EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL AND NO

ONE IS HORNY
MODERN ACTION AND SUPERHERO FILMS
FETISHIZE THE BODY, EVEN AS THEY
DESEXUALIZE IT.
by RS Benedict

When Paul Verhoeven adapted Starship Troopers in the late 1990s, did he know
he was predicting the future? The endless desert war, the ubiquity of military
propaganda, a cheerful face shouting victory as more and more bodies pile up?

But the scene that left perhaps the greatest impact on the minds of Nineties kids
—and the scene that anticipated our current cinematic age the best—does not
feature bugs or guns. It is, of course, the shower scene, in which our heroic
servicemen and -women enjoy a communal grooming ritual.

On the surface, it is idyllic: racial harmony, gender equality, unity behind a

common goal—and firm, perky asses and tits.

And then the characters speak. The topic of conversation? Military service, of
course. One joined for the sake of her political career. Another joined in the
hopes of receiving her breeding license. Another talks about how badly he wants
to kill the enemy. No one looks at each other. No one flirts.

A room full of beautiful, bare bodies, and everyone is only horny for war.

*****

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.
We don’t pretend anymore. The promotional cycles for blockbuster movies now
include detailed descriptions of the performers’ fitness regimens. We watch
actors doing burpees or shaking ropes with expensive personal trainers. There is
some talk of diets, though not terribly detailed—and no mention of steroids or
other hormonal supplements, even though male actors’ suddenly ultra-swole
selfies on Instagram suggest physiques crafted with chemical assistance.

Actors are more physically perfect than ever: impossibly lean, shockingly
muscular, with magnificently coiffed hair, high cheekbones, impeccable surgical
enhancements, and flawless skin, all displayed in form-fitting superhero
costumes with the obligatory shirtless scene thrown in to show off shredded abs
and rippling pecs.

Even background
extras are good-
looking, or at least
inoffensively bland.
No one is ugly. No
one is really fat.
Everyone is
beautiful.

And this 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
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. Even when they have sex, no one is horny. No one is
attracted to anyone else. No one is hungry for anyone else.

When revisiting a beloved Eighties or Nineties film, Millennial and Gen X viewers
are often startled to encounter long-forgotten sexual content 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?

The answer, of course, is not anymore—at least not when it comes to modern
blockbusters

We’re told that Tony

Stark and Pepper
Potts are an item,
but no actual
romantic or sexual
chemistry between
them is shown in the
films. Wonder
Woman and Steve
Trevor utterly lack
the sexual chemistry
to convince us that
either of them would be thirsty enough to commandeer a coma victim’s body (as
they do in Wonder Woman 1984) so they can enjoy a posthumous hookup. In
defiance of Norse mythology, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor smiles at Natalie Portman
like a dumb golden retriever puppy without ever venturing to rend her asunder
with his mighty hammer, so to speak. Not that the competition is any better.
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.
And speaking of Christopher Nolan’s inexplicably sexless oeuvre—did anyone
else think it odd how Inception enters the deepest level of a rich man’s
subconscious and finds not a psychosexual Oedipal nightmare of staggering
depravity, but… a ski patrol?

*****

Let’s not pretend that Old Hollywood was a progressive haven of body positivity.
Since the departure of voluptuous vamp Theda Bara from the silver screen,
actors have always gone to extremes to maintain a certain look. Rita Hayworth
underwent an ethnic makeover to appear more Caucasian so she could get
leading roles. Stars of the 1920s limited their fluid consumption to two glasses a
day to avoid water weight. Jane Fonda suffered from severe bulimia at the height
of her sex symbol status; so did Marlon Brando.

Snake Plissken
didn’t fuck on
screen, but the
character radiates
overwhelming sex-
haver energy.

But old films still featured recognizable human bodies and human faces—bodies
that could theoretically be achieved by a single person without the aid of a team
of personal trainers dieticians private chefs and chemists
of personal trainers, dieticians, private chefs, and chemists.

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. Bruce Willis was handsome, but he’s more muscular now than he was
in the Nineties, when he was routinely branded a bona fide sex symbol. And
when Isabella Rosselini strips in Blue Velvet, her skin is pale and her body is
soft. She looks vulnerable and real.

And yet, these characters fucked. Blue Velvet’s Dorothy Vallens and Jeffrey
Beaumant fucked. Michael Keaton’s Batman and Michelle Pfeiffer’s domme
Catwoman fucked. Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor fucked. Snake Plissken didn’t
fuck on screen, but the character radiates overwhelming sex-haver energy. And I
defy you to find a mainstream film with a moment as horny and gay as the Sexy
Saxophone Solo from The Lost Boys.

