Friday Free-for-All: Iconic sexy scenes - where is this generation's Phoebe Cates?

Originally I was going to save this one for next week, but we're already getting an interesting talk going over on the Facebook page, so as we're inching closer to the official start of summer, why not head towards the weekend with a blog inspired by a swimsuit?

I think every writer wants to write a scene that's remembered as iconic. And after over seven years of reading, I know that male readers enjoy writing scenes with female characters in various states of undress. And yet, in all that time, with all that female flesh, I don't think any writer I've seen has come up with something that's iconically sexy.

What provoked this thought was a Yahoo article I stumbled across earlier this week. It was about Phoebe Cates, and for at least a generation's worth of you, I probably don't need to offer further explanation. For people - mostly men - of a certain age, that name might conjure up memories of Gremlins, but it'll probably make you think of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. As the article notes: "Perhaps the most famous scene in which the bikini plays a starring role came in the 1982 comedy classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Actress Phoebe Cates wears a red two-piece while lounging at her friend's pool after school. Though the film is nearly 30 years old, online interest in the iconic scene remains red-hot."

I'd argue that the scene is famous not because Phoebe wears the bikini, but because she takes it off. Supposedly video stores in the 80s had to regularly replace their VHS cassettes of Fast Times because of "tracking problems" during the scene in question. (For my younger readers - that means that the videocassette was being worn out at that particular spot, likely because of excessive slo-mo and freeze-framing of that portion of the tape.)

Granted, times have changed and DVDs have replaced VHS, but I'm honestly at a loss to think of what this generation's "Phoebe Cates scene" is. Can you think of any film in the last decade that was purchased or rented largely for its T&A, to the point that the actress's name is synonymous with that scene?

The Yahoo article had their own picks for best bikini scenes. It's interesting, because out of 11 scenes, I could only peg three as iconic.

Ursella Andress in Dr. No.
Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.
Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi

Interestingly, the most recent scene on that list is Jedi at nearly 30 years old. Andress' scene was so iconic that they had Halle Berry rip it off in a later Bond film, Welch's cavegirl bikini was a popular pin-up, and Fisher's Slave Leia sent a generation of Star Wars fans into puberty, becoming a popular costume at Comic-Con.

The remaining eight picks in Yahoo are certainly of attractive women, but not memorable in the same way:
Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
Jessica Alba in Into the Blue
Cameron Diaz and Demi Moore in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Kristen Bell in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Salma Hayak in From Dusk 'Til Dawn
Kate Bosworth & Michelle Rodriguez in Blue Crush
Brooklyn Decker in Just Go With It
Halle Berry in Die Another Day

Can you imagine any of those scenes being homaged 30 years later? Did any of those scenes spawn popular pin-ups, or become so memorable that when you mention that actress, that scene is what springs to mind? Frankly, most of these scenes are more along the lines of what I read virutally every week, eye candy with no deeper context. Empty calories.

(Also, to give most of the actresses on this second list credit, they've largely had more successful careers than Cates and the other actresses on the first list. Actresses like Moore and Bell have a strong body of work that overshadows their bodies.)

One Facebook follower came up with the same theory I have as to why the last ten or fifteen years of film has been light on these sort of moments, saying "With internet porn, there may never be another Cates' scene, again." True - Fast Times was a popular rental because it was something that a teenage kid could get his hands on in a time when naked breasts weren't a Google search away. I'm sure that had something to do with the scene's popularity. Surely the other three on the first list benefitted from being risque images either during a more conservative time (Andress and Welch), or being in a family-friendly film (Fisher.)

So with all of this in mind, I'm going to turn it over to you guys. First, are there any more recent scenes like this you think deserve to be called iconic? And then tell me what you think makes an iconic moment like this. I've bitched about T&A done wrong - how would you guys do it right?

