The Vile Yet Inevitable Leaking of Sex Scenes Online
After a film was taken off of Sundance Film Festival's online portal due to a leaked sex scene, questions remain.
On Thursday evening, footage from James Sweeney’s upcoming comedy Twinless leaked online. Notably, a sex scene between actor Dylan O’Brien and Sweeney, the latter of whom, in addition to directing and starring, also wrote and produced the film.
The film, which is about a man struggling to process the loss of his identical twin, had days earlier premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it picked up the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic and a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting for O’Brien. This was the starting bell of what surely would be at most a viable award circuit contender and at least a much-buzzed about film. But the early buzz was quickly overcast by controversy. On Saturday, the film had been pulled from the festival’s online screening portal after the clips began disseminating far and wide on social media.
“The film Twinless was a victim of some copyright infringement on various social media platforms, therefore the festival in partnership with the filmmakers have made the decision to remove the film from the Sundance Film Festival online platform,” read an official statement from the festival.
“We acknowledge and regret the disappointment this may cause. However, part of our commitment to advocating for independent filmmakers is ensuring that they can protect the art that they have created — now and in the future.”
It wasn’t the first film to face such a predicament; mere hours before Twinless was wiped from the platform, another award-winning film from the festival, Isabel Castro’s Selena y Los Dinos, was also pulled over similar concerns. For background, Sundance, along with a slew of other festivals, added digital portals to watch films during COVID so as not to dead end the business. The convenience and ease turned it into a staple, despite contention from factions of the industry who favored the movie-going experience. But even before COVID, digital screeners have long been a part of the industry, allowing critics, voting bodies and other notables to screen films that they might otherwise not see. Typically, however, these pieces of media are watermarked so as to safeguard against piracy.
But it’s not just screeners. Piracy has been on the rise in the age of social media where the ethos of “everything is content” often reigns supreme. Back in November, a Twitter user and self-described fan account posted “show ur ‘wicked part 1’ photosss.” The ensuing responses were filled with illegally recorded images, both photos and videos, of the film. Days later, Variety ran the headline: “Wicked Fans Can’t Stop Filming Scenes on Their Phones – a Form of Piracy That Hollywood Doesn’t Seem to Mind.” In that article, an anonymous top film executive pointed to Deadpool & Wolverine as a watershed moment in the growing embrace of piracy. Why? Stars Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds took to social media to enthusiastically interact with the pirated material. It was all very “any press is good press.”
But is it good for business? It’s easy to say no. In January, Bloomberg reported that the economy suffers around $30 billion in losses per year because of pirated content. However, as noted in the Variety story, there are factions of the industry that believe pirated content actually encourages moviegoing in younger audiences, who have grown increasingly accustomed to this as an alternative form of film promotion.
But as was the case when leaks of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer happened earlier this year, there’s a different issue within this when it comes to the dissemination of sex scenes in films. So, too, is why Twinless has made such a stir online. The scenes being widely shared online depict Dylan O’Brien’s naked body simulating sex with his co-star. They’re images that, without context, can easily be perceived as a leaked sex tape. “Posting sex scenes online in any capacity is an insanely disrespectful and dangerous thing already without it being a leak,” director Dillon Garland wrote on Twitter.
“These actors performed in a wildly vulnerable way and they did so with the intent of their work being behind a ticket or home media purchase, not to be uploaded as a gif to Twitter. Really hoping this situation helps people realize this.”
This issue goes beyond piracy, because even when the films are legally available online, these clips are still disseminated to an audience that often lacks context, has not and perhaps will not see the film and is, quite obviously, exploitative in nature. It reduces art to something even more base than commerce: content. It’s not as though it’s a new concern entirely, but with the rise of piracy and the ease of making these images and clips viral, it’s a rapidly growing issue. But how do we fix it? As indicated, some within the industry might characterize this as an inevitability, an industry hazard, and something that ultimately benefits interest in a project, even if the means are skeevy at best and unethical at worst.
There is some precedent here when it comes to handling matters like this. In 2020, Pornhub was forced to remove 22 minutes of pirated sex scenes from BBC and Hulu series Normal People after producers filed a copyright complaint. It worked, and the clip was removed. However, that’s one instance of a successful takedown in a situation that’s essentially like playing round after round of Whac-A-Mole. And it’s not always possible, especially for indie films on shoestring budgets.
So what will change? While Twinless has been taken off of Sundance’s streaming portal, it will eventually find its way online (legally) when the film is released. And like clockwork, images, GIFs and videos of Dylan O’Brien having simulated sex will once again plaster the Internet. In fact, they might get even more visibility with the added controversy of the take-down. So what’s to be done? And is it a Hollywood issue or is this a larger conversation about Internet thirst? Think about the Internet’s reaction to Luigi Mangione as a recent example of the ways in which thirst became the ultimate lexicon through which many viewed Mangione.
I don’t have answers here — and nor, it seems, does the industry. I’d love to know how folks like O’Brien and others like Pedro Pascal, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi and more feel when they see images and videos of their work disseminated online, often without context, paired with tweets so horny in nature that even Lily Phillips might demur. Maybe they find it funny? Maybe it sickens them? Maybe they go to great lengths to avoid it so as not to taint their experience of moving through an industry that offers no safeguards against this? Maybe they realize there simply are no safeguards and this is, sadly, a job hazard?
One thing is for certain: I can’t wait to see Twinless.