A community for entertainment industry news and general discussion about movies and TV shows.
Rules:
Can probably extend that a bit. I've very rarely seen a sex scene in a movie and found it to actually be relevant.
Early 90's here and thought I was the outlier. Came out as asexual 3 years ago though
I've often found them to be enjoyable
I mainly find that if I want to watch sex I will watch sex, if I want to watch a movie I want to watch a movie.
I enjoy sex in my movies. It's totally different when it's a movie vs porn. To me it's a bit like saying if you wanted to watch violence you'd watch Liveleak hah
Yeah. I feel like things like fight and sex scenes are often filler. They’re like black boxes that only matter to the story at either end. Why are these characters having sex/fighting? What’s the outcome? Has this confirmed their romance or made them rethink things? Who won the fight and what does that mean going forward?
The actual details of either kind of scene are essentially suspensions of any narrative or thematic development in favor of pure spectacle. Now sometimes spectacle can be good. But while I’ve seen good action scenes that are exciting to watch, what would even make for a good sex scene as far as spectacle goes? People aren’t exactly looking to get a boner in the middle of a 2hr movie. Are there people who are just really appreciative of some kind of abstracted eroticism separated from stimulation?
Recenty: Oppenheimer.
People remember the imagined sex scene during the inquisition, but often forget it was imagined from the wife’s point of view. That moment was pivotal to the plot, but honestly - it’s every husband’s worst nightmare about cheating. You can imagine all the crazy Basic Instict stuff you want since you know its generally unrealistic, but if you care about your partner, you never want to have her to have that moment in her head because it’s too real.
Yeah it's also weird and fake. It's like it's just an intermission segment used as marketing enticement for creeps.
Film only has itself to blame really. With the death of midbudget movies, you don't get enjoyable eroticism or romance centric movies anymore. Indie and foreign cinema used to also be good sources for erotic drama, especially queer stories. Sex and sensuality are languages, and they can be used to tell a good story.
But we don't tell good stories in film anymore, not with sensuality or action or suspense or anything else. We get sold "marketable" stories now. Bland CGI action disconnected from any character scenes. Bland heterosexual relationships culminating with boring sex. Flat framed characters standing in front of a greenscreen "acting" at a tennis ball that will be replaced with the villain later.
Most of the time, unless it's a film about love or sex, romance is just shoehorned in there for no reason. I think the only genre of film that should be allowed to do that is comedy. Otherwise it seems like lazy story telling, especially in action movies.
If we want porn, we have the Internet in our hands. So random sex scenes make no sense.
Why would we want barely formed romance sub plots?
Film should be used as a tool to gain insight into these experiences, of which some of the more profound might be seduction, companionship, and loss.
Yeah, because it adds nothing to the story. "Here to proof they are in love not like the past hour has already made it clear"
I'm not saying every sex scene is good but, the puritan undertone of the US really comes out in these conversations. The idea that a sex scene adds nothing to the experience is simply wrong. I mean, you could say the same for fight scenes, cinematic landscape scenes, most scenes without speaking. These all clearly change and often improve the experience of watching, and so does a sex scene. It can say a lot about the state of the characters minds and it provides you significantly more emotional sympathetic impact.
Maybe there’sa Puritan streak, but I suspect there’s also a strong streak of people very comfortable with pornography who see modern cinematic sex scenes as cheap and meaningless attempts at porn.
Seems kinda odd to me that sex should be segmented away from "normal" life. I am seeing several comments here along the lines of "If I want to see sex I'll watch porn". Isn't it normal for sex to be part of life? Why must it be so separate from everything? Seems kinda unhealthy, tbh.
To be clear that I am not advocating doing it on the front lawn. But it is normal for sex to be part of one's "regular" life.
I think sex is normalized as a part of life, but what about people who choose not to make sex a part of their life? Not saying there should be no sex scenes in movies, but how about making some movies and shows where sex isn't shoehorned in, where characters of the opposite sex don't need to be romantic as a standard
I know the example that gets thrown around lately is the DND movie where Darvis and Holga just have a solid platonic relationship
A lot of Hollywood &-ish cinema decouples sex from relationships, as if it’s a “good boy” treat for winning the day or if it’s a a cautionary tale of urges gone wrong. Try the foreign cinema of Spain, Italy or France and you can see how it’s part of the character’s development and growth in a film, and not just a plot point.
Even though it's not the reason given in the article; in my own personal experiences I dislike sex scenes in movies/ TV (even though sex is a natural thing) because it rarely actually adds much to the plot that you could only get by seeing the sex happen.
People like to joke that you never see TV show/ movie characters go to the bathroom or say goodbye before hanging up, but there's a reason for it. Story telling is a time constrained medium and you need to trim the fat when it comes to unnecessary details.