Sex and the Screenwriter - Learning from Barbarella

A while back I cautioned against using some skeevy language in your screenplays when describing things like your lead female character's cleavage and revealing outfits. The thrust of that last post was that it'll seem gratuitous and creepy. There was another reason in there that I didn't really address - suppose you send a script to Jessica Alba, or Rachel McAdams, or Natalie Portman, and every other line of description is fixated on explaining just how tight her ass is, or how much of her bra is peaking out from her blouse. Don't you think it might repulse her a little - or at least make her uncomfortable about the role?

There's no reason to go into deep detail about how much flesh is exposed or how revealing a character's outfit is. Yes, if it's important that a character is in her underwear, just write "underwear" or "lingerie." If for some reason it's vitally important that we see her breasts, feel free to write "low cut," and if it's a beach scene and we need to know that the character is in a bikini, write "bikini." But that's really as far as you need to go.

As a point of comparison, I looked up a draft of the planned BARBARELLA remake. This particular draft is dated 10-12-07 and is credited to Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. I picked this script for a very specific reason - anyone familiar with the 1968 film (adapted from a French comic book of the same name) is well aware that the main attraction of the film was to put Jane Fonda in as many revealing outfits and sexual situations as possible. It comes very close to being sci-fi soft-core porn.



Among the more memorable moments of the film are a zero gravity striptease that opens the film, performed by Fonda and in particular, a sequence in which she's captured and subjected to torture in a machine that... oh man, how do I put this delicately... is designed to... pleasure her to death.

I swear I am not making this up.



In any event, we're all clear about what kind of movie this is, right? So any modern update would probably have the screenplay slobbering all over the costume changes that the lead actress would be making in the course of the film, right?

Wrong. The first time the title character stands revealed, this is EXACTLY how she and her clothing are described: "She is barely dressed in a stunning, skimpy gold outfit. No visible weapons other than her hypnotic presence."

See what's missing? No discussions of her breast size. No notation that her breasts are exposed right up to the nipple. No mention of how skimpy her thong is or her curves, or how she's on the verge of bursting out of her bra. The word cleavage isn't even invoked. In fact, that word doesn't appear once in the script. "Breast" only appears four times, three of those in reference to Barbarella's breastplate, and none of those references are particularly skeevy.

Later, when she changes into another outfit, this is the extent of the description: "in her almost transparent costume (notable for its plastic breastplate)." Even further into the script, she's offered an outfit that is repeatedly described with the adjective "amazing," and when she finally puts it on, this is as far as Purvis and Wade take it: "Barbarella in her most iconic outfit yet... stepping out in her full glory."

The sex scenes are also fairly sparse in their description and the nude scenes do little more than mention the fact that the character is naked. There is no prose that lingers on painting a picture of the naked character.

I think that's more than enough to make my point. If the BARBARELLA remake writers find it's acceptable to be coy in writing about their lead character's skimpy outfits, there should be no reason to get overly sexual in your standard dramas, comedies, thrillers, or any other genre.

If you find your writing fixating on those details, do your script and your reader a favor and take a cold shower.

“She bends over, exposing her ample cleavage.”

I see that line, or some variation thereof, FAR too often in the first fifteen pages of scripts I read – a completely gratuitous cleavage shot. There are a lot of aspiring screenwriters out there in need of cold showers. Sex and sexy girls aren’t bad – just make sure there’s a reason you’re getting your hot-bodied police detective to parade around in her Victoria’s Secrets.

Ironically, I get the sense that a lot of writers put scenes like this in as a way of claiming they’re writing strong female characters. If a woman uses her assets cunningly to distract and manipulate a man, she’s got to be smart, right?

Wrong. We see right through that, and usually the actress will too. In fact, it might even appear degrading to the characters – both the one doing the flashing and the one being flashed. Sometimes that’s exactly what the scene needs and if it serves a function, go for it.

But if your only thought here is “BOOBIES!” your reader is just going to roll his eyes and call that a clean strike.

And in case you’re putting this in there to make sure that your lead actress is stunning, ask yourself this: when was the last time Hollywood ever cast an ugly girl in the lead?