I can’t believe I have to say this, but let’s not slut-shame actresses for doing their jobs, please.
If you don’t know what brought this on, “Hugas,” the newest titillating action flick, recently dropped. And netizens reacted to the movie’s many graphic sex scenes by heavily slut-shaming its lead actress AJ Raval. Many called her out by likening her acting to doing porn, with some even bringing her family into it—because god forbid a grown woman makes her own decisions.
“Don’t touch me, I’m busy thinking how Jeric Raval agreed to that kind of role for his daughter AJ Raval,” reads one popular tweet.
It doesn’t matter if you think the movie is good or bad or if its sex scenes are too gratuitous. That’s fine. But it’s another thing to go out of your way to shame a woman for doing her job. That’s extremely weirdo behavior. Do you also shame actors for playing serial killers a little too well? Lav Diaz showed his butt in “Lorna,” and so did Peque Gallaga in “Hubad.” (I’m not sure what it is about esteemed directors showing their butts in movies they didn’t direct but whatever floats their boat.) What about them?
It’s misogynistic, plain and simple. Notice how it’s Raval’s name that trended and was heavily bashed for the movie, and not its director Roman Perez Jr. or her equally nude co-star Sean De Guzman. If the problem was there being too many sex scenes, why call her out and not the director? If the problem was nudity, why not call out her co-star too? But it’s not really about that, isn’t it? It’s just an excuse to put down a woman.
It’s giving me a lot of “The Brown Bunny” energy. The movie threatened Chloë Sevigny’s career because she had an unsimulated oral sex scene with director and star Vincent Gallo. She was caught up in the controversy that scene caused—but Gallo was fine.
We still live in a moralistic and patriarchal society. A woman shows any sign of sexual agency and she’s heavily shamed for it. In this scenario, she’s not even having sex, but she’s shamed for acting like she is. If you got hot and bothered from her sex scenes, then that means she acted the fuck out of those scenes. Sex scenes are not easy to film, and it’s not easy to make it look sexy.
It’s not lost on me that many of the people slut-shaming Raval are also the same people who claimed they watched the movie to get off. Moralistic men with horny dicks are always the first ones to cast a stone.
Art by Pammy Orlina
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