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Steven Soderbergh Criticizes Superhero Movies for Not Having Enough Sex Scenes


For the past few years, a lot of renowned directors like Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jane Campion, and more have chimed in to share their thoughts on the dominance of superhero movies in today's cinema. Some of them are not fond of it while there are some who don't mind it as they understand that it's what saving the theatrical business and it's what the current moviegoers are flocking into. Now, another notable director has chimed in to share his thoughts on superhero movies.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh, who is known for helming films such as Ocean's Eleven, Contagion, Magic Mike, and more, revealed that he has not been approached to potentially direct a superhero movie although he has no intention to direct one mainly because of the genre's lack of sex scenes.

"I’m not a snob; it’s not that I feel it’s some lower tier in any way. It really becomes about what universe you occupy as a storyteller. I’m just too earthbound to really release myself to a universe in which Newtonian physics don’t exist," Soderbergh said with a laugh. "I just have a lack of imagination in that regard, which is why the one foray I had into pure science-fiction [2002’s Solaris] was essentially a character drama that happened to be set on a spaceship. Also, for a lot of these, for me to understand the world and how to write or supervise the writing of the story and the characters—apart from the fact that I can bend time and defy gravity and shoot beams out of my fingers—there’s no f*cking. Nobody’s f*cking! Like, I don’t know how to tell people how to behave in a world in which that is not a thing."

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He continued, "The fantasy-spectacle universe, as far as I can tell, typically doesn’t involve a lot of f*cking, and also things like—who’s paying these people? Who do they work for? How does this job come to be?"

The award-winning director might be right that most superhero movies don't have sex scenes with the exception of films such as Deadpool and Eternals with the former being an R-rated movie which gives them more room to explore the titular hero's sexuality in an explicit manner. Most intimate moments that we see in superhero movies, which are mostly PG-13, have been limited to kissing scenes. However, it's not the same case for most superhero TV shows, especially on streaming services, since they don't have the same limitations or concerns when it comes to ratings and censorship.

Also Read: Independence Day Director Says DC, Star Wars, and Marvel Movies are Ruining the Film Industry

Soderbergh's disappointment with the lack of sex scenes in superhero movies might just be due to his personal taste since it sounds like he prefers the characters in movies to have moments of pure human connection and intimacy. He wasn't really criticizing the genre as a whole, but rather he stated why he won't be open to direct one. In the end, it's just his personal opinion and taste so we can't really begrudge him for the statement that he made.

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