With that in mind, sometimes it really feels like the only reason a sex scene is being shown is not to advance the plot, but for the audience's titillation.
Of course, all this is just my personal opinion, and not an objective fact; but to me sex scenes are rarely important to the plot and just feel unnecessarily tacked on.
I like seeing two beautiful people going at it. Kinda disappointed in some cases where they blue ball the viewers.
If I want to watch porn I'll just watch porn. I don't need it in a movie personally.
To me it's very different
I agree. If I wanted to watch porn, then that's what I'd watch. Just do a nice fade to back and skip the sex scene. It would be even better if they also skip the romance subplot as well. Hollywood needs to learn that it's possible for two people of the opposite sex to interact with each other without having to fall in love and/or have sex.
I mean either don't do it or make porn. There shouldn't be a in between.
Same for people who drive cars in movies. Like, who goes to the supermarket with his car?
Either do a Formula 1 movie or don’t.
We've already got those. Family
Yeah, and while we are at it, either make an MMA fight or don't that either.
Or do landscape photography and don't bother with establishing shots.
Every number that the article claims to support the headline is below 50%
Despite it not being a solid majority overall, it's still quite significant that there's such large percentages, which shows it's less of a minority than you might think.
Fair enough, but the claim is for a whole generation. Which is not supported by the numbers.
Obviously significant minority might also be impressive in comparison to other generations, but there is no comparison to other generations.
Overall quite a weak article.
Honestly, I kind of agree with the study. Not to say that any romance in a TV show or movie is a no-go, but that it feels tired and lazy.
As the article says, it feels like a shortcut writers take to prove a character's growth or happiness; and it sets (what I feel is) an unhealthy goalpost for happiness. While being in a romantic relationship can be quite rewarding, I personally don't care for the notion that it's the only way to be truly happy or that it's the most important type of relationship out there.
My favorite genre of TV/ movies is best friends just being buddies (Psych, Detroiters, South Side, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, etc). When friendships run deep enough they can be just as meaningful and stable as romantic relationships and I think their underrepresentation makes them stand out even more.
On again, this isn't to say that I hate romance in TV/ movies, just that it's usually unnecessary and overrepresented.
Sex scenes in movies and series are weird. People have sex like they really gotta pee afterwards. I can't relate to the way these characters have sex.
Maybe I'm having sex wrong...
It's the same with rappers
Who wants to hear a rapper talk about his dick and banging? I'd just watch some gay stuff for that.
To me it just seems like an insecurity.
Because it's all the same cookie-cutter formula they like to use. It's bland, uninteresting and forgettable. May as well skip it.
Honestly I just want to be able to watch stuff with other members of my family.
So I'll mention this first as it feels fairly relevant, but the article talks about how successful Game of Thrones was, though I'm not sure I'd attribute that success to the fact it had sex scenes.
As it is, Game of Thrones is a fantasy with lots of dramatic elements to it, and seemingly good writing for the most part, until whatever happened towards the end that ruined that for a lot of people. If they wanted sex to be part of the story, they could do so without ever really showing it on screen, but still being significant and more than just mentioned to have happened.
It could be implied through another character who found some indication of it after, or if no signs of it could be found, through the characters involved themselves, but just before or after it was done. And by doing that, you get the information of how the characters feel about it by how they react and respond, without just blatantly having all the complications of a sex scene included.
To me, showing a sex scene feels like the opposite of the phrase "show, don't tell", despite it quite literally being showing. It's just showing that it happened, almost like it's "telling" us directly that it did, rather than "showing" that it happened through interactions with the characters or environment before or after, which opens up so many more story and writing opportunities than just "telling" us it happened by just showing the sex that looks mostly like every other sex that has ever happened.
And the times a direct sex scene is actually good for the writing and story? Not everyone might understand what's being communicated with the sex scene, either because they'd rather not see sex in the first place, or because the body language and other tells are more subtle than what you can accomplish without sex in the first place.
So back to my original mentioned point, the success of Game of Thrones really doesn't seem like it entirely hinges upon the fact you see characters having sex lots of times, but rather mostly the writing, with which the sex scenes can be rendered unnecessary to convey the same story, without excluding parts of the audience that don't want to see sex in their fantasy drama for whatever reasons they might have, of which there's many possible reasons.
And all that without even getting into the problem of genuinely bad sex scenes that either don't contribute anything at all to the plot or development of characters, or even pointlessly harm the actual plot and development just by being there.
And of course, something else the article talks about that I agree with, you don't have to have characters immediately jump to having sex from the moment they start liking each other, you can have emotional or platonic bonds that form without that, and without which it just feels significantly more meaningless. Sex isn't some central point from which all relationships universally revolve around, and you can have characters enjoying time with each other, including in a bed together, without it consistently becoming yet another sexual moment mostly in an attempt to appeal to the viewers rather than the actual characters themselves.