Sex Symbols for the 21st Century

Vince Vaughn

Vince Vaughn has that snarly mouth with the kiss branded into the upper lip--or is it some private mark of Cain? Whatever it is, it tells us that V-V-voom is not a day's drive from the wind-blasted stretch of desert highway where sex is a dangerous thing, my pretty one, especially when your car has let you down and this hunk here--the one taking off his shirt--is the only trucker who's ready to stop. There's something about Vince that goes back to the American dream of violent sex gods who could break a butterfly's wings--like Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, like the young Mitchum, like any Tarzan just a loincloth away from the jungle. Vaughn can be really nasty (in the back room of your gentle imagination), and he has a way of looking at you that won't move an eighth of an inch to be reassuring. Swingers and Clay Pigeons show how well he's magnified that uncertainty into something very of our own tabloid time. There have been attempts to tame Vince: Spielberg gave him a dumb chance in The Lost World: Jurassic Park--as if trying to obliterate the deep, dark chemistry V.V. had set off with Spielberg's wife, Kate Capshaw, in The Locusts (check that one out). The new Psycho should put an end to any notion of chilling Vince out, now that Norman Bates is Norman Baits.

Ashley Judd

If there's one thing 20 minutes in Hollywood teaches you, it's that deliveries of prime, gorgeous female flesh (with attitude and agents attached) are more frequent than those for any other product. There's no end to the list of dream babes we once thought were forever, but who came--came several times in a row--and then went so completely you can't be sure the obits will even spell the name right. Years from now, will they ponder "Ashley Judd ... or just plain Ashly?" Too many more Kiss the Girls could pull the curtains closed, no matter that this is a legendary body with a Phi Beta Kappa mind and one of the most luminous screen presences since Frances Farmer (look what happened to her). What argues best for Judd's survival is the scene near the end of 1995's Heat where, with just a slight wave of her hand and some inner aging of the soul, she tells Val Kilmer to be somewhere else. Of course, that was Michael Mann, and there aren't many people who can make the way men and women look at each other so erotic. But even Michael Mann has a way of giving his actresses just one smoldering glance while going on and on with the way guys talk. Next century, could we have some directors sufficiently interested in sex for its own sake to give us a couple of hours of just looking at Judd and--by all means--letting her come and come again, until no one questions that she must stay? And stay hungry. And it's Ashley.

Cameron Diaz

When Julia Roberts first sees Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding, she seems to age five years in an instant as she realizes she's suddenly in a real struggle, not just a frothy exercise. What Julia's grave eyes note is that Diaz is terrific, flawless, cool and so decent that no one can attack her without making themselves seem like a creep. Diaz has a happy habit of being in hits--Wedding, her debut film The Mask, last summer's There's Something About Mary. Of course, she's done a lot that passed by in the night, too. But she works hard, has luridly bad hair days and generally seems ready for future shock (e.g., Very Bad Things). For all her willingness to be off-the-wall, she may be a little too eager to please to be a world-class sexpot. She should recollect that Julia Roberts wouldn't be what she is if it hadn't been for that one film, Pretty Woman. Diaz could use the same thing: a project in which she has an older costar and a director who'll tell her to close her eyes, breathe deep and know that she has the nicest smile in the world--so that she'll wake up, take charge, and give a performance that will send men, women and children shambling into the 21st century, aching for her.

Rupert Everett

In the next century, Englishness--as opposed to Britishness--will, I believe, come into its narrow own as the repository of sexiness (and nothing else). How valiantly, over the centuries, the English have seemed preoccupied with the white man's burden, the obligations of empire, the industrial revolution and the world's wars, to say nothing of cricket, crumpets and living in a mist. But now with Britain part of Europe, and with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland thoroughly devolved (or whatever), all that nonsense can be set aside. The English can turn to their true genius, pursuit of sex and the glorification of the dirty mind. Hence, Rupert Everett, a perfect example of English libido liberated, eyes unclouded with thoughts of anything except sex and sexual presence. His mind is like private parts being dissected on a black velvet table. He's thoroughly cocked, like a gun, and ready for all blood sports. The "coming out" of Sir Rupert, the admission of gayness, is really just a mask for this deeper masquerade, and his eminence in bi- and tri-sexual romantic roles in the next century can be predicted with confidence. He's already played, in the The Madness of King George, the Prince of Wales who became King George IV (designer of his own royal pavilion). He'd be perfect as any number of lascivious aristocrats, or as a faun in an Aubrey Beardsley salon. Everett is the actor who, above all in the next century, might begin a tasteful exploration of Decay and Decadence.

Jennifer Lopez

Sitting on it fools nobody. Most of the time, Jennifer Lopez seems to be saying--or is she just sighing?--"Hey, what's with you all?" Her stare tossed back over the shoulder along with her hair, she looks down at the sneaky camera that is trying to keep her bodacious, rococo and slightly implausible ass (its only modern rival is Jessica Rabbit's) in frame. Lopez may not care, but the pose is very like that of Betty Grable in World War II pinups, gazing back at horny GIs dreaming over the open parentheses of her inviting legs. Of course, Jennifer's self-possession and Latina allure are all of a piece, and like the Hispanic vote in California, this power is about the future. The nicest thing about Jennifer is the wicked, yet tolerant look in her smoky eyes, as if she can't help wondering whether we're going to believe in her or strip off her paint-tight clothes and stick in the proverbial pin. She has survived tough training-- being Selena when Selena's fans held the real thing sacred; standing up loyally for old man Nicholson in the gloom of Blood and Wine, hoping the Viagra would kick in; doing saucy candor in her magazine interviews. Out of Sight was the payoff, and the clear proof that she could do grown-up, smart and emotional in-your-face--if only to keep from falling backwards.

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David Thomson is the author of Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts, now published in paperback by Vintage.

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