Sex is out at the movies, and family-friendly superheroes are in.
That’s partly because sex no longer sells when mid-budget adult movies
have all but disappeared and blockbusters reign supreme.
But actually, the way audiences feel about movie intimacy has changed, too.
In the post MeToo era, we tend to look at films holistically.
It’s way more difficult to separate the art from the artist,
because the context we now have makes us more aware of
and concerned with the way actors are treated.
In this context, more and more people are coming to the realization
that acting doesn’t have to mean doing sex scenes,
and definitely that actors shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable
or exploited at work. “Yond light is not daylight.”
In January, more than 50 years after its release,
the stars of 1968’s Romeo and Juliet sued the studio
over changing expectations that they’d do nude scenes
once they arrived on set. This greater sensitivity seems to be
a positive development – though not everyone agrees:
there was a loud backlash against Penn Badgley when he revealed
he wouldn’t do intimate scenes on You to protect his marriage.
There’s also the question of whether clamping down too puritanically on
intimate scenes is a form of censorship that recalls the Old Hollywood days
and isn’t really good for the art or for audiences.
Here’s our take on how consent plays
into how we view intimacy onscreen – and whether Hollywood needs
to start censoring again. “They’re being told, hey, make that hotter.
Make that sexier. Well what does that mean?”
From the 1930s to the 1960s, Hollywood self-censored intimacy
onscreen under the Hays Code. The Code was strict –
married characters weren’t even allowed to sleep in the same bed –
and there were rules about how long actors could kiss onscreen for.
“Gentlemen, uh, before you unleash your libidos,
bear in mind, Boston would have banned Pinocchio.”
After the Code lost power and was lifted in the 1960s,
the industry veered in the opposite direction.
Sex scenes in films became increasingly associated with edginess or prestige
Erotic thrillers became popular, adult dramas with intimate scenes
won big awards, and arthouse directors used
explicit scenes to shock. Then, the Prestige TV era juggernauts
like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Game of Thrones, established
their HBO appeal in a large degree through being able to realistically
show what network TV couldn’t. But, abruptly, #MeToo reshaped
our understanding of so many intimate scenes
from the history of film. “This is bigger than Weinstein.
This is about the system protecting abusers.” And as a result the way we approach
intimate scenes has begun to change – both in the industry, and as viewers.
In the past, actors experienced egregious consent violations while filming.
The most famous example is in Last Tango in Paris,
where actor Marlon Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci
conspired to surprise actress Maria Schneider with a scene
in which Brando’s character assaults her with a stick of butter.
“In a way I have been horrible to Maria. Because I wanted her to react as a girl,
not as an actress.” Schneider later said,
“I felt humiliated and to be honest. I felt a little r-[BLEEP], both by Marlon
and by Bertolucci.” As these stories have emerged
more and more, now it’s common practice to
have an intimacy coordinator onset “A large part of that is consent work.
Teaching it, unpacking it, figuring out what that
is at this time in our culture.” But that doesn’t automatically
mean everything is easy – as Me Too taught us, there can be
multiple non-consensual events leading up to the first day onset.
Critics pick up on a lack of chemistry between the actors in these scenes.
But how can actors be expected to create the illusion of intimacy
if they’re afraid or uncomfortable onset? And then, conversely, how do you act sexy
when you have a full team watching you, you’re wearing protective underwear,
or you don’t get along with your co-star – as was the rumor about Jamie Dornan
and Dakota Johnson while filming Fifty Shades of Grey.
So when there is still some sex in Hollywood,
making it convincing – or something people want to watch –
can be pretty complicated. “Sex scenes, in general, I think,
are probably difficult for everyone. Difficult for writers, difficult for actors,
difficult for directors.” And when actors do a good job,
there’s an element of audiences being too convinced,
and taking their responses way too far. Recently, viewers slut-shamed
Chloe Bailey for her sex scene in Swarm – combining two recent audience trends:
that they’re unable to separate the actress from her character,
and they’re becoming increasingly uninterested in these graphic scenes.
In February 2023, Penn Badgley came under fire for saying
he prefers not to do intimate scenes because his marriage is more important
“Fidelity, in every relationship, but especially in my marriage,
is important to me.” It came only a short while after
the media reported the ‘extinction’ of sex scenes due to COVID,
sparking a big conversation – and in some camps, the fallout was huge.
Some deemed his quote “antisex comments”,
“creepy and unprofessional,” taking them as proof
he couldn’t focus on his job and not “lust” after a coworker.
The industry assumption has long been that willingness to do intimate scenes
is required for any serious practitioner of the trades.
But isn’t it fair enough for an actor to make the decision not to do them -
whatever the reason? “Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?”
It’s true that Badgley has an easier time taking this stance as a guy.
We’re told time and again by women with lived experiences of the industry
that if you say no to sex scenes and nudity you’ll be ostracized.
Mila Kunis said she was told she’d ‘never work again’
after refusing to pose nude for a magazine to promote a movie, for example.
The stars of shows get a lot more leverage to control what intimate scenes they do,
versus the smaller characters or extras.