Feature – British Stars in Hollywood

This article first appeared in Media Magazine – https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk

The transatlantic migration of British talent has always been a recurring problem for our media industries. Ewan MacGregor and Keira Knightley, who both began their careers in British television, are now major Hollywood stars; Ricky Gervais, Simon Pegg and Sacha Baron Cohen have followed this trend and crossed over into American cinema. However, these stars have each made a very different impact on this market; here, John Branney explores how each has used television in a very different way to achieve this success.

Sacha Baron Cohen came to the public’s attention whilst working on The Eleven O’clock Show (1998). In the streetwise guise of Ali G, he attacked and ridiculed public figures but at the same time provided an intelligent social commentary. This mix of social satire and comedy of embarrassments proved a huge hit with British audiences resulting in Cohen being given his own television programme, Da Ali G Show, which aired on Channel Four. Cohen’s character was so popular that he crossed-over into cinema with Ali G Indahouse (2002) and then eventually into the American television market. To help sell the product to the Americans, he made a short film, Spyz (2003), featuring Ali G as James Bond. This subversive pastiche of the stereotypical British spy was enough to convince HBO to commission an American version of Da Ali G Show.

Invisible actor, embarrassing characters

Cohen’s characters are generally the stars; he rarely appears publicly as himself, and features on talk shows in the personas of Ali G and Borat. What is interesting about this situation is the cultural position of the characters he has created, and his treatment by the media. It is the characters that he creates that make racist and sexist comments and never Cohen himself. He is never held accountable for the comments that his characters make on our society. Although his characters are never considered to be ‘real’, the world in which they exist and the people that they meet and embarrass do operate in the real world.

The character of Borat, the Kazakhstan television reporter, is particularly interesting. It is with this character that he chose to attack American society in the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006). Borat’s attack on conservative America and his pursuit of his American dream – to be married to ‘Baywatch’ star Pamela Anderson – proved to much for some, and the film makers were threatened with various legal actions. However, Sacha Baron Cohen’s popularity has remained undiminished. He has appeared in the popular American television series Curb your Enthusiasm and is set to appear in Tim Burton’s version of Sweeney Todd. Cohen has clearly used television as a platform where he allows us to accept the judgemental nature of his characters- and then exploited the medium of film to launch an attack on both conservative Britain and America. It is also interesting that due to his television profile it was his characters that garnered the attention and never the star behind them. This may have been different had Cohen begun his career in film.

Leaving Borat Behind

Ricky Gervais is another star from The Eleven O’Clock Show stable, who unlike Cohen has actively sought to leave the characters he created behind him is. His creation David Brent in the popular television series The Office has made Gervais a star in both Britain and America. Since the last episode aired four years ago, he has enjoyed success as a writer on The Simpsons, a stand-up comedian – and a Hollywood film star. He has been careful to avoid making snap decisions and has worked hard to avoid being overshadowed by his creations.

After the massive success of The Office, Gervais chose to focus on his stand-up material, making the point of allowing the public to differentiate between his television character and his public persona. He even made a joke about being called Brent in his Animals stand-up routine (2003). He also appeared as himself in a television interview with Larry David, star of Curb your Enthusiasm entitled Ricky Gervais meets…Larry David (2006) as well as being given the opportunity to write and star in an episode of The Simpsons entitled Homer Simpson, This is your Wife (2006). This was an interesting return to acting: although some of his characters traits were reminiscent of David Brent, the animated nature of his on-screen character never allowed the audience to fully make the connection with David Brent. Gervais had appeared in Alias the year before, but this did not garner the same attention from British audiences. The Office had also been syndicated internationally, which meant that new actors took on the lead. In the USA, David Brent was renamed Michael Scott, with Steve Carell in the lead role. This again helped the audience to differentiate the persona of David Brent from the actor Ricky Gervais, especially as they now had a completely new version.

