[This story contains spoilers for Twisters.]
tornado Audiences are embroiled in a new debate surrounding depictions of sexual intimacy on the big screen. Social media users are excited about the ending of director Lee Isaac Chung’s action drama starring Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar Jones and Anthony Ramos.
sequel to the 1996 film tornado The new film, starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, centers on Kate (Edgar Jones), who returns to Oklahoma to assist the team tracking a dangerous storm in an attempt to bring a tragic The tornado was left behind. tornado shows her slowly building connection with YouTube-famous storm chaser Tyler (Powell), but you might be surprised to learn that the two never express their affection through an on-screen kiss.
“My partner immediately lamented that their romance never materialized in any way, and they even avoided the handsome hero taking off his shirt,” said John Bucher, executive director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, who served as Story consultant for the show. “It speaks to the deep conflict we have with intimacy right now, that as a culture we’re avoiding it entirely because it’s too messy or complicated. So we’re just shelving it. We’re just putting it aside completely so that we Just don’t have to deal with it.
In fact, the film team did choose to shelve such a scene. Chung actually filmed a kiss between Powell and Edgar-Jones, with footage of the lip-lock circulating on social media, although it did not appear in the final film. The two stars said it was a result of executive producer Steven Spielberg’s input, and both said the decision made sense to them.
Daisy Edgar-Jones (left), Glen Powell and director Lee Isaac Chung on set tornado.
Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
Cheng himself recently stated that the cancellation of the kiss scene was the result of changing preferences of moviegoers. “I feel like the audience is in a different place now in terms of wanting a kiss or not wanting a kiss,” the director told entertainment weekly. “I actually tried the kiss and it was very polarizing – and it wasn’t because of their performance of the kiss.”
Controversy surrounded the film after research showed members of Generation Z were less interested in watching on-screen sex scenes than previous generations. While recent movies with intense scenes of passion have certainly captured the interest of younger audiences – think of Amazon’s challenger, your thoughts and red, white and royal blue — it seems unlikely that the movie will contain gratuitous nudity or intimate moments. (A study last year reported that pornographic content in major movies has dropped by nearly 40 percent since 2000.) tornadoPowell said he believed the omission of the kiss helped shape Kate’s self-actualization into one that was not dependent on having a significant other by her side.
Brian Hurwitz, an in-house writer for production company Dolphin Entertainment and a lecturer at UCLA, noted that Gen Z and younger Millennials may view intimate scenes as something “not something that used to be.” A sign of equality,” and women may not have much say in this scenario. “It’s a discomfort, any kind of intimacy becomes forced,” he said. As a real-world example, he cited last year’s scandal in which Spanish footballer Jennifer Hermoso was forcibly kissed by the then president of the national football federation, who has since resigned.
Hurwitz also believes that today’s young audiences no longer need to get thrills from movies: “In the 1980s, this was the only way to get horror movies to all the kids in the theater, and all the kids couldn’t wait to get them. Watch a horror movie. But with just five seconds on any teenager’s phone these days, what do they need it for?
Hurwitz said the intimate scenes in the Netflix film killerPowell stars opposite Adria Arjona in it and feels more integrated with the storyline. Instead, he noted that while the original 1984 film beverly hills cop Netflix’s recent sequel shows Eddie Murphy’s protagonist taking his co-workers to a strip club Axel F There is no such scenario.
As the #MeToo movement took off in 2017, Hollywood increasingly turned to intimacy coordinators to help direct sexual scenes. However, the topic continues to spark debate, with many within Hollywood praising the role, with some even advocating for the intimacy coordinator to get her own Oscar, while stars including Jennifer Aniston and Michael Douglas prefer Shoot a scene like this without using them. (“Come on, this is embarrassing enough,” Aniston said of her preference.)
Michael Bronski, media professor at Harvard University and former film critic gay community newsassuming that the surrounding dialogue tornado If the potential kiss partners are an LGBTQ couple, the situation is very different. “If you have a queer or trans-themed movie and there’s no kiss, queer audiences will be even more outraged because it feels like it’s censorship rather than an artistic choice,” he said.
sequel tornado Given that the Universal Pictures film has performed well at the domestic box office, topping $80 million in its opening weekend, it now seems possible. In other words, maybe fans will have to wait and see if Powell and Edgar-Jones’ characters get a chance to express their feelings physically. But while that absent kiss led to many complaints (“Kamala’s most powerful move [Harris] What you can do now is strongly oppose cutting off kisses tornado”, quipped podcaster Clay Keller ), but not all onlookers saw this shift in sentiment as negative.
“This speaks to a larger issue that I really admire among Gen Z, which is that they are looking for something authentic and not just an experience of intimate moments,” Buch said. “What does it really mean to connect with another human being, not just through behavior?”
