Full frontal nudity on jets

I’ve been doing more travelling recently and I’ve taken my portable DVD player along for the domestic flights to help pass the time (I’m a white knuckler so it helps me forget the fear too). I usually watch a foreign film because it has subtitles and sometimes the jet is too noisy to pick out dialogue; the subtitles provide a back up for what’s being said.

I tend to watch things not usually seen on jets—‘60s Milos Forman (Black Peter + The Fireman’s Ball) or obscure Spanish films like Soccer Days have been screened in the past. One thing that has worried me when I’ve watched some of them (you never know with foreign movies as their actors are a lot less concerned about taking their clothes off than in American films) is the worry over nudity or other “offensive” material out of nowhere that might send someone more conservative over the edge or expose an underage person to an image their parents don’t want them to see.

This past week I went Tulsa—Dallas—Albuquerque for a mini vacation to New Mexico. My two films: Tears of the Black Tiger from Thailand and La Captive from France. Tears of the Black Tiger had nothing objectionable (although it was a bit weird for airplane fare) but then I started watching La Captive, and, it being from France, started to lean toward some nudity and fortunately I was on the perfect flight for that.

Evidently, Albuquerque is near some military bases because half the jet was full of a variety of soldiers. I almost wanted terrorists to try to take this jet to witness the unholy beat-down that would have commenced. Back to La Captive: Sylvie Testud stops taking a bath, stands and begins to dry off, beginning a few minutes of full frontal nudity.

I cautiously look around to make sure some 11 year old isn’t behind me—I was safe, it was just another soldier. I look quickly over to the soldier to my left who is in his early 20s to see if he was even paying attention—he was. He seemed to be looking at Testud’s bare skin and looked up and caught my eye and gave me a quick nod and a thumb’s up in approval of what I was watching. This guy might not have been interested in a French film on a flight to Albuquerque but he was into this portion of the French film!

Coming home I sat next to a woman in her 60s but lucky for her and my own embarrassment, I was re-watching the 1953 film Roman Holiday and it offers no full frontal nudity. I’ll save another one of those for a later flight.