Alright, you think my choice of words are too critical, fair enough. Allow me to point out that I don't make the rules of society which are the basis for public perception. Life is full of double standards for example: A Man can sleep with a lot of women and be considered a hot stud but if a women sleeps with a lot of men a she will appear slutty.
I didn't make the rules but I understand them. Sometimes You have to cater to the publics ideals of what is exceptable if you want them to love you. You have the good girls and you have the bad girls. There is sort of a courtship between the fans and the stars. When a person becomes "Americas little darling" then that means that she is so wholesome a cute and the kind of girl your son should try to marry. When a person is a " sex symbol" that means the kind of girl everybody wants to screw. But being a sex symbol and a slut symbol are two different things. There are many different degrees of all of this and I can't name them all. But basically as a girl you want to start out seeming wholesome and then slowly peel away the layers of your sexuality over the course of your career. Many actresses have never done a racy sex role on screen or refuse to show their chests and nakid flesh. But out of all the ones that come out the gate with a hot sex sceen few experience longevity.
Because it is like a courtship with the fans, if you give it up too soon then you become used up and old news The fun is in the hunt and the chase. A guy would think, wow that Lisa Bonet is so hot and I can't wait to see her give it up in a movie. And that moment should be a long time coming. It will be series of teasers that keep you coming back. But if you put it all out there in your first big role then you are taking a big risk. That is what Lisa did. She laid out about 15 years of hollywood work in one sex scene.
Let me answer your question about Halle Berry in Monster Ball. Because Halle had already had a whole body of work and a firmly solidified public image, that role in monsters ball couldn't hurt her or change the public perception of her. She was already a member of the hollywood elite. The fact that she starred in a slutty role simply only added to a well balanced body of work. The fact that she had sex with a white man in that movie was not earth shattering because this is not the first movie where she played opposite a white male and once again she had balance from all the roles she played that suited the tastes of her primary audience. And she didn't break the rule of public perception by doing a slutty role Like she did because the of rules say it is acceptable and sometimes required of women over 30 to get freaky on screen. It was time for her to give the audience some skin, sexual gratification. She is no longer a Teen or even a 20's something actress so society says its okay to be bold and sexually liberiated after 30. But with all that being said still most people in the Black community still were critical of her role in monsters ball and found it a slap in the face that she was awarded an academy award for just being a little country bumkin freak-a-zoid. This seemed to be saying to all black women that America thinks you are at your best when you are playing a whore.
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