Dehumanizing

Yes, agreed with this.

The nudity in Game of Thrones has no raison d’ĂȘtre other than to perhaps attract a few more viewers, or to keep a few. It has nothing to do with the storyline at all.office_job

However, the nudity in Westworld is disconcerting, dehumanizing. Creepy. It’s about as sexual as an autopsy — which is exactly the point. It’s necessary to the story, and to the world, to demonstrate that the corporation running Westworld doesn’t see the hosts as even quasi-human and that they have no human rights to dignity and to privacy — or even to be warm.

It is (as stated in the show) that corporation’s explicit policy that hosts when not in the park must be unclothed precisely so that the workers see them as programmable meat, as pieces of machinery or furniture. As not people. Because people wear clothes. It is one of our defining features (in many senses) and raiment of various types is one of the crowning achievements of human technology.

Therefore it’s very disconcerting to see the hosts driven around by a technician with a tablet, and strolling blankly past people in regular office attire while completely nude and utterly vulnerable. This is the metaphor of what’s being inflicted on the hosts’ minds and how helpless they are to prevent it — and it’s a damn good one.

Best screen use of nudity for actual story purposes really ever I think. (And no, it’s not just women though many of the host characters are women so you will see them naked. But if you want plenty of penises on a mainstream TV show, Westworld is also for you. But warning: it’s not sexy at all in either case.)