Back to School

'No sir. You're never going to forget this happened, because I'm going to stay here. And every time you see me, you'll remember that it happened. You used me for football. I'll use you to get into Harvard'

David Green

I was still in high school when I saw 1992's School Ties in the theatre.  The movie had a lasting impact on me for a number of reasons.  The subject matter of course, and the fact I was on a date with my high school girlfriend.  I wrote a bit about my experience on the site before when I profiled actor Randall Batinkoff, some of which I'm sharing again below. 

At the time, I knew nothing about what the film was about and had never heard of Matt Damon, Brendan Fraser, Randall Batinkoff or any of the other male actors that made up the cast.  The film was sort of a dream come true for the guy (still in the closet)  on the date back then. Each male cast members was more adorable than the next. Chiseled jaws, great hair, and incredible bodies, some of whom were showed off in the famous shower scene.  

At the time, I crushed mostly over Randall and Brendan Fraser.  The entire cast however, Damon, Chris O'Donnell, Ben Affleck, Cole Hauser, Andrew Lowery and Anthony Rapp were all incredibly good looking and incredibly talented.  The film introduced me to most of the cast, Fraser, Damon, and Damon's hot derrière. It also introduced me to something I'd not previously been aware of, antisemitism.

Sadly, thanks in large part to the orange ass who inhabited The White House, antisemitism has been spotlighted once again.  It likely never went away, but it didn't have a recent national political figure who supported and coddled it's followers and believers.  When I first watched School Ties, I thought I was watching a piece of history, how sadly wrong I was.

I'm not sure if the casting director, and the film's director Robert Mandel knew what magic they created with the actors they hired.  It's rare to find a film that caught so many young actors on the brink of hitting it big.  The film was certainly Brendan Fraser's break out role, and Damon, Affleck and O'Donnell quickly followed School Ties with huge break out films of their own.

So.. that shower scene.... It was hard to sit still in my seat when I first watched in the theatre. Thank God it was dark and that my date as focused on the screen and not my excitement and arousal.  At the time, my focus was on Damon's cute butt, and a little distracted by the bubbles strategically place on Chris O'Donnell's butt, clearly at the actor's request to ensure his butt was not fully visible. 

Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon however appeared completely nude, something Fraser recently confirmed during a recent guest spot on The Howard Stern Show.  After Howard asked about the bare wrestling shower fight, Fraser shared that he and Damon were indeed completely nude during the filming of the scene. 

'It was scary. It's scary to do that. When you're an actor and you're starting off, you're ambitious and game for pretty much anything. They say, 'Jump,' and you say, 'How high?' 

'I appreciated that this isn't really for wow or a scintillating factor of going, 'Hey, look at that. Naked people.' The point of it was is that when Damon's character says what he says about David, he just reveals who he is.  His anti-Semitism and his prejudice is stripped down naked, and it's ugly.'