In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, we're 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. If last week's threesome from A Clockwork Orange moved a little too fast for your taste, this week we're taking this threesome thing nice and slow with one of the sleaziest major studio films of the 90s, 1998's Wild Things.
Director John McNaughton began his narrative feature directing career with 1986's masterful Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, before moving into a more comedic zone with his films The Borrower and Mad Dog Glory. By the time he came to 1998's Wild Things, his best days were far behind him, and he hasn't risen even to this relatively low level again. In that respect, Wild Things feels like an aces out on the table shot at the director to regain the respectability that had begun to elude him.
Matt Dillon was right on the cusp of his late-90s renaissance with There's Something About Mary literally right around the corner. Kevin Bacon was enjoying a renaissance period of his own, with the game Six Degrees of Kevin Baconmorphing into an appreciation ofthe prolific actor. McNaughton also convinced no less actors than Robert Wagner and Bill Murray to have glorified cameos.
And the female stars... Denise Richards was hot off of a three-episode arc on Melrose Place that put her on the map, and many fanboys had left Starship Troopers disappointed that she was the only major female character not to get nude in the film. Neve Campbell was one of the hottest things on the planet with her domination of both the big screen with the Scream films, but also the small screen thanks to Party of Five. Add in femme fatale extraordinaire Theresa Russell as Richards' mom and Daphne Rubin-Vega, hot off the biggest Broadway show in a generation, Rent, and you've got a formidable quartet of powerful women
The material, however, was cheesy exploitational trash, but that was all the rage again thanks to the collective Gen-X apathy that had allowed cynicism to sell via Quentin Tarantino and his acolytes. Wild Things sort of hit at that right moment when a large chunk of kids born in the late 70s and early 80s were coming of age and this flick seemed like a fantasy wish fulfillment for surviving puberty. Two of the hottest actresses on the planet are gonna have a threesome with Dallas from The Outsiders—which everyone of that generation watched rather than read the book.
The film's many plot threads from the first act of the film—that finds Dillon's teacher being accused of unwanted sexual advances by two students, preppy Richards and goth Campbell—all come together 50 minutes in when it's revealed that the three have been in cahoots this entire time in a scheme to bilk Richards' rich family of its wealth and status. There are a series of double and triple crosses that follow, and the film is a tangled mess of threads that never quite unravel in a satisfactory way.
But that threesome. Oh, that threesome. It's one of those seminal moments in film that has grown in legend over time. It only occupies about two minutes of screen time in a hundred and eight minute movie, but it's all anyone remembers—well, almost, we'll get to that other (wild) thing in a moment. It's absolutely bonkers to me that this scene has continued to prevail as one of the most fondly remembered and hottest threesomes in cinema history, especially considering that only one actress shows her breasts.
Think about it, this is one of those ones where the memory of it is better than the real thing. That's no knock against the real thing, as it's sleazily well done, but it's almost not as great as you remember. It's great, I promise, but your memory of it is better...
Anyone hoping against hope that Neve Campbell would also go nude in the film was crushed when she just whipped her shirt off with her back to the camera before joining the fun...
The film wasn't a smash hit, but it was successful. I also guarantee that—like another film of this same ilk, Now You See Me—no one gave the movie itself a second thought after it was over. None of the double and triple crosses make sense or hold up to scrutiny, which is why this scene looms so large in the conscience. It's more or less all the movie has going for it.
Wild Things is a guilty pleasure movie, at best, so this scene kind of means everything to a lot of the men who claim to love it. It's the ultimate male fantasy, a threesome with both the most popular girl in school, and the shytroubledgirl who's probably a powder keg in the sack! Every heterosexual male that's ever lived has had that exact same fantasy, and that's exactly what Wild Things is appealing to in those men. It informs every decision made in the film, particularly the next one we're going to discuss.
One of the things that made people, at the time at least, hail the film as some sort of gender equality masterpiece was Kevin Bacon's full frontal scene.It brings the movie to a screeching halt, not because a reasonably likable actor's dick is hanging out, but because we have to allow Matt Dillon's character a beat to let all the bros in the audience still rooting for his character to know he's "no homo."
I'll never, ever forget the laugh that reveal got in the theater, possibly one of the biggest laughs in a movie theaters during a non-comedy that I've witnessed since the jogging scene in Boxing Helena. Come to think of it, that will never be topped, at least by me.
Anyway, there's not really an overt come-on from Bacon nor an outright rejection from Dillon, but the movie takes a beat to let all thedudes in the audience know there's not gonna be any of that in this movie! No respectable "Movie for Guys Who Like Movies" is going to broach that subject, at least not without some sort of slur being hurled. As much as we may want to consider Bacon's full frontal scene some sort of watershed moment for dicks on screen, it's nothing more than a literal bone thrown to the women (and by proxy, gay men) in the audience who've had to sit through some pretty gratuitous female nude scenes.
Wild Things isn't some progressive relic of a time whengender equality amongst nude sceneswas just coming into being, it's a skeezy exploitation movie that happened to capitalize on the wild and sudden popularity ofits much younger starsDenise Richards and Neve Campbell. It had its shot at being a more sexually fluid film by having any of the sexual encounters be anything but die-hard heterosexual fantasies, or quickly tossed off punchlines hinting at a more progressive earlier draft, but that clearly wasn't where Wild Things wanted to hang its hat.
Were it not for the caliber of actors in the film—it co-stars Bill Murray for cripes sake—don't be surprised if an alternate universe exists where thiswas justa direct-to-Skinemax classic. As it stands, we can thank our lucky stars at least one of those actresses chose to go nude in her prime.
Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—The "Real Sex" ofDon't Look Now
—Scarlett Johansson's Nude Debut inUnder the Skin
—The 2 Very Different Sex ScenesofBasic Instinct
—How Halle Berry's Nude Debut Led Her toMonster's Ball
—HowMulholland Dr.'s Legendary Lesbian Scenes Deepen the Film's Mystery
—Showgirlsand the Dangers of High Camp
—Rosario Dawson Laid Bare for Danny Boyle'sTrance
—Katie Holmes MakesThe GiftWorth Remembering
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age inThe Hot Spot
—Lisa Bonet's Bloody Nude Debut inAngel Heart
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—Stanley Kubrick, The William Tell Overture, and A Clockwork Orange