*****

Seen today, one of the most striking scenes in 1982’s Poltergeist is not the evil
clown doll or the monster tree, but a moment of relaxed affection between the
parents. The father—a bald, beer-bellied Craig T. Nelson—cracks jokes and
prances for his wife, who wears a frumpy nightgown and smokes a joint and
yammers weed thoughts and laughs at her husband’s silly display. Finally, the
husband playfully dives onto the bed. Neither character is glamorous in this
scene, but their relationship feels frisky and lived-in and charismatic and real.

The house looks real, too. There are toys and magazines scattered around the
floor. There are cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked since the recent move.
Framed pictures rest against the wall; the parents haven’t gotten around to
mounting them yet. The kitchen counters are cluttered and mealtimes are
rambunctious and sloppy as one expects in a house with three children They’re
rambunctious and sloppy, as one expects in a house with three children. They re
building a pool in the backyard, but not for appearances: it’s a place for the kids
to swim, for the parents to throw parties, and for the father to reacquaint himself
with his love of diving.

At the time, this house represented an aspirational ideal of American affluence.

Compare this to 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 body is no longer
a holistic system. It
is not the vehicle
through which we
experience joy and
pleasure. It is not a
home to live in and
be happy.

In her blog McMansion Hell, Kate Wagner examines precisely why these widely-
hated 5000-square foot housing bubble behemoths are so awful. Over and over
again, she reiterates the point that McMansions are not built to be homes;
they’re built to be short-term investments.
Kate writes, “The inside of McMansions are designed in order to cram the most
‘features’ inside for the lowest costs.” These features exist to increase the
house’s resale value, not to make it a good place to live. No thought is given to
the labor needed to clean and maintain these spaces. The master bathroom
includes intricate stone surfaces that can only be scrubbed with a toothbrush; the
cathedral ceilings in the living room raise the heating and cooling costs to an
exorbitant sum; the chandelier in the grand entryway dangles so high that no one
can replace the bulbs in it, even with a stepladder.

The same fate has befallen our bodies. A body is no longer a holistic system. It is
not the vehicle through which we experience joy and pleasure during our brief
time in the land of the living. It is not a home to live in and be happy. It, too, is a
collection of features: six pack, thigh gap, cum gutters. And these features exist
not to make our lives more comfortable, but to increase the value of our assets.
Our bodies are investments, which must always be optimized to bring us… what,
exactly? Some vague sense of better living? Is a life without bread objectively
better than a life with it? When we were children, did we dream of counting every
calorie and logging every step?

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.

Not so today. Now,

we are perfect
islands of emotional
self-reliance, and it
is seen as
embarrassing and
co-dependent to
want to be touched.
We are doing this
for ourselves,
because we,
apropos of nothing, desperately want to achieve a physical standard set by some
invisible Other in an insurance office somewhere.

Contemporary gym ads focus on rigidly isolated self-improvement: be your best

self. Create a new you. We don’t exercise, we don’t work out: we train, and we
train in fitness programs with names like Booty Bootcamp, as if we’re getting our
booties battle-ready to fight in the Great Booty War. There is no promise of
intimacy. Like our heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Rico and Dizzy
and all the other infantry in Starship Troopers, we are horny only for annihilation.

A lesser-discussed side effect of extreme calorie restriction is the loss of libido.

Bodybuilders experience this as they go on crash diets to quickly cut fat so that
their muscles will show during competitions; though they look like physically
perfect specimens of manhood, they don’t dream of women, but of
cheeseburgers and fries. Many eating disorder patients lose their sex drive
completely and even stop menstruating.

When a body receives fewer calories, it must prioritize essential life support
systems over any function not strictly necessary for the body’s immediate
survival. Sexual desire falls into the latter category, as does high-level abstract
thought. A body that restricts food and increases exercise believes it is
undergoing a famine, which is not an ideal time to reproduce.

Is there anything more cruelly Puritanical than enshrining a sexual ideal that
leaves a person unable to enjoy sex?

*****

When a nation feels threatened, it gets swole. Germans and Norwegians

became obsessed with individual self-improvement through physical
fitness around the end of the Napoleonic Era. British citizens took up this
Physical Culture as the 19th century—and their empire—began to wane. And
yoga, in its current practice as a form of meditative strength training, came out
of the Indian Independence movement of the 1920s and 30s.

