The same week when the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Morning News and WFAA-TV announce buyouts and cutbacks comes this rather salacious teaser on the blogosphere: “‘Harry’ strips for magazine.” The full story? Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe appears semi-nude in a photo layout in Vogue.
Scandalous, right? Hardly.Â
Despite what the Internet naboobs would have you believe, Radcliffe is hardly bouncing his teen junk around for the creepy porn lovers. Indeed, the picture is quite tasteful, as you can see below. But completely missing from the headline — and the subhead, which offers an equally puritanical sniff: “At least Leibovitz picked someone older,” a reference to the fact queer lenser Annie also shot Miley Cyrus sans vetements recently — is the context. See, Radcliffe will be on Broadway in a few weeks opening the revival of the play “Equus,” which features nudity onstage by the 19-year-old actor.
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This is old hat for anyone who saw these pictures last year, when the show opened in London’s West End. But that hasn’t stopped many posts I’ve read of uninformed hens who cluck away that it’s disgusting for a “child star” (who is, we should mention, not only “legal” but also not the character he plays) to appear in “obscene” pictures — although the definition of obscenity presumes no artistic merit.
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So what are we to make of this? I guess that it’s typical of “new media” that slanting stories for the most hits is perfectly justified — something I would like to think responsible journalists wouldn’t do. I haven’t done that, have I? I mean, I’m just using these pictures to make a point. Right? … RIGHT?
Daniel needs a tan!
I am a huge Harry Potter fan, as are my wife and our two sons. I have no problems with the photos. I mean, the nudity is part of the play, and the play is serious theater, not kiddie porn. Some people really need to get over all their issues with nudity, anyway.
I am a little irritated, however, that the staging of Equus on Broadway, complete with a naked Daniel Radcliffe, has apparently convinced Warner Bros. to postpone the release of the 6th Harry Potter film, Half-Blood Prince.
It was supposed to be out in November. But alas, now I have to wait until next summer.
Damn it!
Actually, the reason for the delay of the release owes more to the writers’ strike earlier this year than the play. See, Warners doesn’t have as many tentpole summer blockbusters set for 2009 as it hoped to, because they did have any film production for almost four months. So putting off a sure thing and letting it boost next year’s revenues — when Warners already has “The Dark Knight” on the books THIS year — was an economic more than artistic decision. It’s Hollywood.
I am sure the economics did have a lot to do with it. But I still think that the prospect of having Daniel Radcliffe appearing nude on Broadway at the same time as the next Harry Potter film hit theaters influenced the decision!
i wonder what would be the future carreer of Daniel Radcliffe~`,