Outlaw King reception proves audiences mock male nudity and expect female sexuality

By Patrick Sullivan, Film & TV Editor

The gritty, gory violence falls shy of the standards of Game of Thrones (2011-), but the big debate here is the varying public treatment of Chris Pine and Florence Pugh following their nude scenes.

Set in the early 1300s in a time when England ruled over Scotland, Netflix’s Outlaw King tells the epic tale of when Robert The Bruce (Pine) was hailed as the King of Scots and led a small rebel army to win back their land. The glamourous American superstar, Chris Pine, puts on a Scottish grumble, dons a shabby beard and chainmail, and leads the macho cast with David Mackenzie in the director's chair.

The film has garnered attention online for the explicit nature of scenes featuring Chris Pine and his very own 'Loch Ness Monster'. Having read about the scenes online beforehand, I was on keen lookout. In one scene, he wades in a loch simply washing himself, and you’re looking around the surface of the water trying to distinguish man urchin from sea urchin. You’ll see it if you’re desperate, but otherwise, you may blink and miss it.

"People are giggling about my penis as if we're schoolchildren. Florence shows her entire body in this film and no one is talking about that. [...] Is Florence expected to do that because she is a woman and I'm not [...] because I'm a man?"
Chris Pine on the double standards of nudity in film

However, Florence Pugh - the tremendous young British actress also starring in BBC’s ongoing The Little Drummer Girl (2018), which I also reviewed here - plays Robert’s wife and is fully naked for an extended sex scene between the pair. Pine himself believes the varying attitudes towards their nudity says plenty about our societal attitudes. ‘People are giggling about my penis as if we're schoolchildren. Florence shows her entire body in this film and no one is talking about that. [...] Is Florence expected to do that because she is a woman and I'm not [...] because I'm a man?’

Judging purely on performances, while Pine is stoic and delivers a fine accent, Pugh is the firecracker once again, portraying English noblewoman, Elizabeth Burgh, with a strong conviction. Her character is torn by her roots and the love she feels for her outlaw husband, and Pugh is as fierce as ever in a brutal scene when Elizabeth is being held captive by the Robert’s pathetic nemesis, Prince Edward of England (Billy Howle). Her scenes are undoubtedly the finest in the film, and even bring out the best in her male co-stars.

Elsewhere, the film plays out like a grubby Game of Thrones (2011-) - but without the dragons and magic. The several battle scenes are grand, well-choreographed affairs full of blood, intestines, spears, and swords, but ultimately the results pale in comparison to the depth of detail and characterisation featuring in HBO’s big budget, blockbuster series.

The only exception is the opening sequence, a wonderful example of how long single take shots can be used to great effect. The camera sweeps in and out of the political tent where Scottish Earls are being forced to pledge allegiance to their tyrannical English king (Stephen Dillane). It moves to the outer fields where Robert first toys with Prince Edward in a swordfight egged on by rowdy Scottish men, before finishing with the first launch of the breathtaking, flamethrowing trebuchet which the English contingent fire successfully at a Scottish castle. The bitter presence of the natives throughout this opening provides key political and historical context for the motives for their unrelenting tale of revenge, and David Mackenzie delivers with aplomb.

It is such a shame, then, for narrative purposes at least, that both the trebuchet and the single take technique are not used explicitly during the remainder of the film. The story, minus any arc featuring Elizabeth (Pugh), stutters to its inevitable conclusion. The great obstacles to their success are mentioned frequently, and yet the final battle, no matter how gritty or gory, is an anticlimax of scale - the true size and might of the English army never fully realised. Why couldn’t they just blitz the Scots with the humongous, raging trebuchet?

Regardless of its success or failure as a film, Outlaw King proves the relevance of discussing the real life implications of violent and sexual content in films. The violence here is accepted where male nudity is laughed at. Furthermore, our acceptance of gratuitous female nudity on screen ahead of equivalent male scenes needs to be questioned.

Epigram Film & TV’s ‘Sex In Film’ series is featuring online in November and in Issue 332.

Our previous series, ‘Violence In Film’ is featured in Issue 331, and all the articles are also available to read online.

Featured Image: Netflix Media Center / Outlaw King / David Eustace

How fussed were you about the full frontal nudity in Outlaw King?

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