Two years after The Office had finished in the UK, Gervais returned to television acting with Extras (2005) a co-production by the BBC and HBO (which had commissioned the American version of Da Ali G Show). This sitcom revolves around Andy Millman (Gervais), who works as an extra but finds himself in a number of embarrassing scenarios with famous Hollywood film stars. While its humour is similar to The Office’s focus on characters in extremely embarrassing situations, here it is the guest stars that prove more interesting, which has also helped to remove the focus from Gervais himself. Guest stars have included Samuel L. Jackson, Kate Winslet, David Bowie and Robert De Niro. The show does not rely on Millman in the same way that The Office relied on Brent; Gervais has now successfully separated his own star image from that of his characters. He has now made the successful transition from small screen to big screen in For your Consideration (2006), Night at the Museum (2006) and Stardust (2007). He has cleverly used television as a means of separating himself from his characters, whereas Sacha Baron Cohen used the medium to engage us with his characters on a long-term basis whilst the public knew almost nothing about him.

Reprising successful roles

Simon Pegg has managed to successfully combine his film and television career. He worked on a number of British comedy series before enjoying success as Tim Bisley in the popular sitcom Spaced (2001) (in which Ricky Gervais had a cameo role). Pegg utilised the television format as a vehicle for his own persona. The various film references and sarcastic comedy that Spaced became famous for were the same elements that brought him to the forefront with mainstream hits Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). Elements of both are evident in the series. In the opening sequence of the episode entitled Art, Tim has a nightmare about zombies after playing for too long on the video game Resident Evil; the episode was the inspiration for ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and the style of this episode is a clear indication of this. It is the supporting character of gun enthusiast Mike Watt, played by Nick Frost, that provides the link to Hot Fuzz. In various episodes of the series we see Tim and Mike pretending to shoot each other in slow motion, with various references to the films of John Woo and action stereotypes in general. This is especially evident in the episodes ‘Battles’ and ‘Gone’.

Pegg has now cemented his reputation in Hollywood by appearing in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and more recently starring in David Schwimmer’s film Run, Fat Boy, Run (2007). His success is similar to that of many British stars who find success in a specific television genre, and then repeat this success in their feature films.

Although not as established as some other British actors in Hollywood, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg have also managed to successfully translate their television work to that of feature films. All three may have used television as a platform in different ways but there is no doubting the power that television has in reaching an international audience and bringing British talent to the forefront.

Feature – Sound in the Cinema: The work of Walter Murch

This article first appeared in Media Magazine – https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk

It’s long been acknowledged that the editing process is a key element of film-making; but often this process is seen primarily in terms of images alone. Here John Branney considers the huge significance of sound design and foregrounds the work of Walter Murch, one of the greatest sound editors of all time.

Stanley Kubrick once famously remarked that what was truly original about the art of film-making, what distinguishes it from all the other arts, may be the editing process. The consistent use of computer-generated imagery has captivated audiences in contemporary American cinema and, therefore, their attentions seem to be fixed on its visceral experience. However, in the development of cinema, both as an art form and as entertainment, sound has had an important part to play. Walter Murch is arguably the most prominent figure in sound design and even coined the term ‘sound designer’ whilst working on Apocalypse Now (1979). He revolutionised Hollywood by introducing digital software, such as Avid and Final Cut Pro, in sound design.

It is easy to notice the complexities of sound design when watching a blockbuster where layers of sound have been painstakingly mixed down carefully to complement the elaborate visuals. However, it is the subtle use of sound that can be most exciting. Winner of two Oscars for sound editing (for Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, 1996), Murch came to the forefront of the film-making community with his work on Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974).

The sound of conversation

Murch had the opportunity to work on this film not only as a sound designer but also as film editor. The role of the sound recordist is directly referenced, as sound recording is a catalyst for the development of the film’s narrative. In the opening sequence, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is attempting to record a conversation in a crowded union square. During the recording, Caul comments that he doesn’t care what they are talking about, he just wants ‘a nice fat recording’. Here, the audience is focused on the use of sound and this sequence calls attention to the difficulty of sound recording itself. This was the first time Murch had edited a feature film. The three-minute zoom on which the film opens is filled with a barrage of noise. The audience has desperately to seek out Hackman’s character within the crowd; as the conversation is recorded the sound distorts and the audience can immediately recognise the importance of sound in the cinema. In this sequence Murch exemplifies Michel Chion’s idea of conceptual resonance, where sound changes the audience’s perception of the image. This is considered to be ‘pure cinema’, in that sound and image are working harmoniously together.

