Boys Bathed By Women In Cinema

[dunbarbarian0]

Over the years there have been many films in which a child was bathed by a parental figure at an age they were no doubt able to bathe themselves. There are some examples of this that are innocent, and some that I think were exploitative of the child actor. There are also scenes where the character being bathed is portrayed as less embarrassed than they almost certainly would have been in real life.

The tamest example is 2002's Road To Perdition, a very well received film that I enjoy very much which I'm just using as an example. At a very pivotal moment in the first half, without delving into the context and the plot, a boy played by then 11 year old Liam Aiken has just had a bath. He has put on some pajama pants but remains shirtless while his mother played by Jennifer Jason Leigh dries his hair. He seems delighted to be doted on by her. There is a picture of the scene on imdb I'll leave a link to below.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257044/me ... 591376128/

I was a shy kid, and I realize some kids are more modest than others, but after I turned say 10 bathing was a very private thing for me. That being said, there's nothing wrong with this scene other than my own question of why she was in there in the first place. Had she bathed the boy or just gotten him out of the tub? There are other films where this is not left up to the imagination, and what strikes me about these examples is: these are not actual parent-child relationships. There is a child actor being bathed by or in the presence of someone who is not actually related to them at all.

It makes me wonder, how did the kid actors feel filming these scenes? What did their parents have to say about it at the time? In their adulthood do they at all regret doing these scenes, or feel they were exploited? When they signed whatever contract for the film, did they know they were going to have to be naked at some point during filming? Particularly in the case of the films where the actors actually had to be naked for the scene: how do they feel that anyone can watch the film at any time given the internet is the way it is? This post will only detail a few examples. While I don't think Liam Aiken was exploited for Road To Perdition, the following examples depict a domineering parent-child relationship that often, but not always, is portrayed as completely normal and a real life child actor had to take their clothes off for the purpose of the scene and whatever 'artistic purpose' that was intended I do not think was in the child's best interest. I want to be clear: the problem is not specifically the nudity itself, it's that a real life child had to be filmed naked when they could not possibly have understood the consequences of that, and in some cases were not comfortable with it during the filming.

This post comes in response to the ongoing investigation into Epstein Island on top of the ongoing controversy surrounding the abuse of child actors highlighted by people like Corey Feldman, Chloe Grace Moretz, Brooke Shields and Macaulay Culkin. However, it was inspired specifically by a completely innocent photo recently posted by Orlando Bloom holding his naked 4 year old daughter on a beach. It caused a massive uproar despite it just depicting a bare bottom, and made me wonder: if people find that offensive, how did these scenes ever get past censors?

MACBETH (1971)

Mark Dightam, age 11, stands in a basin talking to his mother while she finishes bathing him. Full frontal nudity, and while he is acting he doesn't seem to mind standing naked in front of actress Diane Fletcher. However, in the incredibly tragic scene that follows after stepping out of the tub and being wrapped in a towel, you can see him make an effort to keep his body covered by the towel from the men who enter the room. It is speculated that the naked child was a choice by the director to depict the vulnerability of the family in relation to the director recently being the victim of a home invasion. It is even worse to me that the director's name was Roman Polanski. Indeed his wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by members of the Manson family not long before this film was made, but I don't like that this boy had to be naked as a result of that. In 1977, he was arrested for child sexual abuse and remains a fugitive from the US justice system to this day. I believe his 'artistic intentions' for this scene were quite perverted. A couple pieces of trivia from imdb:

Mark Dightam, who was eleven when he controversially appeared full frontally naked as MacDuff's son, was not allowed to see the film when it was released because it had been classified AA and he was under 14 at the time.

When crew members suggested to Roman Polanski that perhaps the film was too unrealistically gory for its own good, Polanski reportedly replied, "I know violence. You should've seen my house last summer."

During the set up of the gruesome death scene of Lady MacDuff's children, director Roman Polanski was instructing a four-year-old blonde girl on how to play dead, while smearing fake blood all over her body. Polanski playfully asked the girl what her name was, to which she replied "Sharon."

