If you like it great, if you don’t, that’s okay too” – her next step involves moving the needle on the use of the male nude in art. It’s a lack of parity that Scruggs wants to subvert, “the male nude has been marginalized because there’s never been a dude with his penis out on the side of a bus”, she says, “only now are we starting to see male actors going full frontal in TV and film on a more consistent basis.”.ĭana Scruggs, Rōze En La Playa (2016) Dana Scruggsīecoming more radical as her career progresses – in January Scruggs took to Instagram resolving to “just do what I want. “Seeing the female body nude is extremely commonplace”, Scruggs elaborates, “there’s literally been countless advertisements of naked women on billboards and in magazines, and actresses are constantly expected to show full frontal nudity on screen.”. Her recently released photo series The Black Male Form sees Scruggs - known for shooting high profile celebrity magazine cover stories - vow to use the male body as an object, in the same way many male artists have done with the female body throughout art history. “The male nude is by leaps and bounds way less exoticized than the female nude in art, and in all forms of media”, the photographer Dana Scruggs tells me. Yushi Li, The Feast, 2020, image courtesy Yushi Li Yushi Li
