The portrayal of female sexuality on screen has long struggled with balancing genuine exploration against the male gaze. As highlighted in The Financial Times’ review of Audrey Diwan’s reboot of Emmanuelle and Halina Reijn’s much-anticipated Babygirl, contemporary cinema is revisiting erotic films, attempting to reframe female desire beyond its historical entanglement with pornography and male fantasies.
A Nostalgic Yet Problematic Origin
When the original Emmanuelle debuted in 1974, it was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. This French erotic film brought sex into the mainstream, attracting audiences far beyond the typical “trench-coated” clientele of adult cinemas. The film lingered on Paris’s Champs-Élysées for over a decade and spawned a sprawling franchise. Yet, beneath its facade of sexual liberation, it perpetuated male fantasies, with its colonial setting and disconcerting scenes of coerced intimacy presenting female sexuality as a construct of male control.
The New Lens of Desire
Diwan’s modern take on Emmanuelle trades Bangkok for Hong Kong and repositions its protagonist as a single, career-driven woman — a quality control inspector for luxury hotels. This setup offers a symbolic reflection of the protagonist’s journey, contrasting regulated professional competence with the chaotic unpredictability of desire. However, as noted by Financial Times, while the update aspires to foreground female agency, it still succumbs to the cinematic language of pornography, relying heavily on the aesthetic of voyeurism and idealized scenarios.
In one striking scene, Emmanuelle, played by Noémie Merlant, engages in a sexual encounter aboard an airplane shortly after an innocuous request for lip balm. Such moments, while provocative, risk trivializing the authenticity of desire, reducing it to spectacle rather than an exploration of emotional or human complexity.
A Shift in Narrative Stakes
Halina Reijn’s Babygirl takes a different approach, showcasing a married CEO, Romy (Nicole Kidman), engaging in an affair with her younger intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson). The film upends traditional erotic thriller tropes, where female desire was historically equated with danger (Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct). Here, the risk lies in repressed desire rather than in its expression. Reijn crafts an atmosphere of simmering tension, emphasizing the psychological and emotional layers of desire over physicality.
Samuel’s imposition of rules to manage the relationship reverses the traditional power dynamic, addressing the potential exploitation inherent in such a liaison. This nuanced approach challenges the archetype of the unhinged woman wielding her sexuality as a weapon and instead depicts a woman grappling with suppressed wants and long-ignored needs.
From Metaphor to Meaning
Cinema has long relied on metaphor to illustrate desire, whether it’s the bubbling pot of coffee in Fatal Attraction, the unleashed dog in Babygirl, or the cyclone in the new Emmanuelle. These metaphors highlight the continued difficulty of capturing the raw, multifaceted nature of human sexuality on screen. They signify progress in the narrative treatment of female desire but also underline the challenge of moving beyond abstraction to authentic representation.
The Male Gaze and Its Legacy
Despite 50 years of progress, the shadow of the male gaze looms large. Even films that seek to center female desire often revert to tropes that prioritize aestheticized sexuality over emotional depth. As novelist Garth Greenwell aptly puts it, “sex is a crucible of humanness.” To truly reflect this, films must resist the urge to flatten desire into fantasy and instead embrace its complexity, contradictions, and humanity.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Both Babygirl and the Emmanuelle reboot exemplify a cinematic pivot toward depicting female desire with greater nuance, but the journey is far from complete. While Babygirl offers a fresher perspective, emphasizing interiority and personal awakening, the updated Emmanuelle remains tethered to its voyeuristic origins.
As directors and writers grapple with how to authentically portray female sexuality, the question remains: Can erotic films evolve beyond the restrictive frameworks of pornography and fantasy into spaces that genuinely reflect the richness of human intimacy?
Babygirl is in cinemas now, while Emmanuelle opens in UK cinemas on January 17.