ALI ZAOUA, PRINCE DE LA RUE (2000)

Mustapha Hansali, age 12, stands in a bathtub while being bathed by actress Amal Ayouch. Full frontal nudity. When the scene starts, his body is covered in soap and it doesn't appear that the woman uses any type of sponge or cloth. She uses her hands, and while she only touches his shoulders and upper chest during the scene, I am left wondering if she rubbed the soap all over his body or if he did before the camera was rolling. He is fully capable, at his age, of bathing himself. She doesn't need to be in the room, let alone putting her hands on him, and filming him completely naked was... a choice. This is an example of a scene where the actor indeed did not want to be filmed naked, and it makes me wonder if he knew what the role required before he accepted the role. It makes me wonder why this was required at all. I found this interesting piece of trivia while researching the film:

Amal Ayouch had met Mustapha Hansali when he visited the Wholesale market in the company of an educator one night. When asked to improvise a situation, he revealed himself to be an extraordinarily sensitive child. Hansali had a difficult relationship with his mother, and it was hard for him to take on the role of Omar vis-à-vis Ali”s mother. Also, he did not want to be filmed in the nude while Ali's mother bathed him. Amal Ayouch finally persuaded him, explaining how much more difficult it had been for her, married, with two children, to simulate sex with a client.

THE AVIATOR (2004)

This was a big film. Martin Scorcese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett among many others, and 5 academy award nominations. This is one where the parent-child relationship is depicted to be pretty clearly abusive. First scene of the movie. Jacob Davich, estimated to be 12 or maybe even 13 during filming, stands naked in a basin (there's a running theme here) while his mother enters and bathes him. He is filmed from behind so only rear nudity. It's not a brightly lit room, but that kid absolutely had to be naked to film this scene. It is deliberately uncomfortable the way his mother looks at him and washes him. This is a brilliant film, but I am once again left wondering why this kid had to actually be naked to film this extremely creepy scene. If people get mad at a 4 year old's bottom with her dad on a beach, how did this make it past test audiences?

LE P'TIT CURIEUX (2004)

Milan Argaud, who plays a 9 year old boy but was probably 11 years old during filming, stands in a bath tub while his mother washes his body. Rear nudity before he sits down and his mother puts a frightening amount of shampoo in his hair. He seems perfectly content with this treatment but it makes me question the mother: why are you bathing your son when he is well able to bathe himself? It's funny, my biggest question about these kids is were they uncomfortable when filming these scenes? The kid did an interview at the time and he himself is the one who brings up this scene, and he also mentions the contract he had to sign, although this is apparently an AI translation of the interview:

"At first I agreed to do the kiss because... it was in the contract... but actually it wasn't that bad! She has soft lips..."

When asked what it was like to have a 'movie mom': "We had a lot of fun with Julie, especially in the bath scene, the water was always either too hot or too cold."

That's all the kid had to say about it, so I guess he had fun. I wish I could be that carefree. At his age I would have been mortified... but I'm left thinking: for what reason? My parents certainly didn't bring me up to be prudish or modest. I was just naturally that way. It's only my body. But I definitely would not have wanted to be naked as part of a film. I think even at that age I would have been suspicious of that.

BYLO NAS PET, EPISODE 2 (1994)

Adam Novak, age 13 at the time of filming, is required to stand in a basin with his 20-something nanny in the room, something the character (not necessarily the actor) is visibly embarrassed by. He is playing a 7-8 year old kid, but I reiterate: Adam Novak was 13 when this was filmed. His character is not concerned that his mother can see him, nor when his father enters the room, but he keeps his hands over his groin and turns away from her every chance he gets. I guess he's ok with his bare bottom being seen, or at least more ok with her seeing that than his genitals. Eventually during the scene, he takes his hands away from his groin while talking to his father and is filmed in full frontal nudity for a few seconds. All this time, his mother washes his body very attentively and thoroughly. Even if he was a smaller kid it just seems so invasive to me, and I feel for his character. The dad is the one who tells the nanny to leave the room in the end, and his mom reacts to this like she's annoyed. She can obviously see he doesn't want her to see him naked and I don't know why she doesn't respect that. Almost like it's some kind of punishment. However, after the scene when she puts him to bed, the two share a very peaceful and cozy-looking cuddle. The scene is supposed to be funny, I think, but it really bothers me. I'm also curious why it ended up in the show, because I found an english translation of the book online and there is nothing like this scene in the book at all.

