Question for the Week of May 13-19: Sharon Stone's Sexist Skirt

Has anyone else ever pointed out to you a moment of film sexism that really stands out and that you didn't notice?

First, let me note that it's always great when old conversations - little throw-away moments between you and another person - become sort of practically useful in the future. At the time, of course, it's just two people connecting, sharing ideas and entertaining each other; later, it's something that you can reasonably share with others.

In college, I had a friend named Vik, and she and I saw a lot of movies together. Like me, she had the gift of gab and put some thought into her pastimes. One day, she went off on 1985's attempt to put Richard Chamberlain into competition with Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones: King Solomon's Mines.

Now, clearly, Stone had at least one movie with genuinely controversial nudity and sex in it. And KSM did not show her naked body, nor were there intense sex scenes in it. However, it was the soon-to-be-starlet's fourth film role, her second major part, and her first time being a co-star. Ms. Stone is pretty, and the film played it to the hilt.

How? What was the problem that Vik rightly pointed out? Sharon Stone's skirt length:

Go to the 1:41 mark - see how it's just above the knee?:

Now advance to 0:26 in this clip - it's higher for some reason:

And, later in the film, at the 2:21 mark of this segment, it's even higher still:

Yeah, this professional actress got a wardrobe treatment so exploitative, yet subtle, that it got straight past me. But since it's all the more sucky for being hard-to-notice, I'm glad to take a few minutes today to point it out.