On HBO's "Girls" being naked vs. being nekkid

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I was immediately drawn to a story about excessive and gratuitous nudity on the HBO show “Girls” because I enjoy controversy and because I invariably read any story that includes the words “Girls” and “nudity” in the headline.

The controversy stems from a Hollywood press conference where Tim Molloy, TV critic for TheWrap.com asked star Lena Dunham the following:

“I don’t get the purpose of all of the nudity on the show, by you particularly, and I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you go, ‘Nobody complains about the nudity on ‘Game of Thrones,’ but I get why they are doing it… They are doing it to be salacious and, you know, titillate people. And your character is often naked just at random times for no reason.”

I must begin by confessing I’m the kind of guy who still reflexively snickers when he sees the word “titillate.” And I don’t watch “Girls” and sense no overwhelming cultural pressure to do so. But from what I know about the show, it sounded like a fair question: if the nudity doesn’t either advance the plot or figure in romantic situations, what’s the point?

Well, Dunham took the question as an unkind shot at her appearance and said if Molloy “wasn’t into her” then that was his problem and he should see a psychiatrist. 

Producer Judd Apatow seethed that Molloy’s question meant he is a sexist misogynist, a career-killer label in PC Hollywood that’s only slightly worse than acknowledging aloud Adam Sandler movies suck. 

Best of all was fellow producer Jenni Konner who said the question caused her to fly into what she said was a “rage spiral.” I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds like it’d be more fun to watch than anything she’s produced for “Girls.”

Dunham also said her nudity was a “realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive.”

True, but so are things like snoring and runny noses, but that doesn’t mean they make for compelling television.

But what about non-sexual nudity, nudity just for the sake of being naked?

The question reminds me of the late Lewis Grizzard, the wonderful Southern humorist, who made a distinction between being naked and being what he described as nekkid.

“Naked,” he wrote, “is when you’re not wearing any clothes. Nekkid is when you’re not wearing any clothes and you’re up to something.”

I’d watch Lena Dunham if she was nekkid, but have no real interest in seeing her naked and, say, fixing a clogged sink.

Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I just don’t feel the need to be naked in my house the way “Girls” stars apparently do. Females, of course, don’t need to fear risking getting dangly parts of themselves slammed in kitchen cupboards or snagged in an inconveniently placed fan that’s set to oscillate. 

Yes, nudity is a “realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive,” but I find clothes offer practical utility when hot bacon grease starts to spatter.

This doesn’t make me a prude.

In fact, it makes me a nudist.

During the summer of 2011, I was for about three weeks the nation’s foremost reporter of recreational nudism. I was doing offbeat travel features for msnbc.com and learned that National Nude Recreation Week is -- mark your calendars! -- the second week in July.

The experience taught me a lot about nudity. I learned there are nude-only cruise ships. I learned nude recreation is gaining in popularity. I learned a game of 8 ball played by two naked men is still called 8 ball.

And I learned nudists make sensible distinctions about when it’s prudent to be nude.

I learned this because I began every interview with more than two dozen nudists with whom I talked with the same question: “Are you wearing any clothes right now?”

Invariably, they were. It turns out most nudists -- even those toiling in nudist professions -- wear clothes when they’re not at nudist resorts.

Or as one woman told me: “Nudists may enjoy being naked at the beach or by a pool, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like having someplace handy to put the car keys.”

Well, someplace comfortable.

So let’s not get all pretentiously artistic about being nude on TV. 

You’re not empowering women. You’re not in any way keeping it real. You’re not being edgy.

You’re being boring.

And that’s not from some TV critic.

That’s from some nudists.

Related . . .

Happy National Nude Recreation Week!

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A naked solution to swimsuit controversy

Naked advice on marital discord

All we are saying is give corn puns a chance

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I dreamt last night I was at my articulate best as I addressed for hours on end acres and acres of highly attentive corn that hung on my every word.

Yes, the audience was all ears.

I say that’s a contender for the corniest pun ever.

Right now many of you are probably thinking of the famous quote that “puns are the lowest form of humor.”

Every time I hear that line I think the person who coined it must have died before Adam Sandler began making movies.

And I was correct. The quote is attributed to American wit Oscar Levant who died in 1972, 35 years before Sandler released “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.”

Some say it was Wisconsin columnist Doug Larson, but I’m going with Levant for reasons of regional prejudice. Yes, Levant was a Pittsburgher. More about him in a bit.

So why disparage the pun?

Is it because deciphering some puns require thought?

For instance: “Chances of getting rope aficionados to call themselves ‘Knotsies’ are about the same as getting florists to say they’re petalphiles.”

It’s a very daring pun, isn’t it? And appreciating it requires a limber intellect and by that I mean it’s not the kind of joke you’d tell Donald Trump, a man who looks like his idea of funny is the reaction he gets every time he evicts a widow.

I’m being honest when I say it took me about six months to think that one up. Understand, I wasn’t standing in a room wearing a lab coat and drawing schematic puns on a great big chalk board all that time.

No, but once it dawned on me a phonetic spelling of Nazis could look like something people who loved rope tricks would appreciate, it began to fester.

Compared to that triumph, it was fairly easy to declare any savage who feasts on human flesh but insists on dainty portions be called a “cannibler.”

I like coming up with grammar puns: “A person who believes in the Socialistic use of unnecessary punctuation is a commanist.”

I like Stooge-based puns: “A mohawk is an unconventional hairstyle. A Moe Hawk is an irrationally angry bird that inflicts cartoon violence on a Curley Hawk.”

