Weeds jumps the shark

Mary-Louise Parker is still fuming and bubbling.

MARY’S NAKED RAGE

By MAXINE SHEN

Posted: 12:11 am
May 16, 2009

MARY-Louise Parker is still sulking over her nude scene from last season’s “Weeds” finale.

She claims that she was “goaded” into doing a scene involving a lingering shot of her naked breasts while she was in a bathtub.

“I didn’t think I needed to be naked, and I fought with the director about it, and now I’m bitter,” the star of the Showtime series says in the June issue of More magazine.

“I knew it was going to be on the Internet: ‘Mary-Louise shows off her big nipples.’ I wish I hadn’t done that. I was goaded into it.”

The show’s co-executive producer, Roberto Benabib, fired back by saying that the scene was used to illustrate Nancy’s vulnerability and that “there was a nonchalance to the nudity that informed the scene.”

The fifth season of “Weeds” returns on June 8.

My comment: Sorry, Ms. Parker. You get no sympathy here. First of all you are hired to act in a series airing on Showtime, a cable channel that almost always features female nudity (but not as much as Cinemax). Secondly, you play a suburban mother who sells pot for a living, so she is likely to be seen relieving her stress in a bathtub at some point. Thirdly, your SAG-AFTRA contract clearly shows whether you are amenable to showing private body parts (nudity) on camera, or NOT amenable. If yes, you get paid an extra fee. And, fourthly, if you truly have big nipples, some day before you are 50, a director is going to come along and decide to be the bastard who will goad you into disrobing for his camera… that is to be expected from directors, especially ones who may direct for a TV series on Showtime.

Fifthly, this whole kerfuffle is being pumped for the promotional value of drawing attention to Weeds new season which begins in a few weeks. The cable-viewing public may think, “hmmm… Mary-Louise showed her breasts last season, maybe I better at least Tivo that show so’s I can scan thru and see if she shows MORE this season.”

Yes, this is a well-known promotional scam that always works, at least for a few episodes. I don’t believe anyone will watch a slow, ironic show like Weeds all season just to catch a glimpse of bottom in the final episode. But, everyone is happy: the show “jumped the shark”, Mary-Louise probably gets a pay raise, and the director likely has the bathtub scene on an endless DVD loop now, or has become Ms. Parker’s real-life lover and the producer can claim a show that produces female nudity “with nonchalance”. That’s the way Hollywood works.

If you are too out of it to know what “jumped the shark” means, you’ll just have to Google it. See below for Ms. Parker’s other episodes of having been “goaded”.

Just another naked promo.

Another day, another set, another couch scene.

A nonchalant bathtub scene she was goaded into.

Another well-known actress has said: “I wouldn’t do nudity in films. For me, personally… To act with my clothes on is a performance; to act with my clothes off is a documentary. I don’t do documentaries.”
Julia Roberts