24 FILM Hot and Heavy vs Cringe and Crude – The Best and Worst cinematic sex-scenes By Louise Collins We all know the feeling of watching a film with our family only to be ambushed by a sex scene. We hide behind our hands, avoiding eye contact with everyone until it passes. I’ve had my fair share of wanting to disappear into the abyss whilst watching a movie with my mam. However, sometimes, you’ve got to recognise them for what they are, and sometimes, they’re bad. Other times, well, they know how to get an audience engaged. Honourable mentions: Dylan O’Brien in The First Time had me going feral when I saw it. Atonement 100% belongs in the hot and heavy category, with the iconic green dress, and the rising tension between Robbie and Cecilia. However, it’s interrupted in the worst possible way, making it very
awkward. Easy A’s fake-sex scene also belongs here. Worst: 365 Days was one, painfully long sex montage with uncomfortable facial expressions, and a plot eroticising a terrifying kidnapping situation. 50 Shades of Grey is horrific with its power dynamic issues and abusive portrayal of BDSM. The After series. This fanfiction turned film series also romanticises a toxic relationship and the sex scenes are shocking. The facial expressions are laughable, the moans are forced, and it’s unbelievable that Tessa is having that much fun two seconds after Hardin sticks it in. Now, the good bit: Always Be My Maybe has the pair making out and feverishly stripping off their clothes as they move upstairs to the bedroom.
The Notebook’s iconic rain-kiss scene precedes the frenzied removal of clothes, before panning to Rachel McAdams in nothing but her pearls. I definitely simp. Lastly, Two Night Stand. What starts off as painfully embarrassing turns into some breath-taking shots – literally. It encourages a healthy dialogue between sexual partners, before turning into a top tier sex montage. The shots of hands gripping the headboard? Hot damn. It’s safe to say there’s a fair share of awful sex scenes out there, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. But it’s also clear that there are some magnificent scenes that absolutely know how to get the audience feeling a little somethingsomething. You’ve just got to come out from behind your hands.
How portrayals of East Asian women in film have shaped real life social perceptions by Adelaide Cannell
It’s no revelation that our digitalising world plays an ever-increasing role in how we perceive and understand society and the relationships within it. We have been reminded of this influence in recent years, sparked by movements such as Black Lives Matter, which drew our attention to Western news biases in depicting interactions between white and non-white citizens across the globe, often in favour of systematic, racist narratives and white hegemony. Likewise, you haven’t got to look far before realising the ridiculous media bias in demonising depictions of Hispanic citizens within right wing orientated, Republican news outlets in America, specifically under the Trump presidency. I want to draw the conversation towards portrayals of a less-commonly dissected discussion: how Western, often American Hollywood, on-screen portrayals and stereotyping of East Asian women through the decades
have been tied up with wider social politics and cultural stigmas. From the left-behind lover to the sexualised, seductive temptress, many film depictions reduce the female East Asian identity into a narrow vacuum: one that often benefits a western and fetishized male fantasy of innocence and passivity or of a sexual, deviant figure – deviant, of course, without being too deviant. Examples of the former can be noted in early American operas and films, such as the character of Cio Cio San in the 1904 opera Madame Butterfly, a Japanese woman who commits suicide after she is abandoned by her white lover. Meanwhile, Lucy Liu’s 2000’s Charlie’s Angels depiction of Alex Munday, a hyper-competent secret agent who teases men with her sexual power. These depictions fall into two recognised archetypes: the ‘Lotus Blossom’, denoting the quiet passivity of a ‘desirable’ figure, and the ‘Dragon
Lady’ – an Asian spin-off of the traditional femme fatale, if you will. While the Dragon Lady can easily hide behind an image of progression from the Lotus Blossom; depicting the independent, kick-ass ‘strong, deceitful and domineering’ woman, the hyper-sexualisation of these characters mean their portrayals remain problematic. A recent example that proves that stereotypes of East Asian women do not exist in an isolated, impact-less vacuum is the Atlanta Spa shootings in March 2021, which left six Asian American women dead, followed by a testimony from the gunman confessing to an ‘Asian fetish’ related sex addiction, denoting his actions to ‘eliminating temptation’. Sociology professor at Loyola Marymount University, Nadia Kim, recently wrote in a recent public seminar that the fact that six of his victims were East Asian American women fits into a sad