The sound of apocalypse

Murch had previously worked with Coppola on The Rain People (1969) but their collaborative dynamic became most evident to both audiences and critics with their work on Apocalypse Now. His dual role as editor of both sound and image allowed him to construct a complex synchronicity between sound and image. The mastery of Murch’s sound design is most evident in the infamous opening montage. The subjective use of internal diegetic sound allows the audience to view the environment from the perspective of Captain Benjamin L. Willard, played by Martin Sheen. As Murch points out in his article ‘Stretching sound to help the mind see’:

If the audience members can be brought to a point where they will bridge with their own imagination such an extreme distance between picture and sound, they will be rewarded with a correspondingly greater dimensionality of experience.

The audience knows that Willard is in his hotel room and the superimposition of images and the sounds that accompany them transport Willard’s mind back to the jungle. The audience is then invited into the subconscious of Willard, and Coppola develops this further throughout the film.

Apocalypse Now was the first to use the 70mm Dolby Stereo surround sound system. The six-track system incorporated the use of low frequency effects (LFE) and also introduced noise reduction. This allowed Murch to experiment with the multi-track surround sound system of sound design. This magnetic strip soundtrack system was the forerunner for the 5.1 system, which is still in use today and has been elaborated upon with the recent introduction of 7.1 surround. This is being commonly used on most high profile Blu Ray and HD DVD releases.

The use of the Dolby system is most apparent when Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) embarks on a helicopter attack on a village whilst playing ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. Murch has stated numerous times the difficulties he had when mixing the sequence. He had to take into consideration what he thought the audience would want to hear. It was during this sequence that Murch crafted the ‘two and a half’ rule, where the audience’s attention should focus on a maximum of two and a half sounds. Therefore, he took what was most important for that particular moment in the scene, whether it was Valkyries, helicopters or Kilgore himself, and made it the most prominent sound in that sequence. Acting as both sound editor and film editor meant that he had a greater level of control in what was being created. This Auteurist-like level of control meant that Murch had to have a greater understanding of how he could construct a scene with a specific audience emotion in mind.

Less sound is more sound

Although Murch has undoubtedly changed contemporary American cinema, there is still a great deal of progress to be made in the way that sound in used, especially in modern day blockbusters. Again in his article, ‘Stretching sound to help the mind see’, Murch remarked that:

The danger of present-day cinema is that it can suffocate its subjects by its very ability to represent them: it doesn’t possess the built-in escape valves of ambiguity that painting, music, literature, radio drama and black-and-white silent film automatically have simply by their virtue of their sensory incompleteness – an incompleteness that engages the imagination of the viewer as compensation for what is only evoked by the artist.

What Murch has contributed is, that by removing some sounds, audiences are given a greater opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of the film, because it is left to their imagination. The current trend, especially in the current influx of comic book adaptations appears to be that the audience requires thousands of complex layers of sound. The subjective use of sound pioneered by Murch is the direction that contemporary Hollywood needs to take in order to provide their audience with a satisfactory experience. Less is more.

The development of sound in the cinema has been complex. There were a great number of critics during the 1930s that complained the equipment required for sound recording restricted freedom and therefore experimentation. This is not the case in contemporary cinema. Walter Murch and other sound designers are now utilising the latest software, such as Avid, to create multi-track soundtracks. In an interview for the DVD version of The English Patient, Murch states that with digital sound design ‘you have a great deal of flexibility and power’. It would seem that this power has yet to be truly harnessed and that cinema has a great deal of progress to be made in the way that sound in utilised. In his forward to Michel Chion’s Audio Vision: Sound on Screen Murch declares that:

We gestate in sound and are born into sight. Cinema gestated in sight, and was born into sound.

It is said that cinema is still in its infancy when compared to other art forms and one can only imagine the potential of sound to develop further.

Feature – Celebrity Tweets: Twitter and the changing nature of stardom

This article first appeared in Media Magazine – https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk

It might seem surprising that after only four years since its launch, Twitter has become such a significant social networking tool. With an array of other networking tools available and mobile phone users being offered bundles of free texts, it seems unusual that a need exists for such a product. Yet with more than one hundred million users worldwide sending fifty million ‘tweets’ a day, it clearly offers something. One element where Twitter differs from other networking applications, such as Facebook and MySpace is in the relationship it creates between stars and their fans.

