Sex and a Puritanical Attitude at the Movies
In this year’s Palm d’Or winning feature Anora, sex is flippant, spontaneous, and almost throwaway. Mikey Madison’s Ani and her Russian Prince Charming have as much sex as a new couple consisting of a foul-mouthed stripper and bratty oligarch would, and director Sean Baker happily captures it. In his own words, they are more ‘sex shots’ than sex scenes; occurring without warning or fanfare. In the past year, some of the most talked-about films like Fair Play, Saltburn, and Poor Things all show graphic sex or nudity as well. A far cry from the decade prior, sex on screen seems back in vogue, but why, and is it different to how it was shown before?
A disclaimer: A study published in The Economist in May showed that films have 40% less sex and nudity in them. However, the study only compared films released since the 2000s, ruling out the sex comedy heyday of the 80s/90s, and limited itself to the highest-grossing 250 films a year. As noted in the original article though, even with its sliding scale of sexual severity, it doesn’t explain the recent uptick in graphic sex scenes or nudity. Last year’s Kinds of Kindness shows graphic sex while body-horror flick The Substance manages to show that and a silly amount more. These films are also striking up much more cultural relevance and conversation around them, with some being released by major studios and also performing well at the box office. So it seems like the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, and swinging back hard. I’d argue two main factors are at play here: changing attitudes to sex in an online era and the revival of sleaze.
Photo by MUBI
The first is fairly obvious.
The internet has fundamentally changed the way we interact and think about sex. The access to pornography has done a lot of harm; just look at the growing reach of the manosphere, but it’s also swung back around. Sex work is across the board a lot less stigmatised, and with it has changed how we perceive the shame associated with sex and nudity. That in and of itself has given rise to many more questions and concerns for good reason, yet has undeniably altered young people’s attitudes to the portrayal of sex and also how willing they are to see it on screen. The latter factor is a bit more speculative. A recent rise in low-brow, slightly scatty, early 2000s sleaze culture has made a huge revival this year. Charli XCX’s brat remains one of the most culturally talked about albums months after its release. With this, also comes a more liberal, fast and loose approach to sex. The Venn diagram isn’t just a circle; but bratty, scrappy, sweaty club culture all lends itself very closely to sexual promiscuity and a more flexible view of where nudity is socially acceptable. Even if the recent rise in sex on screen can be partially explained by these factors, I think we should explore why it feels different. To try and answer that, there’s a small detour to take.
While we’re far from the Hays code era of mainstream filmmaking, a decline in sexual representation on screen was noticeable in the mid-2000s to mid-2010s. Hollywood’s shift from mid-budget films to the blockbuster model we all so fondly remember of that time is largely to blame. Studios wouldn’t run the risk of showing any skin if that meant limiting the net of people willing to buy a cinema ticket. Teen sex comedies of the 90s and erotic thrillers went out the window, with IP-driven franchises (and particularly superhero films) taking centre stage at the box office. This transition from film star into an action figure, or perhaps a mouthpiece for the military-industrial complex, means that while their bodies get closer to some Platonic ideal, it’s purpose built for fighting the bad guys, not for being sexual. Marvel’s insistence on making PG-13 children’s films only further hampers any chance of anything scandalous or real being portrayed. Superhero films strip the body of its sexuality both because of the material limitations of only pushing out tentpole films and the ideological restraint that bodies have single-use sexuality.
So why does Hollywood’s new obsession with sex, eroticism, and bodies so often feel so flat? In the simplest terms it’s because it’s drawing too much attention to itself. It often serves as a too blatant social commentary - Oliver in Saltburn ends the film literally swinging his dick around a rich person’s estate - or it sticks out trying to overtly demonstrate character’s intentions; see Tashi’s waxing rhetoric about how tennis is just like sex in Challengers. These limitations are similar to the ones drawn above, although without the material ones outlined before. Audiences are generally more receptive to them, and especially since the rise of indie productions and distributors, they’ve made a market for themselves that has shifted what people expect out of their films. So without the material restraint, we remain with the ideological one. A film like Fair Play isn’t celebrating the military, but the intention with the insertion of sex is still single use. It still exists as a means to an end, not treated as an end itself.
Photo by The American Society of Cinematographers
The rise of this purposeful gratuity is well-intentioned; the same Economist article cites the increase in intimacy co-ordinators in film productions and quotes instances where entire scenes might be cut because the sex shown doesn’t portray any effective plot or character development. The purpose is clear: sex is inherently intimate, so it’s the responsibility of the production to ensure everyone is comfortable. It’s important here to say that the argument here is not to outright condemn this attitude in filmmaking. They are in the end stories, and sex can get in the way. Neither am I trying to argue against the fact that having sex portrayed in film can naturally create environments for exploitation. But I think it’s imperative to examine what falls in this remit of useful sexual portrayal, and that the scope for what does and doesn’t contribute to a narrative is much broader than it seems.
Sex, eroticism, and sexuality are all very fundamental parts of humanity, and with that in mind, it seems misguided to argue sex should only be portrayed when it serves as a blatant cog in a story. It’s a little puritanical.
That said, The Substance is as on the nose as it gets, yet still does a great job in using its sex as the message. Its camera lingers and gazes, forcing the audience into complicity. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s obviously a line where sex gets in the way of storytelling, but I think audiences are usually smart enough to sniff it out. The Idol was rife with nudity and sex, but with Sam Levinson’s chequered public history and its lacklustre storytelling, it was cancelled after a single season and even had its original running length cut. But this middle ground, where sex is only wielded as some intellectual tool in a director’s arsenal, I don’t think fully fits squarely with what art or films are about. Frankly, as long as everyone feels safe on set, who really cares if sex is shown because it’s hot? For a long time that’s how we treated it in real life anyway.
Photo by HBO
Where does that leave us though? I certainly prefer the current consensus to when sex was actively avoided. The pendulum is swinging the other way, and now that the hurdle of portraying it has been cleared, I think we might eventually finally break through and allow ourselves to portray sex on screen the same way we think about it in reality: Everyone is comfortable, everyone is consensual, but also everyone is doing it just because they want to and having a good fucking time.