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Modern action and superhero films fetishize the body, even as they desexualize it.
In the early 2000s, there was a brief period where actresses pretended that their thinness was natural, almost accidental. Skinny celebrities confessed their love of burgers and fries in magazines; models undergoing profile interviews engaged in public consumption of pasta; leading ladies joked about how little they exercised and how much they hated it. It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie restriction. We knew it then, and we know it now.
isn’t just the lead and the love interest: supporting characters look this way too, and even villains (frequently clad in monstrous makeup) are still played by conventionally attractive performers. Even background extras are good-looking, or at least inoffensively bland. No one is ugly. No one is really fat. Everyone is beautiful.
And yet, no one is horny.
Despite accusations of being an incel icon, it is Heath Ledger’s Joker, not Christian Bale’s chaste and sexless Batman, who exudes the most sexual energy in the Dark Knight trilogy.
In the films of the Eighties and Nineties, leading actors were good looking, yes, but still human. Kurt Russel’s Snake Plissken was a hunk, but in shirtless scenes his abs have no definition. When Isabella Rosselini strips in Blue Velvet, her skin is pale and her body is soft. She looks vulnerable and real.
Homes have reflected this change:
homes in films now: massive, sterile cavernous spaces with minimalist furniture. Kitchens are industrial-sized and spotless, and they contain no food. There is no excess. There is no mess.
A generation or two ago, it was normal for adults to engage in sports not purely as self-improvement but as an act of leisure. People danced for fun; couples socialized over tennis; kids played stickball for lack of anything else to do. Solitary exercise at the gym also had a social, rather than moral, purpose. People worked out to look hot so they could attract other hot people and fuck them. Whatever the ethos behind it, the ultimate goal was pleasure.
Robert Pattinson is playing the next Batman in a film set to release in 2022. He has proudly bragged about his refusal to bulk up for the role, despite an outcry from superhero movie fans.
In a 2019 interview with Variety, Pattinson said, “In the last three or four movies, I’ve got a masturbation scene. I did it in ‘High Life.’ I did it in ‘Damsel.’ And ‘The Devil All the Time.’ I only realized when I did it the fourth time in The Lighthouse.