CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.
The devil truly is in the details when it comes to some of the hidden gags you’ll find in movies, be it Tilda Swinton cameoing in Suspiria, the running threat of X’s marking the spot in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, or even the humorous last name given as Han Lue’s alias in Fast Five. In other words, something in the background to blow your mind or make you laugh in the middle of the action. A really good example of this sort of thing happening came to light recently when Kevin Smith discussed how, upon showing Ben Affleck Zack and Miri Make A Porno for the first time, he noticed something really funny about Jason Mewes’ big nude scene.
Recounting this story in the recent documentary Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies, Smith described how Jason Mewes, one of his best friends and collaborators, had made an interesting grooming choice to commit to the film. If you’ve never seen Zack and Miri Make A Porno, this isn’t a spoiler, but in a big heartfelt scene where Seth Rogen’s Zack is trying to win over the heart of Elizabeth Banks’ Miri, Mewes walks into frame in a moment of full frontal nudity… with his pubic hair shaped in a heart. And as you’ll see in Smith’s story below, Ben Affleck has quite the eagle eye for details such as these:
I remember when I showed the movie to Affleck, nobody had ever said this. The entire time I’d shown people the movie and stuff, nobody ever noticed. Soon as the movie’s done, Affleck goes, ‘Did Mewes shave a heart into his pubes?’ I was like, ‘You were lookin’! You were lookin awfully close, weren’t you?’
Out of all the people who could have noticed Jason Mewes’ artistry when it came to the subject of manscaping, leave it to an old friend like Ben Affleck to have his eyes trained to spot any and every gag Mewes, and by extension Kevin Smith, could cram into Zack and Miri Make A Porno. With the pair recently making amends, to the point where Affleck made a heartfelt cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, it’ll be interesting if the resurrection of this story spurs any interesting discussions about that particular moment, or even any new and outrageous gags the two could be planning for potential future projects.
While Jason Mewes’ heart of love isn’t the most famous nude scene shown in Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies, nor is it even one of the more controversial choices that the filmmakers highlighted in a truly insane number of scenes featuring the naked human body, this sight gag from Zack and Miri Make A Porno is quite possibly the funniest of the lot. Part of it is seeing that moment for yourself, when it’s freeze framed and pointed out; but the way that Kevin Smith tells the story is something else that adds another level of hilarity to the entire tale.
Both are things you can experience when you watch Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies, which is currently available on VOD.
