Episode 32: Male Nudity in Cinema w/ Alexandra Heller-Nicholas & Peter Lehman

And now for something completely different. I sat down with film professor Prof. Peter Lehman and horror scholar Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas to discuss male nudity in cinema. We discuss our connections with the topic, the phallus vs the penis, rape revenge, the pitfalls of “respectable cinema,” the prosthetic penis and a lot more. I’m so glad and grateful that I had a chance to talk to these bona fide experts about a topic that I have been wondering about for a very long time. I hope you take something away from this unusual film exploration.

Illustration by Karolin Schnoor

A Selection of Peter Lehman’s Work:

Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body

Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture

Pornography: Film and Culture

Peter Lehman’s Arizona State University Profile

A Selection of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ Work:

Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study

1000 Women In Horror, 1895-2018

The Giallo Canvas: Art, Excess and Horror Cinema

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ Website

Watching Rape, the book Alexandra mentions

Wesley Morris’ NY Times article on Black male sexuality

Films mentioned:

• The Virgin Spring (1960)

• Drive, He Said (1971)

• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)

• Last House on the Left (1972)

• I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

• Sweet Savage (1979)

• A Room with a View (1985)

• Drifting Into Chaos (1989)

• The Pillow Book (1996)

• Traps (1998)

• Baise Moi (2000)

• Django Unchained (2012)

• PVT Chat (2020)

• Zola (2020)

• Minx (2022-)

Kevin Bacon’s penis PSA

Lastly, thank you to Karolin Schnoor for the encouragement and for making the brilliant illustration!