Things are not exactly the same like it was in the late 60s and 70s.

Even by the standards of the 80's and 90's movies nowadays are deeply conservative when it comes to nudity or sensuality... I cant remembee seeing nudity in a recent film that wasnt a joke or male... even worse, i dont remember any initimate scene that was actually "hot" from a mainstream movie in the last decade, whether it had nudity or not...

Film has become so infantalised over the past decade or so...

According to this article https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/how-steven-spielberg-ruined-the-movies/ it's Spielberg's fault.

"It’s not his blockbusters that should worry Molly Haskell, but the way Spielberg has infantalised the movie audience"

Yeah, there is some truth in that, but he's just part of it... The big studios realised that they could sell product more widely if they just removed any idiosyncratic or adult elements... This allowed moviemakers like Spielberg and Lucas to make their toy and kid movies on a large scale... Here's an article on it (from the Indiana Jones days) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1981/06/15/whipped The author even goes further to suggest that there are no real human characters on the big screen anymore... Which is kinda true in a way...

Fast forward to today and it's even worse as the studios no longer even make the mid-budget adult drama, or the mid-budget genre movie with adult themes... Only Comic Book movies, CGI cartoons and CGI de-sexualised action movies... Oh, yeah, they'll also make a few prestige movies come Oscar season mostly about victims of some sort... It's all so corporate, in the 70's Chinatown was a big movie, I can't even see it being made today...

It seems to see a man and a woman hold one another, or just some tasteful side-boob, you either have to watch a euromovie or an R-rated low-budget horror...

TV seems to be going in the opposite direction.

@thebarnman said:

According to this article https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/how-steven-spielberg-ruined-the-movies/ it's Spielberg's fault.

"It’s not his blockbusters that should worry Molly Haskell, but the way Spielberg has infantalised the movie audience"

I like some Spielberg stuff, but overall I'm not a huge fan. I respect what he's accomplished, but I don't really like the influence he's had on Hollywood. Since his movies started coming out in the 70s and 80s the studios have basically just continued to follow his format and tone to this day.

But on the other hand you can just argue his films fit with the mainstream mentality, and if he didn't create his movies someone else would have created something similar and those films would have caught on.

For some reason, perhaps related to that link you guys posted--no, ABSOLUTELY related to that link because Google is a creepy stalker--an interview popped up in my YT recommend list in which Terry Gilliam was interviewed about his opinion of Schindler's List. He related how Stanley Kubrick approached dark subjects and related his very negative feelings about Spielberg's process, which tends to lead to satisfied moviegoers who aren't challenged by the material. I appreciate his line of (cynical) thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAKS3rdYTpI

As far as nudity goes, I'm on the fence. Sure, I love the female form in almost all shapes and sizes, so long as the woman is comfortable with herself and shaves her legs so they don't look like freaking wool socks. However, we have a double-standard. We expect to see female nudity in an R-rated movie, but rarely do we seek movies with male nudity. (I doubt a lot of women cry out when an R-Rated movie doesn't feature a full-frontal from a male movie star.)

I'm a heterosexual male, but I can appreciate a guy who keeps himself in shape, or laugh (when intended) at a guy with a dad bod. In fact, when a top talent movie star does display nudity, especially if the guy's well endowed, it's all anyone can talk about. (Think Fassbender in Shame or Ewan MacGregor in Trainspotting.) It doesn't bother me if they go full frontal with a guy, as they did in The Crying Game, Shame, or Trainspotting, as long as it fits the narrative.

I'd like to see nudity demystified, but I'd also like to see folks drop this expectation that women display themselves. I've seen enough sex comedies where women's tops are removed for no other reason than to titillate the male audience and it's gotten old. It doesn't make me a prude, rather it just demeans me to watch a film where they're just looking for an excuses to flash some skin. If the movie is genuinely sensual and the nudity is appropriate, I'm all for it. It can add a level of realism and intimacy to the film. But for a movie like Baywatch, I just don't see the point unless we're going for a Porky's or Police Academy vibe. I've been there and done that. And I've got other sources if all I want to see is women's T&A.

I'll wait for the porn parady fap fap

I haven't seen the Baywatch movie, but from the OP I gather there was no female nudity in it (which is what I expected-- that it would have no female nudity).

Like many of the people commenting, I too have noticed that, from roughly the mid-1990s through the present, female nudity in American films receiving a large theatrical release has largely disappeared.

There are some good comments in this thread, but from my perspective there are two other significant reasons behind this:

The novelty has worn off. Beginning in the 1970s, it became socially acceptable in the U.S. film industry to show nudity in major films (it was around before then, but it was not common). So, a lot of directors put nudity in their films just because they could, and this lasted right through the 1980s but eventually the "newness" of it wore off and by sometime in the 1990s, nudity started to be featured less often; and plus, I really got the sense that there was a lot of pushback from female audience members who were just tired of having often gratuitous female nudity thrown into a film for no good reason.

And, secondly, money. We can complain all we want that the movie industry has watered down good franchises with PG-13 sequels or is just releasing more PG-13 movies in general rather than release a more "intense" hard R film, but the fact is, PG-13 films (and below) rake in far more money, as a group, than do R-rated films. Despite all the teenage bravado of saying "I'll just sneak in", most teens don't seem to be able to (at least I don't see many at the R-rated films I see in the theater). And, even if they did "sneak in", that would imply they weren't paying (no money for the film industry).

Also, I've noticed more movie theaters really cracking down and requiring ID for anyone they suspect might be under 17/18 trying to pay and get in at the ticket counters.

Not to mention the PG Disney/Pixar films-- these are guaranteed cash cows for both the studios and the theaters (ticket sales/concessions, respectively), with loads of parents and their very young children coming in.

All of these factors together have greatly diminished the desire for major movie studios to finance/promote films which feature nudity (and thus would get the R rating).

Good points... I think it's cultural as well as commercial... It seems there is a fear of the sensual...

I think most teenagers and many young men would rather see a CGI or animation boob then a real one on the big screen...

It's funny, TV seems to have more nudity but even there it's primarily done for titillation or shock value, rather than being a sensual or emotional part of the story...

I suspect that there are even fewer kisses in movies nowadays then before, but I can't verify it... It seems even very PG shows like Mad Men are much "hotter" than most movies today even though they weren't even allowed to show nudity...