Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Celebs, Movies, Sex & Co., TikTok, Viral News
Ilana Frost
The internet is, uh, not pleased with the viral Actors on Actors clip of Pamela Anderson and Mikey Madison discussing intimacy coordinators. In the two-minute clip, Mikey opens up about why she didn’t use an intimacy coordinator while filming Anora. Mind you, the 25-year-old actress stars in the film as a sex worker, and there are obviously a whole lot of sex scenes, so this is a surprising revelation.
If you didn’t know, intimacy coordinators are advocates for actors, there to choreograph sex scenes and make sure everything is comfortable and consensual. Lots of people are criticizing Mikey’s choice not to work with one, and even more, people are slamming the director of the film, Sean Baker, for presenting it as a choice in the first place. This is a complicated and sensitive topic… Let’s break down Mikey Madison’s intimacy coordinator comments and the brutal wave of backlash that’s followed.
During Actors on Actors, Pamela asked Mikey if she had an intimacy coordinator on the set of Anora, clarifying with a laugh, “That’s the big thing now these days, right?“ Mikey paused for a moment before replying, “For our film, we didn’t.”
She explained that the filmmakers gave her the choice of using an intimacy coordinator or not. Mikey said that she, her costar, Mark Eydelshteyn, and the director, Sean, decided it was “best just to keep it small.” The actress continued, “We were able to just really streamline it, shoot it super quickly. They’re less sex scenes, more sex shots. That’s what Sean likes to say.”
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Fortunately, filming the sex scenes sans an intimacy coordinator was a “very positive” experience for Mikey. She praised Sean’s “dedication to authenticity” and said she just wanted to “immerse” herself in that.
Oy. Involving an intimacy coordinator shouldn’t take away from the “authenticity” of sex scenes. The implication here is that intimacy coordinators slow down the process and make it more difficult to shoot sex scenes. I’m not loving that implication, and neither is all of TikTok. It’s entirely unsurprising that the internet had a lot to say about this clip.
People online are mainly criticizing the director for having Mikey make the decision. One TikToker, Elham, stressed that intimacy coordinators “need to be the standard on sets, not the exception to the rules.” She explained that the male director shouldn’t be giving a young actress and first-time lead the option for that kind of safety measure. “The reason why intimacy coordinators exist is because we’ve seen how directors and producers can manipulate people to do things that they later on regret,” Elham pointed out.
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Another TikToker, who identified herself as a movie producer, shared a similar sentiment. “Not having an intimacy coordinator for the scenes that she’s in in this film is scary,” she said. The creator also thought the director giving Mikey that choice was very sus, and she emphasized that intimacy coordinators are there “to ensure everyone is being safe” and “to protect the actors.” In her opinion, sex scenes end up looking better when there’s a professional to choreograph them and make them more comfortable.
But people are mad at Mikey, too. She’s getting backlash for making these comments to Pamela, who’s faced a lot of objectification and hypersexualization throughout her career. “Saying that in front of an actor who’s been overly sexualized on and off set by this industry, it’s absolutely bonkers,” TikToker Giu wrote.
Personally, I’m gonna go with my life motto on this one: Blame it on the man. I do think it’s super weird that the director gave Mikey the option instead of just hiring an intimacy coordinator off the bat. Hopefully, this convo and backlash will spark more awareness around the importance of this job.