whole experience that her character went through and her
also the supporting characters in that story felt so like
truthful and authentic and you know, shocking. It was really,
(35:08):
like Kat said, revolutionary and also shocking because we have
never seen it like that before, talked about in that way.
So stories like that, stories like you know, Ryan O'Connell's
show Special and he has like there's a scene of
him having sex with another man that was I've heard
him speak about it on the press tour before about
(35:31):
it being like just a really authentic, honest interaction that
he hadn't seen on camera before.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Phoebe waller Bridge in Flea.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Bag and the way she talks about sexuality and shame
and you know her. Her being able to tell that
story and it being such a massive success, I think
gives me hope that we're moving in the right direction.
We're starting to get more diverse stories being told, and
that's important.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Well, the verse stories are told because we have a
wonderfully diverse cast of people working in the building. Thank
you all so much for bringing me up to speed
on women's orgasms. I will now go on the same
deep dive that Madeleine went on, and then two minutes
later I will wait an hour and try to go
on that deep dive again. There there's your sextuck.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
We did it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Like That's all the time we have for today. A
special thanks to Kat Radley and Desi Laddeck. Hopefully now
we've taken you beyond the scenes, take care of your body.
I'm sorry, Ken, John, I love you. Listen to The
Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app,
(36:46):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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