Issue 2

Lena Dunham's Too Much and the Representation of Intimacy on Screen.

By: Jessica L. Smith

If, like me, you have devoured the new Netflix series Too Much, then, you too, will have become enthralled by the unlikely relationship that the series centres around. Witty, charming, and high-maintenance Jessica (played by Megan Stalter) moves to London from New York to take on a new job following a devastating breakup, where she meets Felix (played by Will Sharpe), an indie musician with his fair share of red flags. As I watched the show, charmed by its take on romantic comedy that harks back to the 2000s rom-coms I religiously watch on repeat, the sense of raw human connection it captures as the pair navigate their, at times messy, relationship was thought-provoking. Partly because creators Lena Dunham and her husband Luis Felber represent this connection on-screen through intimacy.

Whilst the use of intimate sex scenes in the series isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the sole factor in representing Jessica and Felix’s evolving relationship, it is undoubtedly an important one. One episode, perhaps my favourite of the series, centres around one of Jessica’s sleepless nights with Felix, despite her need for an early night with a work meeting the following morning. Jessica is overpowered by their blossoming connection as they dawdle together until the early hours of the morning. Shots of Jessica’s digital clock punctuate time passing by as they watch Paddington, discuss true crime documentaries, eat pho, and, of course, make out and sleep together. It felt as if sex scenes were interspersing the pair’s deep conversations, showcasing both their desires and deepening bond, yet in a rawly human manner. Jessica rushes to the bathroom after sex as she’s “not about that UTI life”. Felix cries over Paddington Bear and opens up about being three years sober. Jessica continues to obsess over her ex and his new influencer girlfriend Wendy Jones (played by Emily Ratajkowski). Jessica and Felix are both real, raunchy, and flawed, transforming an episode that could be an overly sexualised night together into something perfectly human.

Stereotypically, explicit sex scenes hark to an objectified female representation, with women put in uncomfortable positions, often fully nude, and expected to be in order to be hired. From ‘Bond Girls’, to the shots lingering over Megan Fox’s body in Transformers (2007), or to Margot Robbie as the main female character in Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), intimacy and nudity on screen can place women as the object. Laura Mulvey’s term of the ‘male gaze’, coined in her 1975 essay exploring the objectification of women in Western media, is no stranger to us in these pressing on-screen examples. Yet, more recently, there appears to be a wave of reclaiming on-screen representations of intimacy and nudity, like in Lena Dunham’s Too Much, to focus on its role as part of the human experience.

Lena Dunham is already no stranger to this concept. A friend once remarked to me that they had seen Lena Dunham’s breasts in her hit TV series Girls more than their own. Dunham’s world of Girls depicts four women in New York City struggling with their careers, finding love, and seeking self-discovery; a more realistic portrayal of life and female sexuality enhanced by its ‘sex-positive’ scenes of nudity and intimacy. Other TV shows channelling this energy include Normal People, based on the novel by Sally Rooney. Normal People’s incredibly intense and evocative intimate scenes, through up-close and personal camerawork, focus on the good and bad of sexual experience. These scenes reflect the reality of intimacy, from love to exploitation, pleasure to pain. Even Bridgerton, in which one would expect women to be sexualised through its raunchy scenes, has taken a stance to portray love and desire over objectification. Nicola Coughlan, who stars as Penelope Bridgerton in the most recent season of Bridgerton, pushed to be nude in intimate scenes, an empowering move combatting the conversation surrounding her body.

Too Much depicts the reality of relationships: from messy emotional baggage, stemming from family disillusionment to previous failed relationships; complications, like being obsessed with your ex-boyfriend’s gorgeous influencer partner; to self-doubt over the anxiety-inducing minefield that is dating. By aligning with the wave of on-screen representations of nudity and sex scenes that focus on the real, human factor of intimacy, Too Much elevates its sharp exploration of relationships. When, as audiences, we are so accepting of extreme physically violent scenes, it’s about time real-life intimacy is traversed.