Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it • Hacker News Board

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#31

Post by malwarebytess » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 1:59 AM UTC

brushfoot wrote: post #16

There are interesting ideas here. Personally, I find the War on Terror explanation a little far fetched. I think a more likely possibility is that movies started specializing. In the decades before the Internet, cinema was one place where the average person who didn't buy dirty magazines could glimpse more skin than in everyday life. Then the Internet came along. Suddenly pornography was in everyone's home. Soon it w…

> A populace thoroughly satiated in private can afford to be puritanical in public.

This is a disturbing thing if true. It seems a key feature of an oppressive society.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#32

Post by sircastor » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

I feel compelled to make the very-adjacent-to-the-article statement that "Starship Troopers" is not an adaptation of the novel, but at best a vacuum-forming of another script into the space of Starship Troopers.

IIRC, the original script was called something like "Bug Hunt at Outpost 9" and someone at the studio said "Hey, we can get the rights to Starship Troopers and this thing will sell better."

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#33

Post by automatoney » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

brushfoot wrote: post #16

There are interesting ideas here. Personally, I find the War on Terror explanation a little far fetched. I think a more likely possibility is that movies started specializing. In the decades before the Internet, cinema was one place where the average person who didn't buy dirty magazines could glimpse more skin than in everyday life. Then the Internet came along. Suddenly pornography was in everyone's home. Soon it w…

Sexuality consists of much more than plain sexual imagery - one of the key examples in the article states "Neither character is glamorous in this scene, but their relationship feels frisky and lived-in and charismatic and real." Mainstream movies generally have romances, but do they feel real and lived in, or stilted? This has little to do with pornography, and more to do with the way we tell stories about ourselves.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#34

Post by theonemind » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

throwaway77767 wrote: post #11

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones;…

There are almost 7.7 billion people on the planet already, even with less than replacement birthrates, I think we're good on human count for the next 300 years or so at a minimum so unless the birth rate really catastrophically collapses. We could lose an order of magnitude of people without endangering genetic diversity, take significant load off of the environment, and frankly, quite probably improve the human condition with fewer billions of other people to compete with in the world. I recommend seeing how we can extend this trend to demographics and countries it hasn't reached yet.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#35

Post by hirundo » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

Is this a side effect of normalizing porn, that sexuality is more effectively partitioned?

I once had a debate in an online forum about legalizing prostitution, and most participants were supportive of it. Then I asked the same group, what about legalizing partial prostitution, like a receptionist that also has sex with the boss as part of the job description. The participants all immediately switched to revulsion at the idea and none would support it.

So why is 100% sex work less exploitative than 50% sex work? I don't think it is. But for some reason our culture finds specialist sex workers more tolerable. The same pressure seems to be bifurcating entertainment.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#36

Post by Jtsummers » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

malwarebytess wrote: post #31

brushfoot wrote: post #16

There are interesting ideas here. Personally, I find the War on Terror explanation a little far fetched. I think a more likely possibility is that movies started specializing. In the decades before the Internet, cinema was one place where the average person who didn't buy dirty magazines could glimpse more skin than in everyday life. Then the Internet came along. Suddenly pornography was in everyone's home. Soon it w…

> A populace thoroughly satiated in private can afford to be puritanical in public. This is a disturbing thing if true. It seems a key feature of an oppressive society.

Related: panem et circenses

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

The idea is that keeping people occupied and diverted then you can fail as a civil leader but still maintain your control and position. The more people are satisfied (by government or business efforts or other large scale entities) the less likely they are to rebel when those entities are failing them. Even if they aren't properly satisfied, they're still made content.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#37

Post by anonll394e92 » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

throwaway77767 wrote: post #11

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones;…

Personally I use escorts, it is not easy finding an independent, good looking, permissive, not-very-expensive girl but by my calculations that's a far more efficient way of satisfying my inner-chimp until I want to get married and have kids.

I do not want to participate in some mating ritual that involves two persons lying to each other in order to just relieve some sexual tension. In Romania I do not feel that generally girls are ok with no strings attached sex without this dishonest dance and even so, I couldn't probably get as attractive a girl as an escort. Maybe I could by investing a lot more time than I'm comfortable with just to satisfy a basic urge... but for 100$ I can have sex with girls of the same level of say Emma Stone that really know what they're doing.

So if I make even 25$/h that's 4h of work for 1 sex session, which will take place entirely when I feel the desire for it. To find a similar (looking) girl that will have sex "for free" will probably take more than 10x more time and even then the actual sex might not be as good. Even if it is as good it will happen when the stars align and we both want it at the same time.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#38

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

polishdude20 wrote: post #23

throwaway77767 wrote: post #11

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones;…

Become financially independent is probably the best you can do. That'll cover not affording to go out and having to live with parents or roommates.

I don't think thats the core issue , sex is down even among school going teenagers

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#39

Post by readflaggedcomm » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

malwarebytess wrote: post #31

brushfoot wrote: post #16

There are interesting ideas here. Personally, I find the War on Terror explanation a little far fetched. I think a more likely possibility is that movies started specializing. In the decades before the Internet, cinema was one place where the average person who didn't buy dirty magazines could glimpse more skin than in everyday life. Then the Internet came along. Suddenly pornography was in everyone's home. Soon it w…

> A populace thoroughly satiated in private can afford to be puritanical in public. This is a disturbing thing if true. It seems a key feature of an oppressive society.

Separating private and public spheres of life respects consent.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#40

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

> When revisiting a beloved Eighties or Nineties film, Millennial and Gen X viewers are often startled to encounter long-forgotten sexual content : John Connor’s conception in Terminator, Jamie Lee Curtis’s toplessness in Trading Places, the spectral blowjob in Ghostbusters. These scenes didn’t shock us when we first saw them. Of course there’s sex in a movie. Isn’t there always?

None of those were major studio action blockbusters (Terminator, one might mistake for that because of the resulting franchise, but it was an indie film that hit it big; all the rest are out-of-genre.)

So, if those are really your comparisons, the problem may be that you are comparing fundamentally different kinds of movies. The description of “even when they have sex no one is horny” seems to be pretty typical, over a long time window, of action blockbusters. Horniness is big in comedy, romance, and erotic subgenres of other genres, but it's not big in action (though non-blockbusters might include it because they tend to have more freedom to depart from genre rules.)