It is unclear how Adam feels about this scene in particular in retrospect, but I found an interview where he mentions one regret from the filming: " It was filmed for almost a year and we normally had a daily twelve-hour, which would probably not pass today. I missed a lot at school at the time and had to repeat one year, which I was sorry for, because I lost my favorite team of classmates."

https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/revue/spole ... idicky_zar

VIVA LA MUERTE (1971)

This is an exceptionally bizarre, very violent and disturbing film. It almost feels tasteless to mention this scene in the scope of the film as a whole, which absolutely could not be made today for a multitude of reasons. That being said, there is another bath scene in the middle of this one that just makes me wonder: why?

~10 year old Fando, played by Mahdi Chaouch, is dragged out of bed by his mother and told it is time for his bath. There's no choice involved here, and this really is the nature of her character played by Nuria Espert: he is getting in the bath and she is going to bathe him. The scene cuts to him in the bathtub and soon the boy's mother grabs a bar of soap and starts to soap her hands up. Her bare hands. Eventually he is required to stand (revealing rear nudity) and it's interesting that there is a sponge that she could use to wash his body, as if she needs to be washing his body at all, but she doesn't. She drops the bar of soap in the water and proceeds to slide her soapy hands up and down the boy's upper body. His back, shoulders, and chest. Mind you, her hands don't travel below his waist, although he does have a very bizarre vision in the middle of this scene which leads me to believe he is mentally escaping while she is molesting him under the guise of washing his genitals. She spends a good 20-30 seconds sliding her bare hands all across his upper body while he just stands there and takes it. For all the gore and mindless violence this film depicts, this is a scene that stays with me because it is real. Forget the characters. Mahdi Chaouch had to stand naked in a tub while Nuria Espert used her bare hands to lather soap all over him. It is one of the most domineering and invasive things I have ever seen, and I don't like how long she takes doing this or that she looks like she's enjoying feeling his slippery skin way more than she should be. Again, it's far from the most offensive thing in this film, but I found it disturbing like no other scene in it.

LE BAISER SOUS LA CLOCHE (1998)

Gaspard Génard Claus, age 13, is seen naked from behind while stepping into a bath his mother, played by Ángela Molina, has prepared for him. He smiles at her as she starts to wash him, but when she kisses his bare chest he is obviously uncomfortable but doesn't say anything. Eventually the father comes and comments on the situation while she washes her son and she kisses him closer to the stomach to which he says "Mom! I'm not a little kid!" to which she replies "nonsense." While I agree with him, in a way she's right. The fact that he is submitting to this treatment means he is far from grown, but perhaps he doesn't know if he's allowed to protest this. I do not know what the mom and dad say to each other, but she is obviously dismissive of him. I would hope he is commenting on how weird this entire situation is, but whatever he says the mother is having none of it and throws the sponge she is washing the boy with at the man. This leaves her to finish bathing the boy with her bare hands, which she slides across his upper body. It is so unspeakably creepy to me that this could be seen as appropriate for a 13 year old boy, and it makes me wonder how thoroughly she bathed him with her hands. It is left to the imagination, but something about the way she is makes me believe she left no part of his body untouched.

FOR A LOST SOLDIER (1992)

This film should never have been made and it's very disturbing that it was received as well as it was. Make no mistake: this is about a sexually abusive relationship between a 20-something man and a 12 year old boy. I only mention it as it adds a different element to the theme I've been talking about: being bathed in the presence of opposite sex peers.

Maarten Smit, age 12, is rather roughly bathed in a basin by his guardian who he has been sent to live with during world war 2. A 9-10 year old girl sits in a chair, also naked, waiting for her turn. When he is told to stand up, he does so facing away from the camera revealing his bare bottom, and no doubt giving the girl a rather quick but up close view of his genitals before taking a towel from the woman and covering himself. There is also a teenage girl (clothed) who enters the scene and no doubt can see everything. Having to step out of a bathtub in front of 3 females (including one not much younger than me whether she was naked too or not) is an actual type of nightmare I might have had when I was 12 years old. It makes me wonder how both the kids felt filming this, having to be naked in front of another opposite sex kid, and it makes me realize this was probably a reality during war time. There would have been no expectation of privacy and tween kids at the age you start to become modest would have just had to... get over it. It is said toward the beginning that the family requested a girl and not a boy. I feel especially bad for the boy in this scene, even though he doesn't seem particularly embarrassed at the situation (which doesn't seem realistic at all to me). His character is not related to the family and having to be naked for a bath at his age in front of girls and a woman was probably humiliating, and he was clearly given no other choice. The girl, while having to be naked in front of the boy, then gets bathed by females who she's familiar with and the boy leaves the room. The real question I have for the child actors, Maarten Smit and Gineke de Jager, is how did THEY feel about shooting this scene at the time, and how do they feel in retrospect? I honestly would like to hear their thoughts in retrospect about this film as a whole.

