Margot Robbie and the Slippery Slope of Moral Compromise
Positive testimonies of onscreen sexuality, part 2
Historically, the most common actor testimony regarding onscreen sexuality is one of awkwardness (at best). Still, some seem to have a more positive experience. In my last post, we examined one such testimony—that of Keira Knightley. However, the description she gives of her privileged position in the industry, and her favorite sex scene in particular, highlight that even positive testimonies can be laced with negative sentiments.
To continue this series, we’ll look at more positive testimonies regarding the filming of sexualized content. And in so doing, we’ll discover that the subtext of many of these experiences is not always as positive as it may appear.
Properly evaluating positive actor testimonies requires a recognition of at least five relevant factors:
The role of conscience
Hollywood flattery culture
Industry peer pressure
The context of actor interviews
Contradictory testimonies
I will be writing one post for each of the above five factors. So, without further ado, let’s look at factor #1.
A Calloused Conscience
As evidenced by my past research and writings, many of the worst horror stories are from those filming nude or sex scenes for the first time. This inaugural experience is often the most traumatic. And as is the case with any moral compromises, the second time will, to some degree, be a little easier. The more you compromise, the less traumatic the compromise feels.
Margot Robbie is a good example of this compromise. Consider her role in the 2022 film Babylon, which graphically shows the depraved lifestyles of early Hollywood filmmakers. It begins with an extended sequence at a Bacchanalian party that involves plenty of immoral activity. Robbie’s character, Nellie LaRoy, becomes the life of the party by “commanding the dance floor like the uninhibited embodiment of sex” (to quote Daily Beast’s review). The film’s editor, Tom Cross, calls Robbie’s siren-like performance in this scene “a very voyeuristic moment.”
In a 2022 cover story for Vanity Fair, Robbie comments on the debauched activity of some of the characters she plays:
“I don’t really have a whole lot of modesty left,” Robbie says, laughing, then adds that she can separate herself from her characters. “I don’t feel embarrassed when it’s Nellie doing something. I’d feel embarrassed if it was me, but it’s all her.”
Robbie is correct: her career has included many immodest roles. According to Glamour, Robbie’s (highly sexualized) presence in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street “instantly propelled her to sex-symbol status, cemented by her role as the midriff-baring Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016), and literal blonde bombshell Kayla Pospisil in Bombshell (2019).”
Back in 2016, filmmaker and critic Kevin B. Lee noted, “Eight of Robbie’s first ten film roles involve nudity or sex scenes. I can’t think of another A-list Hollywood actress whose career beginnings involved so much nudity, not even Sharon Stone.”
If You Give an Inch…
Let’s step back in time for a moment, before Robbie made it big in Hollywood. She explained the situation in an interview with MTV News:
Right from the beginning of my career, I said I would never do nudity. And I’d made that clear to my team, so they all knew that from the beginning. And, like I said, when I first did my audition [for The Wolf of Wall Street], we never expected it to go any further than perhaps—perhaps—[casting director] Ellen Lewis seeing it. So we found ourselves in the predicament where Marty wanted to test me, and we then had to go back to him and say, ‘Well, look, she actually doesn’t want to do nudity. . .’
So what happened next? What did her team do to support her conviction to remain clothed in front of the camera?
And my team kind of sat me down and they were like, ‘Look, if there’s ever going to be a time in your career to do nudity, this is it. It’s this project with this director.’ . . . I was so trepidatious [sic]. And for a while, I was thinking, “Hey look, maybe it’s just not meant to be. Maybe I just shouldn’t do it.”
Of course, she eventually decided that she should do it. And it proved to be a career-changing decision for her—in more ways than one. As noted by the ScholarDay blog,
When we as an audience see [Robbie] completely nude, a woman who never wanted to do a nude role in order to have a career in Hollywood, we are looking at a woman who had to take three shots of hard liquor in the morning in order to stand there naked in front of us [according to a HuffPost article].
Instrumental in the violation of Robbie’s conscience was the pressure placed on her by her own team—those to whom she had “made [it] clear” that she “would never do nudity.”
The Language of Compromise
The argument Robbie’s team used illustrates the textbook approach to moral compromise: “Just this one time.” The choice to ignore one’s conscience is simpler, easier, less destructive if it’s “just one time,” or “just one more time.” One time doesn’t sound so bad. And thus, people often stumble down the slippery slope of compromise one step at a time.
Robbie’s team urged her to go nude because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But it turned into a repeated occurrence. She didn’t step off the precipice of her convictions and then magically defy gravity after completing The Wolf of Wall Street, backtracking up the slope to regain her composure. No, what her team promised would be an exception became the norm.
This trajectory of compromise is illustrated in the very first verse in the book of Psalms: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1). The progression from walking to standing to sitting shows a gradual hardening of one’s heart. On this gradual slope, you eventually get to the point where your compromise no longer bothers you at all. That does not negate the reality of the compromise—only your awareness of and sensitivity to it.
So when someone like Margot Robbie laughs about not having much modesty left, her nonchalance isn’t a brave front masking a bothered conscience; she actually is comfortable with what she used to consider unacceptable. In such a case, her lack of shame about filming hypersexualized content is a commentary on a tragic reality: the slippery slope of compromise eventually numbs you to the point where you aren’t even bothered by the fall.
Previous entry: “What Keira Knightley’s Favorite Sex Scene Tells us about Sex Scenes”
Next entry: “Hollywood Flattery Culture Cloaks Reality”
I can verify this is how all of that works. Although I never had to do a nude scene, I worked with plenty who did. Of course, you had to become a bit numb to it all since we were always changing costumes right in front of each other. It was the parties where people felt more comfortable being naked in front of each other. I suppose they thought since we've already pretty much exposed ourselves to each other for expediency's sake, who cares? But this is when you'd see the "pretty girls" get groomed for doing things they were taught not to do as a child. This is part of the reason I exited this profession. I knew too much about how it worked. If I had beautiful students who were serious about acting, I could tell you what their fate was. I didn't want to be party to that any more.
Cap,
I thought your analysis of Psalm 1 was very interesting. I had never thought of that before. And this article was helpful for me to learn more about Margot Robbie. It is so sad that her beauty, rather than being cherished, is being misused.