Browsing Tag

Bella Ramsey

Penn Badgley Explains Sex Scene Stance

penn badgley on the cover of Variety

-I’m glad Penn Badgley is clarifying his anti-sex scene stance but whew, there’s still a lot to unpack. In his new Variety cover story (which isn’t fully out until tomorrow), he talks about how being a child actor exposed him to a lot of boundary violations at a young age, which totally makes sense. But I think a bunch of stuff can be true at the same time: everyone (including actors) should obviously be able to consent to who is touching them and how their bodies are shown. But it’s odd to focus on sex scenes when talking about the morality of this particular show, which revels in violence — and often violence against women. (Yes, he’s been vocal about what a creep his character is, but also acknowledged that “you’re meant to fall in love with him.”) It’s also odd to tie it to marriage fidelity, as if all sex scenes are cheating or will automatically lead to cheating because — yikes! And it doesn’t help that his comments are coming at a time when film and TV has become pretty sexless while puritanical attitudes and trad wife content are trending. Like, this take feels unhinged! (TL;DR: if you don’t want to participate in or watch sex scenes, don’t; but things get murky when it’s framed as a moral value judgement.)

-Meanwhile, I think this is a really good grappling of what’s happening with audience reactions to sex scenes these days. And this is an interesting thread that uses that article as a jumping off point to examine the slippery slope of evaluating a sex scene as “necessary” to the story.

-I adored this profile on SZA.

-Speaking of good profiles, The Last of Us’ Bella Ramsey talks to GQ about reading the harassing reactions to the news of her casting (“You’re looking for a comment that’s more painful than the last one. I’d kid myself that I was doing it in jest”), her time on Game of Thrones (“[The cast] were very, very kind to me. The one who really sticks out to me is Liam Cunningham, who played Davos. He really was protective over me”), and having conversations with Pedro Pascal about gender and sexuality (“And they weren’t always deep: they could be funny and humorous, the whole spectrum. We were just very honest and open with each other”).

-I could not for the life of me figure out how I knew Lamar Johnson (who plays Henry on this week’s The Last Of Us) — and then I realized he was in the TVOKids dance show Pop It! that I used to watch with my niece! The way every lyric and move for this song is engrained in my cerebral cortex…

-It’s Valentine’s Day, which means celebs are spreading the love on socials. Chris Evans posted a series of sweet snaps of Alba Baptista on his IG stories, while Emily Ratajkowski and Eric Andre went Instagram official — with nudity.

Tom Cruise was the center of attention at the annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon.

Hong Chau says of her Oscar nomination for The Whale: “I really feel nothing. [Or] If I can be completely honest, it’s more like, ‘Oh dear.'” My hero!

Olivia Wilde really can’t breathe without everyone going after her these days, huh?

-Alan Sepinwall got to hang out on the set of the Party Down revival and interview most of the cast.

-This is a quite a flex: Pharrell Williams will succeed the late Virgil Abloh as the next designer at Louis Vuitton Men’s.

-Apple announced that Ted Lasso season 3 will premiere on March 15. I’m surprised they released a cute clip instead of a full trailer since that’s so close, but I guess one is coming.

Emma Corrin landed the lead villain role in Deadpool 3.

-Netflix dropped the first trailer for Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.

-Woof, the reviews for the new Ant-Man movie are rough.

Kevin Bacon and Kyle Allen star in the trailer for Space Oddity.

Celine Dion plays matchmaker for Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan in the Love Again trailer.