Morissette laughs off her display of 'nudity'

Canadian Press
April 7, 2004 12:50 PM ET

EDMONTON — She's expecting some Americans to be horrified by her nationally televised mock nudity, but Alanis Morissette's not sweating it.

She says she'd be happy to give Janet Jackson "cultural refugee" status in Canada.

There were no Jackson-style breast revelations at the Junos, but the gag highlight of the night was Morissette removing a bathrobe to display a flesh-coloured bodysuit adorned with fake breasts and pubic hair.

When informed that even in the "true North strong and censor free," she was not permitted to show these body parts, Morissette ripped them off the bodysuit, piece by piece.

"I don't care what the reaction is. Whatever they want to feel is fine," said the Ottawa singer backstage after hosting the 2½-hour awards show. Being free with her body is natural for the star who has said she was raised in a home that often employed a nudist policy.

Morissette wasn't the only star to poke fun at the current era of censorship. In a pre-recorded clip Avril Lavigne flashed her chest at a photographer. "Why don't you take a picture of these babies," she said revealing a photo of two babies on a T-shirt. "My sister just had twins."

But Morissette's statement about censorship hit close to home. A couple weeks back American radio stations said they wouldn't play Morissette's new single, Everything, because the opening line contained the word "asshole."

She changed it, and now sings "I can be a nightmare of the grandest kind." In Canada the song is being played in its original form.

The singer, known for her social activism in gay rights, environmental protection and other issues, says she gave in to their demand because she didn't think the fight was worth it.

"When it was first requested of me to do that I stood my ground," she recalled. But 10 minutes later she reneged.

"Part of my life purpose is to share this music and to inspire courage and passion and self-expression in whomever I can. If I were to stand my ground for something as small as that and make it so that I wasn't going to be able to share my song I think that I would have been shooting myself in the foot," she said.

The 30-year-old singer says there's plenty of fear south of the border but she believes that repressing acceptance of the human body causes eating disorders _ something she has struggled with _ rape and sexual molestation.

"We all play a part in that," she said.

So will she be keeping the outfit? "I don't think I'll be keeping it. I don't think I'll be doing that piece again," she laughed.

Morissette's supposed nudity wasn't her only gag of the night. The songstress showed her humorous side throughout the broadcast in a variety of Mad TV-style comedy skits, including a mock-obituary for the hair she cut off last summer.

She said the only reason she hasn't shared her funny bone with fans sooner is because she was trying to move up the social ladder and didn't think laughter was the way to do it.

"When I was younger I was compensating for being in what I viewed as a patriarchal society, one in which if I came out laughing and giggling my deepest fear would be to be perceived as a dumb airhead," she said adding quickly, "which I am now very much embracing in myself."

While Morissette got her start in comedy on the teen show You Can't Do That on Television where she was often the victim of a bucket of green slime, she said it didn't help advance her music career when she was doing the dance-pop thing in the early-1990s.

"At that time it was very important for me to come out and be taken seriously as a woman, as a producer, as a writer which required a little bit more effort than certain male friends who were doing the exact same thing as I was doing," she said. "Part of me considered it a little bit easier to start serious and segue into sharing the part of me that's a little bit more humorous."

She even joked that she and boyfriend actor Ryan Reynolds, who accompanied Morissette to Edmonton for the week of rehearsals, would be ready for a reality show where she could be like Jessica Simpson.