Tree puns have a place, believing as I do that romantic trees can never be “too sappy.”

I sometimes have an itch for culinary puns such as: “Chefs with rashes are always busy cooking from scratch.”

I even like porn puns: “It’s surprising more male adult film actors aren’t described as ‘swell.’”

How I’ve never heard of Oscar Levant until today is a mystery.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1906, this composer, author, pianist, actor was a man of apparent brilliance. His abrasive wit on a 1930s and ‘40s national radio quiz show made him a coast-to-coast sensation.

John Kieran, a fellow panelist, said Levant had “a positive genius for making offhand cutting remarks that couldn’t have been sharper if he’d honed them a week in his mind.”

His most prominent film role was in 1951’s “An American in Paris” with fellow Pittsburgher Gene Kelly.

His unshackled ribaldry led to controversy in 1956 when news that Marilyn Monroe had converted to Judaism after marrying playwright Arthur Miller, causing Levant remark on live TV, “Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, I guess it’s okay for Arthur Miller to eat her.”

As naughty puns go, that one is downright delicious.

Levant, later defended himself saying, “I hadn’t meant it that way.”

The scamp.

Back then a really good racy pun could spark controversy. Today it takes Miley Cyrus and her big foam finger.

Kind of makes you wonder what it’ll take to be controversial in the year 2063, doesn’t it?

It was Levant who is credited with first saying, “A pun is the lowest form of humor . . .”

But few know that what Levant said next was, “. . .but just when you don’t think of it first.”

So there.

I hope this nimble little dissertation convinces you to shuck your inhibitions about reveling in really corny puns.

Because now you know there’s no truth to the belief that puns are the lowest form of humor.

No truth at all.

Not so much as a single kernel.

Related . . .

Pittsburgh needs a Gene Kelly statue

“Lone Ranger,” “Grown Ups II” and what’s wrong with Hollywood

"Lone Ranger," "Grown Ups 2" & what's wrong with Hollywood

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The admission, I know, makes me appear petty, but I always have a spring in my step the Monday after a really big budget movie bombs.

This runs contrary to my every instinct to exalt creative people in whatever they’re endeavoring to do.

I encourage struggling artists, musicians and writers, even as I know I’d be better off if every other writer simultaneously decided it was time to just give up.

But when a $225 million movie like “The Lone Ranger” earns just $45 million, I have to keep from razzing out loud: “Good for you, you bums. You stink! I hope you trip on your next red carpet!” 

Some experts are blaming the bomb on their belief that the movie is a Western and Westerns since 1975 have underperformed. A USA Today article lumped “Lone Ranger” in with Will Smith’s “Wild, Wild West” (1999) and “Cowboys & Aliens” (2011) as indicative that movie goers disdain Westerns.

Well, take it from someone who for about two hours every weekend manages to find time to enjoy some vintage John Wayne movie, nothing about the three above mentioned flicks seems Western to me.

They were action films, little different from ones about cartoon superheroes. I saw Johnny Depp as Tonto and thought, “Oh, joy, it’s old Jack Sparrow on a pony. Not for me.”

True Westerns include the recent blockbuster remake of Wayne’s “True Grit,” and “Django Unchained,” a Western I skipped it because I don’t want to endorse Quentin Tarantino’s brand of hyper-violence that by comparison make zombie films seem dainty.

No great Westerns since 1975? Horse poop.

I still watch “Unforgiven,” (1992), “3:10 to Yuma” (2007), “The Outlaw Josie Wales” (1976), “Pale Rider” (1985), “Tombstone” (1993), and think “Silverado” from 1985 is as entertaining a Western as anything ever filmed by The Duke.

And who could forget the one of the greatest TV miniseries of all-time, the sublime “Lonesome Dove,” and, yeah, I still get the shivers every time I recall the hanging of Jake Spoon.

I think the thing that infuriates me about Hollywood is there is no real minor league.

Fail repeatedly at any other job and you get demoted or fired. A beloved slugger gets sent to the minors when he can no longer belt the curve; floors in an architect’s building cave and it’s back to designing Taco Bells; writers who come up with too many loser book proposals get banished to the literary underbelly of blogger irrelevance.

And, hey, thanks for stopping by!

My point is life is a meritocracy.

Just not in Hollywood.

If it was we wouldn’t this week all be overexposed to Adam Sandler, who is everywhere giving us a perfect example of precisely what’s wrong with the film industry.

I thought there must be some mistake when I saw a promotion for “Grown Ups.” That stinker was three years old. Then I realized there had indeed been a mistake -- and Hollywood is making it.

This is “Grown Ups 2!”

I couldn’t believe it. 

The original 2010 movie did well at the box office. Of course it did. It starred Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade. But I detected no cultural groundswell of movie goers clamoring for a sequel to a movie that scored 9 percent on www.rottentomatoes.com.

Yet, that’s exactly what we’re getting.

Have these people no artistic integrity? 

Apparently not.

It would be one thing if I could ignore the movie, which I’ll certainly do. But it will be impossible for anyone to ignore the promotion.

This morning the cast was yukking it up on the set of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” It wasn’t just a guest promo either. They were on for the whole show. So, clearly, whomever owns ABC has a vested interest in “Grown Ups 2” succeeding.

We are suffocating from a conspiracy of mediocrity.

I think I’ll write a screenplay about a has-been Hollywood actor who gets busted down to re-appreciate his craft by running a high school drama club out in the middle of nowhere.

It’s going to have a happy ending, I promise.

He’ll never be heard from again.

Related . . .

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Trouble with the Curve? Trouble with the critics

Hollywood’s best year? 1993

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