It is legitimate to wonder whether Hollywood, in its most recent version, has entered a phase of renewed puritanism, of tactile coldness, of censorship that is not imposed but internalised. It is not a violent conservative reaction or an explicit crusade, but a more subtle, more structural disaffection towards sex understood as language, as narrative impulse, as political place. As if desire had ceased to be a territory for narrating the human. As if bodies had lost their right to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question of this detachment became public after the publication of the Oscar 2024 nominations, when titles such as Challengers by Luca Guadagnino and Babygirl by Halina Reijn – both films in which desire is not only insinuated, but structured, thought, danced, played – were simply ignored. Two deeply sensual works, yes, but also formally impeccable, contemporary, charged with visual and emotional intelligence. The omission was not only artistic. It was symbolic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n