HE reader Salvador Perez wrote this morning to complain about a nearly three-week-old remark in my Toronto Film Festival review of Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I felt it was a mistake for Elizabeth Banks to be apparently wearing jeans (or a jean skirt) right after having on-camera sex with Seth Rogen. Who wears anything while shooting a sex scene in a low-rent amateur porn film, which is what the shot is? Perez said what I saw “wasn’t a mistake [because] Miri was wearing a denim miniskirt that was hiked up during sex.”
“Yeah, Kevin Smith pointed that out to me also,” I replied. “Of course, no woman in the history of softcore or hardcore porn has ever, ever had sex with a jean skirt on. Or a Hugo Boss business suit or a hoop dress or a soccer outfit or overalls. The point of softcore or hardcore, after all, is to turn the viewer on to some extent, and in a way that is obvious to the dumbest viewer out there. And altogetherness is generally more arousing than flesh covered with garments.
“That said, a woman wearing a jean skirt during a sex scene is an interesting way to go about things if you’re shooting such a scene in a real movie. It’s realistic in a sense and even mildly hot if you think about it. David Fincher, Kathryn Bigelow, Lars von Trier, Sam Mendes, Carlos Reygadas or Martin Scorsese might conceivably a shoot a sex scene in which the woman hasn’t taken off her jean skirt. But no way would a group of improvising non-pros looking to make a popular porno do this. No. Way. At. All.”