The latest and most buzzed about movie from Netflix’s original roster is the historical epic, Outlaw King. The film recounts the story of legendary Scottish warrior-turned-king-turned-outlaw-on-the-run Robert the Bruce, played by Chris Pine. The story depicts the struggles of maintaining a monarchist government, prejudice based on privilege, and the brutal hardships of 15th-century warfare.
However, neither of that is what people are talking. The popular topic in question is Pine’s privates.
An interviewer from E! News mentioned that googling Outlaw King will provide fewer results that comment on Mackenzie’s creative vision or the origins of Robert the Bruce and more that obsessively dish on Pine’s sword… but not the one he uses in battle, if you catch our drift. This is in reference to a scene that shows the actor emerging from a dip in a lake to reveal a full frontal display, all for a brief three seconds.
Pine replies that he sees the seemingly endless attention brought toward his member as, not only an embarrassing ignorance of the film’s themes, but also a sign that the double standard in Hollywood has yet to go away.
He also voiced his thoughts on the double standard to the Daily Mirror, referencing his onscreen wife in the film, played by Florence Pugh.
“Florence shows her entire body in this film and no one is talking about that,” Pine says. “People want to talk about my penis as if we’re a bunch of teenagers playing spin the bottle. Is Florence expected to do that because she is a woman and I’m not expected to do that because I’m a man?”
Pine implies that if male frontal nudity were as common as seeing female actresses unclothed in mainstream cinema, the shot of his rod would have garnered as much attention as Pugh has for her nude scene, which is none. The fact that his nude scene, which has no salacious or provocative intentions, is making headlines at all supports Pine’s belief of moviegoers’ pre-conceived expectation of how gender roles are depicted in media.
Mackenzie, a natural-born Scotsman, has similar comments regarding.
“This is the fifth film where I’ve had full-frontal male nudity,” the filmmaker tells the Daily Mirror. “No one’s ever had such a fuss about it. And it’s far less than I’ve ever had before, and it’s totally motivated. The guy is washing himself in a [lake] in the Highlands and just pops out – I don’t know what the fuss is about. It says something about our times and I wish people would get over it.”
In an interview with Variety, which took place at the Toronto International Film Festival where Outlaw King premiered, Pine is, not surprisingly, asked about the talk of the festival: his package. He very professionally swerves into the skid and uses the topic to shed light on the film’s themes, pointing out that his rise from the lake is meant to reveal more than his physical attributes.
“You see a man broken down and then build himself back up,” says Pine of his character’s war with himself and his countrymen who oppose him, “and I thought it was important after that scene where he’s been in the cave… he’s reborn and ready for the third act.”
Outlaw King has not been a huge hit with critics, sitting at a current rating of 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences have taken a liking to it, based on its 74% audience score. Pine and Mackenzie’s only hope now is that any positive reviews the film receives are for its cinematic ambition and not three seconds of Pine uncensored.
What do you think? Does the “immature” attention brought to Outlaw King suggest that Hollywood’s most loyal voyeurs have yet to rise above a gender-based double standard and should focus more on the story, or are you about to log in to Netflix and watch Pine’s nude scene on repeat? Let us know in the comments below!