I found a copy of the book online and this specific scene is not in it. Director Roeland Kerbosch said he added elements from his own experience during the war to the film, so maybe this is a memory from his childhood. However, as he was born in 1940, he would have been 5 when the war ended. It makes me want to ask him a question about why this scene was included. It's just one of very many questions I have for him about why this film was made and why it tried to make a relationship between a grown man and a young boy seem consensual and anything other than incredibly damaging. The author of the original book, Rudi Van Dantzig, wrote of his experience in a much more traumatizing way. If you can stomach reading about something like this, the book can be found online. He died in 2012 and something that's very peculiar is I can't find anything about what he said about this film which was a direct adaptation of his book.

EPILOGUE

I'll leave it there for now. There are more examples I'd like to add but I'll get to them later. One thing I want to mention is most of these kids did not pursue acting in their adulthood. In many cases, it was the only film they ever made. I am curious if these scenes were a significant reason why any of them chose not to pursue acting as a career in their lives.

The one question I want to ask people is about is the running theme in the scenes in this post. These kids are sometimes playing characters a few years younger, but in some cases they are tween boys playing tween boys. Is it at all normal for a boy age 10-13 to stand up in a bathtub while their mother washes their body? Sometimes the scene is not portrayed as normal but sometimes it's portrayed as caring and loving. That being said, I guess I might be being judgmental and dealing with my own seemingly prudish biases. There is a line from Stephen King's Hearts In Atlantis depicting an 11 year old boy having a sunburn cared for by his mother:

"He followed her inside, took off his shirt, and stood in front of her as she sat on the couch and smeared the fragrant Baby Oil on his back and arms and neck—even on his cheeks. It felt good, and he thought again how much he loved her, how much he loved to be touched by her."

I guess it comes down to if the boy is comfortable with it, or it's being forced on them, but even then it doesn't solve the big problem I have with all of this: these kids had to strip naked to be bathed by women who were in no way related to them. Not a single one of these child actors was bathed by their actual mother, and there's something I find so concerning about that.

While I won't link to any of the films here, you have my word that it takes a very minimal effort to find all of them online. That is another fact surrounding all this that I find concerning.

[TeenFan]

Most scenes of boys being bathed by female family member take place in stories before the modern age ( 1970s to today).
There were no separate rooms for bathing in the majority of houses, and this is more true the farther back in time we go.
If the tub is in the kitchen or some other main room, then one is used to bathing when NOT alone.

Cultural differences are also a factor. In England and the United States it became culturally less acceptable to bath a child after age ten.
I believe that in much of Europe this taboo didn't occur until a later age. Houses without indoor plumbing were common on a continent
ravaged by WWII.

In Japan, it remained normal (and possibly so still today) for a teenage daughter to share the bath with the father or mother. Bathtubs
were designed to be used by multiple people at the same time.

In some Northern European nations, families being together in the sauna was common. (today maybe not as much)

Boys 10 to 13 being comfortable being washed by mom doesn't surprise me. However, if the story takes place in a more modern time, then
such a scene is more noteworthy and intriguing.
__________________

The plot of a young actor having to "do his duty" as an actor, and how much should be shot and shown...that has influenced my writing.

[Jonjon2]

I agree that there are clear cultural differences which I think still exist today. I have just returned from a holiday in the mediterranean and it seemed quite common for boys up to the age of about 13 or so to happily strip off completely on the beach before putting on their bathing suits and similarly removing them after swimming and so becoming naked whilst they dried themselves before dressing. This seemed to be less common with girls who were happy to strip only until about age 6 or 7. It was particularly evident among German, Dutch and Scandinavian families.
I know this is different to being bathed at those ages but I think reflects the views/concerns about general nudity.

[Freesub]

I think you'll find that in many cultures, any boy below the age of 13 and any girl below 9 are considered to be "children", and their nudity is not just accepted, but considered to be the norm.

This has changed in public since cameras are common now, but in private settings it's still fairly common for boys utpo age 12 at least to get bathed by their moms, as alien as that would seem in the modern west.

[Dipajaya7]

Some even got erections from seeing the boy