The impetus of these movements isn’t fitness for the sake of pleasure, for the
j f t th d h i lb t It’ titi It’ b t tti
pure joys of strength and physical beauty. It’s competitive. It’s about getting
strong enough to fight The Enemy, whoever that may be.

The impetus of
these movements
isn’t fitness for the
sake of pleasure,
for the pure joys of
strength and
physical beauty. It’s
competitive.

The United States is, of course, not immune to this. The Presidential Fitness Test
sprang up in the mid-20th century after studies found that American children
lagged behind Europeans in certain tests of flexibility and calisthenic ability. Cold
War paranoia only amped up this anxiety, particularly as we entered the
1980s. What if our kids were too fat to defeat communism? This obsession
meshed beautifully with boomer yuppie narcissism and birthed the aerobics fad.

Then the Nineties hit, the Berlin Wall fell, and spandex and sweatbands became
hilariously passe. While America still obsessed over thinness, it was not for the
sake of strength. Two things happened at the dawn of the new millennium to
bring back physical culture.
The first occurred in 1998, when BMI standards shifted a few points.
Formerly, one needed a BMI of 27 (for women) or 28 (for men) to be classified as
overweight, but the new standard lowered the cutoff to 25 points. Twenty-nine
million Americans instantly became overweight without gaining an ounce. Under
the new guidelines, doctors could prescribe them diet drugs or recommend
weight loss surgery.

A nationwide panic rose; headlines screamed about a new plague of fat people
whose bodies were ticking time bombs destined to deliver death and destruction
at any moment. Stock footage of fat people ambling about in public, filmed from
the neck down to protect their identities (and more effectively dehumanize them),
became a common sight on television news as bony broadcasters droned about
the horrors of the Obesity Epidemic. Curiously, hardly any of the reports on this
sudden increase in overweight/obese Americans bothered to mention the BMI
standard shift.

The second event was, of course, 9/11.

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon sparked a new War on
Terror, and America needed to get in shape so we could win that war. The USA’s
hyper-militaristic troop-worshipping post-9/11 culture seeped into the panic over
obesity and gave birth to a terrifying, swole baby. Public school gym classes
featured special military fitness days in which students practiced throwing mock
grenades. George W. Bush added an Adult Fitness Challenge to
the Presidential Fitness program. On American and British television, a new
wave of documentaries and reality shows sprang up to bellow at us for being too
fat to defeat al Qaeda: Honey, We’re Killing the Kids; Supersize Me; You Are
What You Eat, in which a bony harridan screeched at Britons whose feces did
not meet her exacting standards; The Biggest Loser, where lean coaches
bellowed at fat contestants in a manner strikingly similar to that of a stereotypical
drill instructor.

The new muscle

 The new muscle
era lacks the
eroticism of
Eighties action
cinema.

And muscles—giant, pulsating, steroid-enhanced muscles—returned to screens.

But the new muscle era lacks the eroticism of Eighties action cinema. Arnold
Schwarzenegger showed his glutes in Terminator; Sylvester Stallone stripped
for First Blood and Tango & Cash; Bloodsport shows more of Jean Claude Van
Damme’s body than that of his love interest.

For the most part, though, today’s cinema hunks are nevernudes. The Marvel
Cinematic Universe is strictly PG-13, as one expects from a Disney product. And
even in the DC universe, there’s very little of human sexuality. Capefans’
demands for more “mature” superhero movies always mean more graphic
violence, not more sex. They panicked over Dr. Manhattan’s glowing blue penis
in Watchmen, and they still haven’t forgiven Joel Schumacher for putting nipples
on the batsuit.

Today’s stars are action figures, not action heroes. Those perfect bodies exist
only for the purpose of inflicting violence upon others. To have fun is to become
weak, to let your team down, and to give the enemy a chance to win, like Thor
did when he got fat in Endgame.

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; maybe we don’t know how to navigate human
screwing up our hormones; maybe we don t know how to navigate human
sexuality outside of rape culture; maybe being raised on the message that our
bodies are a nation-ending menace has dampened our enthusiasm for physical
pleasure.

Eating disorders have steadily increased, though. We are still getting our
bodies ready to fight The Enemy, and since we are at war with an abstract
concept, the enemy is invisible and ethereal. To defeat it, our bodies must lose
solidity as well.

*****

But there is hope.

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].”

Perhaps he will be the hero we need.