Our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomyhas been rebranded as Anatomy of a Nude Scene, but nothing else has changed. We're still going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, American Pie becomes a cultural phenomenon thanks in no small part to Shannon Elizabeth's amazing nude scene—and its dark undertones.
For a film as steeped in sex and sexual lore asAmerican Pie, one could be forgiven for expecting more nudity in the flick. Don't get me wrong, Shannon Elizabeth's topless scene ranks among the best of the 90s, but compared with its forebears like Porky's, Animal House, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it's downright prudish. None of the film's other stars—Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Alyson Hannigan, Natasha Lyonne, or Jennifer Coolidge—show anything below their bare shoulders. Shannon Elizabeth stands alone amongst her cast mates, the only one to go topless in this film.
While American Piewas certainlyat the forefront of the new teen sex comedy boom, the films that followed like Road Trip, Van Wilder, EuroTrip, and even American Pie's own sequelscontained far more nudity than this film. While there's obviously no direct correlation between how much nudity a teen sex comedy has and how well it's remembered, but it seems the ones that are best remembered are the ones that have nudity in them. The lack of nudity certainly hasn't hurt some well-regarded teen sex comedies like Superbad, but what is it about American Pie that makes it an outlier?
First and foremost, consider the time in which the film was released. Other teen-oriented comedies released in theyear or soleading up to American Pie included She's All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, Can't Hardly Wait, Never Been Kissed, Drive Me Crazy, the list goes on and on with almost exclusively PG-13 films. The films are mostly devoid of sex or sexual content, except in very vague, often chaste notions. American Pie, on the other hand, was focused firmly on sex and a virginity pact the film's major male characters engage in, making it feel more "real" to actual teens and young people.
Then there's Shannon Elizabeth's nude scene, which played like the Porky's shower scene for the digital age, except with only one woman, and this time, she's the one who suffers the punishment doled out for the act. It's not played as some great injustice in the film, nor should it have been. It's more like a bump on Jim's road to putting his dick in something that's not an apple pie.Shannon's charactersolely exists because the plot requires her to be a fantasy spoiler for the main character: A willing, more sexually experienced woman offers the virginal guy the chance to close the deal, and he just can't do it.
Shannon plays Czechoslovakian exchange student Nadia, who agrees to help main character Jim (Jason Biggs) study at his house after ballet class. Knowing that she's going to have to change out of her ballet togs, Stifler (Seann William Scott) persuades Jim to let him rig his bedroom with a webcam so they can spy on Nadia while she changes...
Nadia, so comfortable in Jim's empty teenage boy bedroom apparently, then begins to touch herself, prompting Jim's friends who have been watching remotely, to persuade him to go back and see if he can make something happen with a clearly randy Nadia. The link to the webcam is then accidentally shared with the entire school, which means that all of Jim's classmates get to see him suffer the humiliating ordeal of prematurely ejaculating twice in a two minute span after Nadia agrees to sleep with him...
As a result of this, Nadia's sponsors decide to send her back to Czechoslovakia, and the boys who set up the webcam and broadcast a nude video of their classmate to everyone in the school suffer absolutely no consequences. Although this is obviously extremely accurate to the kind of punishment that might have been doled out at the time, it sits uncomfortably at best in 2020. I know you can't judge a 1999 movie by 2020 standards, but the lack of consequences for Jim and Stifler and the gang was kinda mind-blowing even 21 years ago.
The whole scenario is played for laughs, and the film overall, maintains an air of sweetness that makes it too difficult to dislike. The script has some sharp insights into the teen experience, particularly as it pertains to that age old ritual of losing one's virginity, and it treats most of its characters fairly, but this lingering air of trouble hovers around this one scene.
So, how does Shannon Elizabeth feel about the scene now? In a 2019 interview with Page Six, the actress says that she has no regrets, but does question the film's double standard in terms of the character's punishment...
“Gosh, do I get sent home?” Elizabeth asked, adding, “If this had come out after the #MeToo movement, there would definitely be a problem. I think that it would have gone down differently.”
She does, however, praise the way the directors chose to shoot the scene, closing down the set in proper terms, leaving her in the room with only one crew member...
“It was a closed set and it was just me in this room and the boom guy above me,” she recalled of filming the now-famous scene. “I was like, ‘This is so weird.’ It was square room they had built in the middle of a warehouse and we made everyone that didn’t need to be there leave set. That’s the main thing I remember, just me and the boom guy, and trying to make jokes with the directors and make light of it because if I wasn’t nervous maybe they wouldn’t be so nervous … I just tried to make it no big deal.”
Ultimately, though, she takes the whole thing of being labeled a "sex symbol" in stride...
“I am honored by it,” Elizabeth, 45, told Page Six of the label. “But there’s a part of my being that doesn’t believe it. You know, like, no that’s not me … I almost don’t associate with it because, I don’t know, it’s just so surreal to me” She added, “To be remembered I think for anything and anything positive in that sense, I mean, I’m blessed and grateful for it. I really, really am.”
I can assure you, Ms. Elizabeth, you'll never be forgotten!
Catch up with some other popular editions of our ongoing series Anatomy of a Nude Scene
—Helen Hunt Does Her Best Nudity at 48 in The Sessions
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—Chloë Sevigny Goes Down in History forThe Brown Bunny
—Margot Robbie MakesThe Wolf of Wall Streeta Skinstant Classic
—Lindsay Lohan Finally Goes Topless inThe Canyons
—Julianne Moore Proves She's a Real Redhead inShort Cuts
—Classic Horror Gets a Nudity Upgrade with Bram Stoker's Dracula
—You, Your Mom, and Everyone Else Saw Kate Winslet's Boobs in Titanic
—Did Sienna Miller and Anakin Skywalker Really Do It in Factory Girl?
—Drive Angry Cribs a Fantastically Crazy Sex Scene from Shoot 'Em Up
