Babygirl Redefines Sexual Expression
Halina Reijn's new film, Babygirl, explores a high-intensity, dominant-submissive affair between a successful CEO and a newly hired intern, marked by a significant age gap. The film appeals to a wide audience across age, class and gender, thanks to the beloved Nicole Kidman in the leading role, alongside effective advertising. However, the film does more than provide its audience with yet another award-winning performance by its lead actress; it sheds light on a world unknown to most prior to their experience with the film.
Human sexuality is one of the most controversial and often hushed topics of conversation in politics and society. Ranging from negative interpersonal reactions to discussions about sex or legal barriers surrounding obscenity, the wide variety and importance of sexuality are often neglected. However, Reijn's writing and direction offer audiences a raw look into a sexual expression that dives deeper into dominant-submissive sexual culture, age gap relationships and feminine pleasure, highlighting the need for greater normalization in all of the aforementioned categories.
Through both the fame of the production company A24 and the star power of the leading actress, the film was able to reach a group unaware of the sexual minority community known as BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism).
Babygirl asks questions surrounding feminism in a dominant-submissive sexual relationship and explores how feminine pleasure is often overlooked in heterosexual relationships. After intercourse with her husband in the film, Nicole Kidman's character, Romy, escapes the room to pleasure herself due to the lack of sexual pleasure she experiences, highlighting the communication issues surrounding sex in heterosexual relationships. Pushing the boundaries of the traditional romantic narrative, Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Romy challenges perceptions of female sexuality, autonomy and the diverse experiences of sexuality a woman can experience, as seen through her vulnerability in her sexual affair with a young intern at her company.
Following Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darling, starring Florence Pugh, the conversation around feminine sexuality in media gained momentum, paving the way for Reijn's bold and unapologetic representation of feminine sexual energy. This can be seen through the intensity of the sexual affair the film centers around, as Nicole Kidman is asked to perform a multitude of sexual acts she'd never experienced or believed she was allowed to experience. The discourse shifted to the glaring lack of media portraying accurate, positive and autonomous feminine pleasure compared to that of masculine pleasure, specifically in the film industry, where portrayals of sexual relationships center around the experience of the male.
In the midst of a war on reproductive and sexual freedom in the United States, specifically for feminine-identifying individuals, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and new battles on the grounds of contraception, Babygirl's lack of censorship, both of the female body and scenes with explicit sexual moments, specifically in scenes between Nicole Kidman and her male counterparts in the film, combatted the current political norm for women and their sexualities. This film was designed to be accessible to audiences that had never experienced either of these things, and the important conversation surrounding both became ubiquitous.
Necessary questions surrounding faking orgasms, different types of pleasure, and the quality of sexual intercourse in romantic relationships began to arise for the general population of viewers. As Chantal Guatier, a sex therapist, remarked in an interview with the New York Times, "We need to have more movies like this so we can talk about these topics."
As society continues to normalize diverse forms of sexual culture, through both the rise of sexual education and sexualities outside of heterosexual norms, films like Babygirl push boundaries, becoming the pinnacles of the conversation. This gave a wider range of people the ability to engage with and understand content they were unaware of prior to viewing the film. Reijn promoted a conversation around how and when we normalize and bring awareness to female sexuality. Babygirl gave way to the conversation surrounding women's sexuality and vulnerability in media, allowing the general population to engage in the thrills of a dominant-submissive sexual affair. Babygirl brought light to sexuality on the whole and is starting a new and necessary conversation around feminine identity in sexual relationships that will hopefully carry forward across generations.
