How did Jennifer Lawrence react to the nude fight scene in No Hard Feelings? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Yes, Jennifer Lawrence actually found it hilarious. “I didn’t even have a second thought,” she told Variety. “It was hilarious to me.”
The scene in question was one of the standout moments of the film, where Lawrence’s character, Maddie, goes skinny-dipping with a 19-year-old she’s hired to seduce. When some teens swipe their clothes, she doesn’t back down – she chases them and starts fighting, all while completely naked. Her Hunger Games training was on full display, even when things got awkward (she even gets punched in the groin).
Why was nudity suddenly becoming a thing again in comedies? Kristen Lopez, a film critic for The Wrap, explained it as a response to the post-COVID world. “Movies are trying to bring back joy and fun after the Covid years,” she said. After years of trauma, films wanted to inject a dose of humor, with nudity playing its part in adding that dose of absurdity. It wasn’t just a trend – it was a reaction.
Though nudity had never completely disappeared from the screen, there had been shifts in its portrayal. While a 2019 study found that 27.3% of female characters got naked in 2018’s top 100 films, compared to just 8.5% of men, the post-#MeToo landscape was shifting how nudity was being used. For female stars like Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson, it wasn’t about sex appeal but about pushing boundaries and taking control of their own bodies on screen. “It’s empowering,” Lawrence had mentioned about her role in Red Sparrow after her 2014 photo leak scandal. And when she got naked in No Hard Feelings, it was for laughs, not desire.
Of course, it wasn’t just Lawrence making waves. Scarlett Johansson also had a brief nude moment in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. As Midge, she drops her towel while rehearsing lines, and though there’s some romantic tension with her co-star Jason Schwartzman, the scene is far more about aesthetics than raw attraction. Johansson later joked about how “uncomfortable” Anderson was filming her nude scene. Yet, her calmness was evident. Both actresses have spoken about how empowering and comfortable they felt in these roles, with Lawrence even noting that nudity in No Hard Feelings wasn’t a big deal to her at all.
As for why more female nudity was surfacing, Daisy Richards, a media lecturer, weighed in, highlighting how the #MeToo movement had challenged how the female body had been portrayed. “The more we desexualise female bodies, the more we see them as a tool… not just as objects,” Richards said. It was a message being communicated loudly by stars like Lawrence and Johansson – their nudity was their choice.
In a time when male nudity often stays tucked away in art-house films or risqué comedies, films like Joy Ride pushed the envelope even further, making nudity more comedic than sexual. Kristen Lopez advocates for “equal opportunity nudity,” although, as Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, director of Body Parts, pointed out, “The biggest taboo is male full frontal nudity.”
