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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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I think there were also post-sex scenes in both Iron Man and the first Guardians movie

The post-sex scene in Iron Man was preceded by a more graphic (though still PG-13) pre-sex scene, even. I don't think they were even aiming the MCU at kids until they realized what a cash cow it was going to be; otherwise they'd have toned down the bloody opening scene a bit, or at least given it more of the cartoonish flavor that later MCU battles are full of.

The sex stuff in Guardians was much more clever; kids old enough to understand why he forgot that lady was on board his ship are old enough to watch it, and if there are any kids old enough to understand the "under a black light this place looks like a Jackson Pollack painting" joke then they're old enough to shudder at it.

Of course, with Eternals they were more clever still: if nobody can muster up interest in the movie for long enough to get to the adult elements, then they don't have to worry about exposing kids to adult elements. I'm not even kidding here; I tried to watch that movie and I tuned out before making it that far. I had to hit up YouTube just now to see the (not even prelude-to! thrusting! the only non-R-rated thing here is the camera angle!) sex scene.