Sex sells. No matter who depicted the action. Anything that involves nudity and genitalia will always have an audience to please.
And No Hard Feelings is one example.
Played by Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence, the film is about an adult woman who is hired by a boy's parents to sex with him for the first time.
The film has lengthy full frontal female nudity, the depiction of both breasts and vulva with pubic hair, graphic sex scenes, ejaculation and more.
It also has a lot of sex jokes that include masturbation and anal sex.
While the film's primary audience is young adults, in a similar way American Pie and some others were for their respective audiences in the 1990s, No Hard Feelings is catering to an audience that apparently demands something different.
Sex sells, still, as it always will be, but Generation Z wants less of them, especially in films.
According to a study titled Teens & Screens from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) that was made after the release of No Hard Feelings on Netflix, breaks down exactly what Generation Z generally wants.
It's realized that American viewers between the ages of 10 and 24 wanted to see less sex on screen.
In fact, 51% of the 1,500 surveyed said they wanted to see more content about platonic relationships and friendships. While 47.5% said sex "isn’t needed" for most TV shows and movies, with 44% saying that romance is "overused."
54% preferred seeing original stories rather than franchises, adaptations and remakes.
The findings came as previous researches and polls suggest that the rates of sexual activities have been declining for years.
Generation Z, which is currently have the least sex, also has fewer partners.
Even sexually active younger men in their early 20s are said to have less sex than Millennials, who are at their 30s and 40s.
The founder and director of CSS and co-author of the study, Yalda T. Uhls, commented that recent studies indeed indicate that young people are having less sex than their parents did at their age and many prefer to stay single.
Other things the survey find:
- Racial stereotypes in shows were disliked. In fact, just having a person of color portraying a villain, or portraying a character with negative traits, was also disliked.
- Generation Z considers social media to be the "authentic media," and they believe it more than old-school news media, even through social platforms deliver a lot more misinformation.
- Young adults prefer shows and films with "hopeful, uplifting content with people beating the odds," and things they can relate to themselves, like stories of "people with lives like my own."
According to Dr. Yalda T. Uhls, who is also an adjunct professor in UCLA's psychology department:
"We know that young people are suffering an epidemic of loneliness and they're seeking modeling in the art they consume. While some storytellers use sex and romance as a shortcut to character connection, it's important for Hollywood to recognize that adolescents want stories that reflect the full spectrum of relationships."
No Hard Feelings isn't the only film that shows how far films are including sex as their main theme, even for comedy films.
While the popularity of Twilight and The Hunger Games have made love triangle a successful plot for older audience, teens appear to have soured on those storylines.
It's worth noting that regarding the No Hard Feelings film, including the fighting scene, and when she does the back body drop wrestling move, Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she did all of her nude scenes, meaning that she didn't use body double.
Lawrence also said this was her most fun film to make.