Tweets, fame and Fry

Twitter offers users the opportunity to ‘follow’ other users and they connect with one another by posting short 140-character messages or ‘tweets’. Where an application such as Facebook requires the user to agree to a friend request, Twitter automatically connects you with another user, although you can choose to block them. You are then able to read their short ‘tweets’, including those from your favourite celebrities. It was the unofficial godfather of Twitter, Stephen Fr,y who increased the level of awareness of the social networking tool when, in February 2009, he became stuck in a lift.

One possible reason for the attraction of such an event was the fact that we were able to follow the plight of a celebrity, a figure who we would not normally associate with being victim to such an occurrence, being stuck in such an ordinary everyday situation. The public sympathised with Fry and, as a result, his ‘followers’ increased rapidly, as did the popularity of Twitter.

Twitter also allows you to send responses to the celebrities. On Halloween 2009, Stephen Fry stated:

Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around. Pity. Well, it’s been fun.

This was in response to a message a ‘follower’ had sent him earlier in the evening. Although the two reconciled their differences the next morning this represented a shift in the dynamic between the fan and the star. Where the star would normally be seen as unobtainable, Twitter increases the level of intimacy that exists between the two; it creates an impression that celebrities are attainable, and could be said to heighten the fan’s engagement with the star and vice versa.

Another side of celebrity culture

Twitter has certainly provided a number of interesting insights into celebrity culture, such as Ashton Kutcher’s infamous picture of his wife Demi Moore bending over in a bikini. He then posted the Tweet, ‘Shhh don’t tell wifey’. What is arguably more interesting was that in the picture Moore was allegedly steaming her husband’s suit – a service you might think would be performed by a team of dedicated staff. The bourgeois ideology associated with stardom thus begins to break down and the sense of ordinariness increases.

However, when we begin to associate stars with the everyday, they can seem mundane, and the glamorous and enigmatic qualities of stardom begin to suffer. One such example is the actor Nick Frost, who frequently informs his followers of what he is preparing for dinner, supported by proud images of his accomplishments.

What is interesting here is the comparison between the stars that use Twitter and those who don’t – and indeed how this can affect their image. It seems fitting for Frost to post images of himself cooking because the parts that he tends to play require a sense of authenticity and ‘everydayness’. Twitter seems to support his ideological position, and it is down to Frost to support this image through what he posts. Another British celebrity, Jonathon Ross, also provides interesting insights into his home life, again supported with self-taken photographs. The images used to represent the ‘real’ star are no longer photographed and managed by a team of PR consultants, but constructed by the stars themselves. Twitter images thus seem raw and unmediated, offering an interesting comparison to the ‘airbrushed’ artificial presentations we see in magazines and newspapers.

The dynamic that has long existed between fan and star is paradoxical. The paradox that existed between the extraordinary image of the star as unobtainable and the accessible and everyday image of the star has become complicated. Nowadays, the focus tends to be on the latter. Rather than accessing stars primarily through their work, we can now have an everyday encounter through their tweets. The instant relationships between fans and their favourite celebrities enabled by Twitter appears to ‘humanise’ stars in way that we have not really seen in a study of ‘stardom’ before. Our interest in stardom is intensified by their sense of ordinariness, and we communicate with stars as friends we know. This intensifies the level of stardom. They enter our lives at a more natural and human level, and inhabit the same world that we do.

It could be argued that Twitter allows audiences more access to the ‘real’ star. It allows stars to ‘self-manage’ their image; but giving celebrities the power to control their own representation does not always work out positively. Last year, Hugh Jackman was forced to admit that he did not manage his own Twitter account when one of his messages mistakenly referred to the Sydney Opera House as the ‘Opera Center’. This provides a very different view of Jackman as a star. His image retains the bourgeois ideology that was once necessary for the creation of star image and he continues to be seen as unobtainable by his fans.

Twitter can both support and complicate star images. On one level it is merely another tool to be used in promoting the star persona; and Twitter is certainly rife with self-promotion and sycophantic commentaries from fans. Nevertheless, it appears that with Twitter the star persona is becoming more complicated because the role of the ‘real’ star is becoming more prominent. It is possible to interact with a star yet have almost no interaction with their ‘reel’ persona, the roles that the play on-screen. The level of interaction with stars within their roles, and the charisma that is necessary to create their star persona seems to be less important in the age of Twitter. This seems fitting in our 21st-century celebrity culture, where anyone can be a star simply by posting a video on YouTube or appearing on a reality television show. The enigma of the star and the glamour that goes with it are beginning to break down.

