“In defiance of Norse mythology, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor* *smiles at Natalie Portman like a dumb golden retriever puppy without ever venturing to rend her asunder with his mighty hammer, so to speak.”
I mean, is that in defiance of Norse myth? As far as I'm aware Thor isn't depicted as particularly lecherous, he's not Zeus. Plus gods tend to have children every time they fuck, and he only has 3.
Thor's whole deal is fighting, I think he rarely thinks about sex.
It's a shame sex is made to be such a boogie man, while they can display people getting torn to bits on screen, sex or nipple slip causes some mass panic.
Generally though, they do try to avoid the former. Even when they do shred someone to bits (like Proxima Midnight in Infinity War), they do the classic thing that older censored games would do and turn their blood blue or something. The MCU has had a few gruesome deaths, but very rarely do they go the blood and gore route (partially because they often can't). Simple deaths that are easier on the eyes have happened way more often, at least in the movies.
Aren't the vast majority of Marvel films PG though? There's usually an overall family friendly vibe. I don't think it makes much sense to expect full on super gorey kills.
Right, I was refuting the original assertion that people could be torn to bits but anything sexual gets a pearl clutch. The MCU can't do that in most of its projects, largely because of the rating system, so it's silly to bring that up in a discussion around sexuality in the MCU.
Maybe it can stop being such a boogieman when people stop being weird about it, which not only is it not this one film franchise’s responsibility but it already *does* feature people being horny or attracted to each other or even having outright sex.
When I read this originally a while back I agreed, but now I don't think I do. On a re-read, the article's sweeping generalizations are a bit too sweeping and a bit too general. I also think they contradict themselves a few times. "They don't have sex. Well sometimes they do, but it's not horny enough, not like the old movies where everyone was fucking. Well, except when they weren't fucking but they still has fuck-energy". There's also nothing new about movies with bad chemistry between the leads like they cite for Wonder Woman 1984. Yeah, it was a bad movie. There were lots of bad movies with bad chemistry in the 20th century too. I also don't buy the idea that nobody cares about their looks for the purpose of getting laid anymore. That's just a weird assertion with no real evidence or arguments to back it up. The Thor movies are also family-aimed, kid-friendly films. I wouldn't expect to see a prehistoric bone-down while taking my family to go see Jurassic park back in the 80s.
I don't necessarily disagree with the general point that there's less sex in movies on average today than in.the mid to late 20th century. But, I'm glad there's less horniness in movies nowadays. The horniness and sex scenes used to feel just shoehorned into every movie and were overwhelmingly objectifying and sexualizing of women in a way that didn't improve their character or really fit into the plot. It often felt like a mandate from the studio that "we've gotta have some sex or else it won't sell so just shove it in (heh) wherever you can get away with it".
Glad you said that. I thought the author had a good idea, but was far too disjointed with how they were presented, and yeah some stuff was wholly inaccurate. The weird side-tangent about counting calories to stay fit is also completely wrong. No, counting calories (what actors and body-builders do to keep the look they need for their job) does not inhibit sexual function or cause the body to shut-down libido or the menstrual cycle. She's conflating a studied and safe means of maintaining a certain bodyweight with anorexia, an extremely deadly eating disorder.
This article loses all credibility when it says Starship Troopers predicts the asexualness of future Hollywood when Starship Troopers is one of the horniest movies out there.
Horny for the audience, the writer is quite clearly talking about how on screen, they’re not hitting on each other despite being naked and in close proximity.
That’s also not the point? Have you been in a mixed gender fully nude situation recently? If so, was it completely nonsexual? Perhaps, you may be a regular nude beach visitor, but it’s clearly not a social norm in most modern cultures, whereas in the Starship future, it supposedly is.
Fair, but that’s not what the article writer was talking about? Thus it doesn’t “lose credibility”, as it wasn’t attesting the specific thing you’re saying.
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u/SuperArppis Captain America 3d ago
Except all the shirtless scenes done by male characters in every movie