Controversy
The film was the target of mild controversy when it became known that the nude body in the opening scene, taking place in a shower, was not that of Angie Dickinson but of Penthouse model Victoria Lynn. This controversy stemmed mostly from Dickinson's status at the time as being a sex symbol; the provocative shower scene — and the film — originally seemed to cash in on the idea that this nude body was that of its star. However, this revelation of a body double (a theme later explored by director De Palma in his 1984 release, Body Double) seemed to do no harm to its box office performance.
Several critics said that De Palma was pushing the envelope with the film's graphic sex scenes, including Dickinson masturbating in the shower and later being raped in a daydream passage; a common criticism was that De Palma was exploiting sex for the purpose of keeping it on screen. Others felt he wanted to put it on film for the sake of his own career. In the gay community, others felt De Palma was propagating negative stereotypes of gay and transgender people. Several feminist groups said the film degraded women. De Palma said in defense that he made a film which itself was a dark "sexual fantasy", a piece that was meant to be a fantasy to begin with.
Read more about this topic: Dressed To Kill (1980 film)
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)