Scarlett Johansson: Hypersexualised Teen | Who's to Blame?

Owen Tonks posted on the Daily Mail "Scarlett Johansson, 36, reveals she felt typecast in 'hypersexualised' roles in her teens by 'a bunch of dudes' in Hollywood" (18 July 2021) 

The actress, 36, had her break as an adult actress as Charlotte in 2003 movie Lost in Translation at the age of 18, but had her first leading role as Manny in Manny & Lo at the age of 12.

The star said she felt typecast in certain roles in her teens and on into her early 20s, telling The Sun: 'When I was working in my early twenties, and even my late teens, I felt that I got somehow typecast as hypersexualised, which I guess at the time seemed OK to everyone.

Johansson Manny & Lo (12) | Ghost World (16)

We're assuming that by "everyone", Johansson is including herself and her parent(s).  But, unsurprisingly, I'm incorrect, because Johansson recuses herself and her parents from any blame but relates that it was "kind of crafted" "probably" by "a bunch of dudes in the [film] industry.'" 

'Even though it wasn’t part of my own narrative, it was kind of crafted for me by probably a bunch of dudes in the industry.'

Johansson Ghost World (16)

Is it possible that Johansson, her parents, and the film dudes are to blame? #rhetoricalquestion Then Johansson went on to, erroneously, imply that nymphets are no longer being "typecast as hypersexualised" 

However, she insists 'the climate is so different now' and there are 'so many wonderful opportunities for women' in Hollywood today.

Netflix's Never Have I Ever

I wouldn't be surprised if Johansson didn't watch U16 handball, but I would be shocked if she didn't have a Netflix, Hulu and/or HBO Max account. 

Scarlett Johansson & Benicio Del Toro

Did Johansson's 'hypersexualised' roles lead her to being too sexual teen? Glenys Roberts related in a Daily Mail post that: 

"A 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson was so overcome by its heady atmosphere in 2004 that she couldn’t wait to get upstairs with [37-year-old] Puerto Rican star ­Benicio Del Toro and ripped off his clothes in the lift. ‘We were making out or having sex or something,’ she readily admitted later."

Natalie Wood & Scarlett Johansson: Teen Sex in Chateau Marmont Hotel

Nick Ray & Natalie Wood

I recently re-read these stanzas in James Franco's "Chateau Dreams" from his book of prose Directing Herbert White: 

In '54, forty-three-year-old Nick Ray

Fucked fifteen-year-old Natalie Wood in Bungalow 2

Sam Kashner related in a 2005 Vanity Fair piece that 16-year-old Wood began an age-gap affair with Hollywood film director - only days after her "screen test": 

"Natalie Wood desperately wanted the part [in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)], but at 16 she had played only juveniles [...] [Nick] Ray [the film's director] was immediately drawn to Wood, Gavin Lambert recalls. “She was very young, and that was always attractive to Nick,” he says [...] “How quickly did Natalie realize that he found her extremely desirable, and how soon did Nick make his move? … The interview took place in the first week of February, and by the time she made her first screen test, ten days later they were lovers,” recalls Lambert."

In addition, Kashner wrote that subsequent to her affair with Ray, Wood's initiated another age-gap affair with an actor: 

"Wood’s affair with Ray awakened her sexuality—and emboldened her to initiate another love affair, this one with Dennis Hopper, who had been cast as Goon. “I was astonished,” Hopper later said. “I came from a very conventional, middle-class family in San Diego … and this was the 1950s, when girls who’d turned sixteen only a few months earlier just didn’t do things like that.” The sexually charged situation created ill will between Ray and Hopper."

Franco wrote that Wood was 15, but Kashner wrote that she was 16. I don't know Franco's source, but Hopper may have clarified the issue by sharing that when he began his affair with the nymphet, she had "turned sixteen only a few months earlier". That supports Franco's position, because it could take months for a film to start shooting after a "screen test".

Savannah Walsh wrote in a Vanity Fair piece "Natalie Wood Was Raped by Kirk Douglas, Her Sister Alleges in a New Book" (NOVEMBER 4, 2021) that Natalie’s younger sister, Lana, claimed that 16-year-old Natalie had been raped by 39-year-old Kirk Douglas at the Chateau Marmont, but that their mother demanded that Natalie “Suck it up” as not to ruin her Hollywood career. (I'm assuming no pun was intended):

“I remember that Natalie looked especially beautiful when Mom and I dropped her off that night at the Chateau Marmont entrance,” Lana writes in her upcoming memoir, Little Sister: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood (out November 9) [...] Lana claims that Douglas raped Natalie in the summer of 1955, around the time that both sisters were filming The Searchers. 

Their mother, Maria Zakharenko, had reportedly scheduled Natalie’s meeting with Douglas, hoping that “many doors might be thrown open for her, with just a nod of his famous, handsome head on her behalf.

According to Lana, she and Natalie never discussed what had happened until they were both adults. It was at that point that Natalie detailed her rape, telling her sister, “And, uh ... he hurt me Lana.… It was like an out-of-body experience. I was terrified, I was confused.” According to Lana, her sister and mother had decided that it would tarnish Natalie’s Hollywood standing to publicly accuse Douglas. “Suck it up,” were Maria’s words of advice to her daughter, per Lana.

Consequently, Douglas shared in his memoir that he "saw" Wood "many times" after they first me:

Douglas mentions Natalie in his 1988 memoir, The Ragman’s Son, detailing the night “a pretty little girl wearing a suede jacket hopped out” of a car and ran to him. “‘Oh, Mr. Douglas, would you please sign my jacket?’” he recalls her saying, per the AP. “As I obliged, the woman who was driving got out and introduced her. ‘This is my daughter. She’s in movies, too. Her name is Natalie Wood.’ That was the first time I met Natalie. I saw her many times afterward, before she died in that cruel accident.”

Scarlett Johansson & Benicio Del Toro

God knows how many nymphets had sex in the infamous Chateau Marmont, but Glenys Roberts related in a Daily Mail post that: 

"A 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson was so overcome by its heady atmosphere in 2004 that she couldn’t wait to get upstairs with [37-year-old] Puerto Rican star ­Benicio Del Toro and ripped off his clothes in the lift. ‘We were making out or having sex or something,’ she readily admitted later."

Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, and Scarlett Johansson Have Older-Man Problems

Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence & Emma Stone 

Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson aren't nymphets anymore, but according to Kyle Buchanan's New York magazine Vulture post "Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, and Scarlett Johansson Have an Older-Man Problem". Here's an excerpt and some graphics:  

Emma Stone is a mere 26 years old, but in the last cinematic year, she's had four onscreen love-interests who were over 40, including two male characters who were impotent. 

Jennifer Lawrence is Hollywood's most in-demand young actress, but ever since she won her Oscar, it's hard for her to find a screen lover who isn't approaching middle age. 

And Scarlett Johansson has been paired with older actors so often that when she romanced Mark Ruffalo in this summer's Avengers: Age of Ultron, their 17-year age difference was the least nitpicked aspect of their union. 

As we can see, even post-nymphets are alluring to Hollywood - especially when they're paired with older men.