Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
It takes about ten minutes for Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance to get just a little bit horny. Young Gelfling soldier Rian (voiced by Rocketman star Taron Egerton) is reminiscing with girlfriend and fellow guard Mira (voiced by Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander). It’s all sweet and whimsical until she asks him to “dreamfast” with him, so they can relive their first date. The excited, nervous stuttering of Rian and the awkward back and forth conversation about how they both want to dreamfast is an obvious metaphor for sexual consent. Indeed, when they go back in time together, we see their first flirtations. Rian says, “I was distracted. All I could think about was kissing you,” and Mira replies, “And I got tired of waiting, so I kissed you.” The next thing we see is Mira mounting Rian on the ground. What happens next is left up to our imagination because the dreamfast is interrupted by a giant spider, an Arathim soldier.
The Dark Crystal was always a Jim Henson production aimed at a slightly more mature audience than the Muppets. Set on the mystical world of Thra, it is a tale about the corrosive nature of absolute power. The vile Skeksis have perverted a sacred Crystal that powers the whole world. The fairy-like Gelflings must work together to save Thra. It is a complicated and deep work that doesn’t stoop to its audience. So it goes that Netflix’s lavish prequel to the film features more detail, mythology, and Gelfling emotion.
The ironic thing is The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance isn’t the only high fantasy series debuting on streaming this weekend that comes with some heat. Amazon’s much more R-rated Carnival Row features scenes set in a faerie brothel, full frontal nudity, and erotic inter-species sex scenes. It would seem that Friday is a breakthrough day for horny magical beings on television. But why?
The team behind Carnival Row earnestly defended the show’s sexy elements during the show’s panel at Summer TCA. Creator and executive producer Travis Beacham told journalists that his goal with Carnival Row was to play with “tropes from fantasy in a kind of more adult context without it being too gimmicky.” The series is set in another fantasy world where the magical beings of Tirnanoc have been forced to escape their homeland and live as secondary citizens in the Carnival Row neighborhood of a human city called The Burgue.
Star Cara Delevingne plays a faerie rebel named Vingnette Stonemoss. During the panel, she agreed with Beacham and said, “The subject matter is so serious and very real. It’s death, and there’s a lot of things going on and violence. So, if you miss the sexy element then where’s the light at all?” She went on to say, “Sex is a good thing. Sex is not bad.”
In Carnival Row, sex serves multiple purposes. The brothel we visit is a place of degradation for the faeries who have come to The Burgue as refugees. In their home country, they had not only freedom, but respect. One faerie was a “poet laureate.” In Carnival Row, that same faerie’s options are to be a sex worker, maid, or thief. Sex also is an expression of freedom in Carnival Row — a defiant act that expresses love. Romance is a key part of the series, and as such, the sex scenes physically demonstrate the bonds being forged between people and across cultural lines.
As in the case of Carnival Row, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is attempting to tell a dark, mature story about fantasy creatures. In just the first episode, there’s torture and tragedy. We also get glimpses at multiple complex Gelfling cultures, each with their own values and traditions. Rian and Mira’s romance sets the stage for Rian’s eventual rebellion, a choice that will have huge consequences for the Gelflings and all of Thra.
So, yeah, it makes sense that The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance would move fast to establish Rian and Mira’s bond, and to do so through a couple of kisses. In fact, there are rumors that Gelflings Jen and Kira were supposed to kiss in The Dark Crystal film, but the puppeteers couldn’t get it to work. So perhaps, opening the show with some smooching is proof of how far puppetry has evolved since the 1980s. Gelflings were always supposed to kiss; now they just can. (Nevertheless, it is still is a little jarring watching hard nose puppets smash faces with human kissing noises.)
The lust on display in both The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and Carnival Row exists to further humanize the fantastic creatures we’re fallowing. In The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, it shows off the depth of the Gelflings’ souls; in Carnival Row, it shows us that the fae are as human as their human oppressors. It’s just delightfully ironic that both shows premiere on different platforms on the same day.
Carnival Row and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance both premiere on Friday, August 30.
