The case for more and better quality sex scenes

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Gather, comrades. We need to talk about bunding. Not really; many other people are already discussing this topic in depth, but if we didn’t, there could be a lot less sexuality in movies and TV, and frankly, it’s sad.

First, let’s get back to Penn Badgley. Earlier this week, Comments The actor has said he no longer wants to do sex scenes on his Netflix show. You took over the internet. On the surface, Badgley’s request seemed reasonable enough. Every actor should be able to decide what they want and don’t want to do in a role. But what he also said rekindled a long-running online debate about the need for nudity and sex scenes in films and television, and the comfort of those who watch them. “Think of every male character you’ve liked. Are they kissing someone? Do they do a lot more than that?” Badgley said in a podcast Depressed. “That’s really not my desire.

It probably won’t fly any further Dragon House. But at the same time, The Dragoncopious sex scenes still don’t feel as intense as they do on Game of Throneswho Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) later described as scared to shoot. In recent years, a post-Me Too movement has emerged that requires every set to have “intimacy coordinators”—people whose job it is to make sure everyone is comfortable with what’s being filmed and how it’s played out. The presence of these coordinators made the production a safer location for filming sex scenes (Dragon House there is one), but at the same time, the prevalence of these scenes has led to discussions about whether such sex scenes are necessary.

Short answer: they are. Sometimes. The long answer is that they have such a complex history that it would take 10 more columns (at least) to cover them all. But the short (please understand that these are very broad strokes) version is that at some point, from the 1930s through the 60s, Hollywood – in an attempt to rehabilitate its image and gain permission to display its merchandise on throughout the US. — censored himself. The Hayes Code, named after Will Hayes, the former Postmaster General who developed it, listed 36″Don’t do it and be careful”—recommendations that, although they went beyond sex and sexuality, had a stifling effect on what directors of intimate films could show on the screen. No nudity, no “perversions” (which usually means no homosexuality), no “first night” scenes (you know how in Romeo and Juliet). The idea was that if the film industry followed these rules, the government would not interfere.

As adherence to the Hays Code faded, largely due to the film industry facing stiff competition from nascent television, the Motion Picture Association of America began to introduce the rating systems we know today, and more explicit content became popular. movie. While this gave the filmmakers more leeway to show an honest portrayal of sex and sexuality, it also led to questionable situations for the actors, who ended up in potentially compromising situations (see: Last Tango in Paris).