One of the year’s most stomach-clenching TV moments was a scene in a hotel bathroom in which a woman is searching for sunscreen. In the season two opener of HBO’s The White Lotus, Aubrey Plaza’s clamped-shut lawyer Harper decidedly does not want to be on a couple’s trip in Sicily with her husband’s finance-bro college frenemy and his bubbly trophy wife. First off, they don’t read. Second, they’re irritatingly handsy with each other. But there she is in her suite, reluctantly handing Cameron (Theo James) a pair of swim trunks to borrow and half-heartedly accepting his gratitude that she made the trip at all, especially since, as he implies, her husband was a nerd who couldn’t pull girls back in the day.
As she stands in front of her mirror pawing through her lotions, she spies Cameron’s reflection behind her — in one swift motion, he strips off his shorts, revealing a muscular backside like an Italian Renaissance sculpture and, more eye-poppingly, his prodigious sexual organ. A shocked Harper sneaks stares at the subject while he seemingly remains oblivious. Casually, he asks her to check if the trunks are too snug. She can barely articulate a response. The moment was a violation for sure, but not one she totally rejects.
There’s no denying that the power dynamic in this scene is convincingly erotic, in large part thanks to Plaza and James’ unobtrusive acting. Cameron is a dud and a stud all at once, whose very existence is anathema to everything Harper values. Harper isn’t sure if he’s flirting with her, intimidating her or merely unconscious of his actions. He silences her with his physicality and the surreptitious way he deploys and controls her with it. The trope of the frigid bitch and the dummy Adonis who breaks her out of her ice castle works for a reason: Many people who barricade themselves behind brick walls not so secretly want to be ripped from them.
Mainstream television’s recent return to erotic, sexual intrigue is one of the great storytelling successes of the year. Sexuality never really disappeared from TV — bouncy, full-throttle sex scenes will always be essential to bodice rippers, bawdy comedies and prestige dramas alike. But in 2022, a spate of series went beyond shallow titillation thanks to the complex performances behind them. Being able to craft a “sexy” character takes boundless skill. You can’t just be a pretty face or a hard body: You must layer emotionality and social power with the erogenous charge, all while your character dances with cultural taboos such as infidelity, incest and paid sex.
Taboos imbue HBO’s House of the Dragon with its amatory appeal. In its early episodes, the Game of Thrones prequel about the ruling dynasty of Westeros pits callow teenage Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) against her bloodthirsty uncle Prince Daemon (Matt Smith) as they vie to be named heir to the crown. You’re never quite sure if their one-on-one conversations in their ancestral tongue, Valyrian, are intense because of political competition, familial intimacy or, disturbingly enough, sexual tension. But when roguish Daemon leads a disguised Rhaenyra out of the palace and into the city for misadventures at a local brothel, their friction leads to a steamy make-out session that nearly ends with her corruption. Later, an older Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) seduces her uncle in broad daylight on a beach after his wife’s funeral.
Many straight men I know bristle at Smith’s “boxy” face and tall, lean frame, not understanding how a scarecrow-like man could smolder the way rageful Daemon does. But he doesn’t do it alone. Both Alcock and D’Arcy, portraying a royal who flaunts her empowered sexuality as much as her stepmother, Queen Alicent (played in early episodes by Emily Carey and later by Olivia Cooke), publicly plays the nurturing, dutiful wife, burn alongside him. D’Arcy’s raw beauty and icy jawline particularly contrast with their character’s nakedly hungry personality, enhancing the impact when she claims her various lovers.
Women who cannot hold back their sexual desire for toxic men were some of the highlights of the sophomore efforts of HBO’s high school drama Euphoria and Netflix’s Regency romance Bridgerton. Euphoria‘s Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), a pure-of-heart teenager who has a one-night stand with her best friend’s abusive on-again-off-again boyfriend, Nate (Jacob Elordi), soon devolves into a blithering, petulant pile of ooze over the emotionally withholding love interest. Bridgerton‘s reserved Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) is unwillingly drawn to the rakish viscount her younger sister wants to marry (Jonathan Bailey); after the two share an explosive garden love scene, Ashley must balance Kate’s aching longing and her social terror. Where Sweeney falls into lustful mania, Ashley wades in lustful shame.
My personal favorites of the year’s erotic performances have been the hustling working women: Alice Englert as an ambitious 18th century French sex worker in Starz’s Dangerous Liaisons, Brandee Evans as a Mississippi stripper in Starz’s P-Valley and Simona Tabasco as a doe-eyed Italian escort in The White Lotus. Each actress must, from scene to scene, depict her character’s true, private nature, embody confidence in her visual mystique and physical techniques and, finally, keep up an alluring professional persona to entice clients. Englert, Evans and Tabasco collectively succeed at an impossible task: making the viewer want to either sleep with them or be them.
This story first appeared in a December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Source: Hollywood