Feature – Cross-platform storytelling

This article first appeared in Media Magazine – https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk

There have been a great many changes in modern cinema that have affected our interaction with the medium. Digital effects have made the impossible possible and 3D has allowed us completely to immerse ourselves in the narrative world. However, there has been another change within narrative that has had a dramatic impact on audiences but which has almost gone unrecognised. The narrative of modern cinema is no longer one which is explored ultimately within film, but one which extends into other media and this extension of the narrative experience is one that could have a more significant impact than we might first realise.

Marketing and the active audience

The increased deployment of non-linear narratives, as seen in Pulp Fiction (1994) and Memento (2000), has reflected the fact that audiences have become more sophisticated in the way in which they make sense of a film’s storyline. This has meant that the audience has accepted a more active role during the viewing of a film. This eventually extended further than the viewing experience itself into a film’s marketing campaign. Viral marketing in particular is an area that has significantly affected the extension of a film’s narrative. For example, the marketing campaign for The Dark Knight (2008) featured a vast array of websites, each of them dedicated to different characters and each featuring content hinting at possible narrative arcs. This certainly allowed audiences to familiarise themselves with the film’s narrative but did not really extend their experience of the film.

The more recent Catfish (2010) provided audiences with the ability to access the main character, Nev Schulman’s desktop. The site replicated a Mac desktop, and featured not only promotional material for the film but also allowed access to Nev’s emails, chat archives, photos, videos and documents. This gave the audience an opportunity to engage with the characters (Nev, Abby and Megan) before they even sat down to watch the movie.

The presentation of character relationships and indications of narrative development works particularly well as a marketing device here but it also allows the audience to connect with the characters before the film’s release and therefore there is an opportunity to enjoy the film on another level. This level of engagement requires the audience to take on a more active role. First they have to seek out the website; and secondly they must make sense of the information they are presented with and refer to this mentally as they view the film. This is particularly interesting in Catfish, given the extraordinarily complex layers of subterfuge, real and imagined identity, and psychodrama raised by the film’s documentarised narrative. In turn these have generated extremely interesting debates about both the collaboration, manipulation and ethics of its subjects and production process. (Ed: Spoiler alert: see http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/20/Catfish-fact-or-fiction-film)

However, for some films the audience’s engagement with narrative does not end with their cinema experience.

Comic book convergence

The popularity of the comic book film can be seen as the stimulus for the cross-platform collaborative development of a film’s narrative outside of the film itself. In films such as X-Men (2000) and Spider-man (2002), there are hints at a deeper narrative world through phrases, characters and even props. Intertextual references to the comics allow some viewers to enjoy the film on another level, while for audience members unaware of these references there is an opportunity to discover the comics and re-watch the film.

One could be cynical and view this simply as another way in which media conglomerates make sophisticated use of a back catalogue of ancillary products, and in some cases this is undoubtedly true. However, others may see it as another opportunity to revisit their work and the narrative world they have created. This is certainly evident in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tale (2006), initially planned as a 9-part ‘interactive experience’ that eventually saw not only the release of a film but three graphic novels which accompanied them. These graphic novels allowed Kelly to delve deeper into the machinations of the characters and the world that he had created. The graphic novels were initially released before the film and eventually integrated within the blu ray for the film, therefore not requiring the audience to pay anything extra. The graphic novel made up the first three chapters of the ‘experience’ and the film featured chapters 4-6. Again, much like the earlier comic book adaptations, audiences could enjoy the films without an engagement with the first three chapters in the graphic novels. However, as the film begins with Chapter 4 there is a clear element of persuasion here that is encouraging its audience to seek out the graphic novels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southland_Tales).

The advantage of television over film

Recently, there has been a great deal of debate over whether television is producing a better quality of drama than film. It is certainly more detailed in the creation of its narrative world than cinema, simply because television is afforded more time to develop its character and narrative arcs. The increase in production values and the attraction of film stars has meant that the divide between film and television has become smaller, and recent television hits such as The Walking Dead are good examples of this. However, Hollywood has been quick to seize this opportunity to engage with a wider audience and to further develop narrative which may have been seen as too difficult for a film adaptation. The announcement of an adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books signifies a potential key development in the relationship between film and television. The adaptation not only seeks the commissioning of a series of films but also two television series to accompany them which will provide a narrative bridge between each of the films. Oscar-winning director Ron Howard will helm the first film and also the first television series. King’s faithful fans are likely to be pleased by this announcement, as it surely means that more time will be given to exploring the depths of the narrative. However, it also means that audiences are given more time to engage with characters and storylines. The fine line between film and television are successfully married here to provide a more in-depth narrative exploration. This type of collaborative convergence may be seen more frequently, and audiences will visit the cinema complete with a backstory of their lead character and an awareness of the narrative journey their protagonist may be taken on.

