Despite reports that audiences wanted less sex on the big screen, hanky panky has made an impressive comeback in the last year. A few thoughts.
Last year saw a rise in films that explored sex and specifically women’s desire on the big screen. Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor got in a steamy love triangle in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and Nicole Kidman is currently drinking milk at Harris Dickinson’s command in UK cinemas in Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, which debuted in 2024. Anora, Sean Baker’s sex worker comedy-drama is one of the front-runners at this year’s awards season after bagging the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year.
We also got treated to more queer sex on screen, still a bit of an anomaly, at least in the mainstream. Alongside Challengers, Guadagnino also offered us Queer, in which Daniel Craig’s William begins a relationship with a much younger man, Eugene (Drew Starkey). Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding brought Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart together for a hot and heavy romance and Amrou Al-Kadhi’s Layla was as surprising as it was charming.
Erotic films aren’t anything new. The 1980s and 90s were full of them, including the release of two notorious thrillers: Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992). Both starred Michael Douglas as an upstanding citizen falling into the trap of a dangerous, sexually promiscuous woman. In these films, women werenāt to be trusted unless they were mothers or caregivers. Apparently you needed to have pushed a tiny human out of you to be considered decent.
Erotic thrillers arenāt quite blockbuster material anymore, so the uptick in last year’s offerings of on-screen eroticism seems a little unusual, especially considering that 2023 saw so many reports of younger viewers wanting less sex on screen. A study conducted by UCLA found that people aged between 10 and 24 wanted to see more friendships and less sex, which would reflect their own lives. There was also more desire to see asexual and aromantic characters, something that’s definitely missing from cinema now.
We can’t really blame them. This is the generation that has grown up with the #MeToo movement that linked Hollywood with sexual abuse forever. Although the movement is about more than just abuse within the entertainment industry, the reports of Harvey Weinstein’s treatment of multiple women will forever haunt the industry, and it’s impossible not to look at certain films differently now.
Emmanuelle, Audrey Diwan’s reboot of the seriesof erotic films dating back to the 1970s, is now in UK cinemas, but was released in its home country of France in September 2024. Based on Emmanuelle Arsan’s novel of the same name, Emmanuelle (played by Noémie Merlant) follows the titular woman as she explores her desire and sexual fantasies through sex with several men.
Many of the films listed above focus on female pleasure, especially Emmanuelle, even though the film’s narrative is also tainted with a deep sense of sadness and alienation. The 1974 original was problematic thanks to some tasteless, misguided exoticism, but there was also something ground-breaking about bringing the novel’s story of active female pleasure to cinemas. Emmanuelle actively seeks and initiates sex, but Diwan’s version rarely manages to say anything interesting about it all.
Gone are the bunny boilers of the 1980s ā even though Babygirl does show another marriage in danger thanks to a steamy affair, but this time it’s the woman who ventures outside her marriage to find pleasure. Babygirl opens with Kidman’s Romy having sex with her husband, played by Antonio Banderas, and immediately going to another room to masturbate after their tryst fails to leave her satisfied. Kidman also starred in other rather alluring films like Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and the less alluring, more confounding The Paperboy in which she peed on Zac Efron for a scene involving a jellyfish.
Maybe there’s a hint of anarchy in this sudden interest in graphic sex on screen, a desire to show that there is an audience for it and value to be found in it. Shows like Heartstopper and Sex Education have also included storylines with trans characters, asexual characters, and have given us deeply funny, sad and thrilling narratives about finding your sexuality. HBO is reportedly still working on a new season of Euphoria, but its approach to teenagers and sex feels helplessly outdated. If the new season ever actually comes together, it’ll be interesting to see if it changes its approach to sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Babygirl and Emmanunelle are now in UK cinemas.
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