James Franco’s most recent magazine cover doesn’t cover anything up. The 33-year-old critically acclaimed overachiever (he acts, directs, writes poetry and has attended over four different Ivy League Universities … simultaneously) is currently featured on the two separate covers of Flaunt Magazine, one of which is super scandalous.
On the tamer of the two, he sits at a school desk and gazes thoughtfully at the camera. This layout isn’t surprising considering Franco’s illustrious college and postgraduate careers: he has attended Yale, NYU and Columbia.The second cover gives readers a look at Franco from a different angle…a much lower angle. This version features a close up of the actor’s backside with the magazine title photoshopped in as a tattoo on his lower back. The title of the issue,  “A Thorny Issue: Pruning The Roses,” is superimposed over the image of his bare bottom, but doesn’t obscure the super close-up snapshot.Â
Franco is no stranger to taking risks when it comes to his depiction in print media and has occasionally been criticized for what the media has dubbed his unusual “antics.”  Blogging sites have been comparing his partially nude Flaunt cover to the Fall 2010/Winter 2011 issue of Candy where Franco posed in full drag.
But while the actor was widely praised for his willingness to step out of the male heteronormative, stereotypical gender role, many critics seem to think that the jump from posing in a dress to posing undressed on the cover of  a national publication is too extreme.Â
Franco addressed his willingness to push the envelope with his art and the media’s quickness to disapprove of his choices in his Flaunt interview, which you can read on their website, saying that ” I don’t think what I’m doing is confusing … What is confusing is that I’m an actor in mainstream film and the people that usually comment on mainstream film are idiots, and they don’t try to think outside of their pop-culture commentaries. It’s so easy to criticize contemporary art from the outside.”Â
What do you think collegiettes™? Are you intrigued by Franco’s willingness to bare it all for art or do you find his eccentricities plain confusing?