Computer games and the development of an immersive narrative experience

Whether the Dark Tower adaptation is seen as a game-changer for both the film and television industries will remain to be seen; and with a scheduled release date of 2013 audiences will be given plenty of time to engage with the books beforehand. The role of television may become as equally as important to the film industry as literature, comics and graphic novels have in the past. The development of more immersive forms of technology may also have an impact on our engagement with film. Computer games are certainly evident of this connection. With the release of The Matrix sequels in 2003, audiences were given the opportunity to explore the backstory of the film’s narrative through the computer game Enter the Matrix. Playing as either Niobe or Ghost, both of which featured in the films, audiences were allowed actively to participate in a structured adventure telling them a backstory that is alluded to in The Matrix Reloaded. This level of active participation might just be the future of narrative cinema. Audiences may eventually play a character within the narrative and rather than simply watching a linear storyline play out on a 2D cinema screen, they may instead completely immerse themselves within the narrative, exploring the storyline as they see fit, making their own connections between characters and situations. Whatever the future may hold, it is clear that the way in which audiences explore and interact with narrative cinema is changing and as we become more sophisticated in our exploration so must the ways in which we interact.

Feature – Is Hollywood a no-members club?

This article first appeared in The Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/

Thanks to Judd Apatow, the penis is at last beginning to emerge from the cinematic shadows.

In an attempt to rid America of its phallophobia, Judd Apatow once vowed to include a penis in every one of his movies. As is particularly evident in the producer’s recent offerings – Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – Apatow has in no way reneged on his promise. But was he right about his country’s fear of the penis?

There is certainly evidence to suggest the contrary, and for a period it would have seemed that male nudity was linked in some way to the seriousness with which an actor approached their role: Robert De Niro exposed himself in the name of art in Bernardo Bertolucci 1976 Novecento, while his Mean Streets co-star Harvey Keitel also stripped bare for Jane Campion’s 1993 film, The Piano. The nakedness of both actors drew parallels with their daring performances, literally laying themselves bare in both their acting and their presentation. Having said that, both films were produced far away from Hollywood mainstream, and European cinema has long taken an easier line on the presentation of male genitalia.

Nevertheless, changing attitudes to the ratings system can be seen to mirror changing attitudes to the way that the penis has been included in mainstream cinema. Since 1966, when the amended Motion Picture Production Code permitted nudity in mainstream American cinema, most pictures featuring full-frontal nudity would receive the notorious X certificate or NC-17. In 1982, however, the teen sex comedy, Porky’s, which featured both male and female full frontal nudity, only received an R rating instead of the usual X or NC-17. Nowadays, while you’d expect an NC-17 rating (or 18 in the UK) on films with images of full frontal male nudity, more and more are being rated R in the US (even 15 here in the UK), Apatow’s recent offerings obviously among them. Even Bart Simpson exposed himself in the name of comedy in last year’s The Simpson’s Movie, which interestingly enough only received a PG-13 rating in the US. It would seem that nudity in animation is more acceptable than in live action features.

So why the sudden change of heart? It seems to me that comedy is responsible. In reducing the penis – rather literally – to a figure of fun, desexualising it, and thereby robbing it of its once dreadful power, the penis has only become acceptable through coming to symbolise not so much male sexuality as the fragility of masculinity. There is, after all, no denying the comedic value of what Billy Connolly once referred to as “the last chicken in Sainsbury’s”.

So whether it is for the sake of art or for pure comedic pleasure it would seem that the penis is penetrating its way more and more into contemporary Hollywood cinema. But in making the male member more and more into a figure of fun, are we not robbing cinema of one of its most potent symbols. Perhaps it is Judd Apatow who really fears the penis and it is he, rather than his public, who are too afraid to confront it head on, so to speak.