Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Sex Scene, a series by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer sex scenes in film. This week, Kayla and Drew chat about 1999’s Cruel Intentions.
Kayla: We are here today to talk about the feature film Cruel Intentions, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and also has a television adaptation that dropped THIS WEEK. We also recently rewatched the movie together in Palm Springs.
Drew: Cruel Intentions is an interesting movie in that it doesn’t have a ton of EXPLICIT queerness and yet it probably plays a significant role in more queer awakenings than most very queer movies. I didn’t even see the film in full until I was out and an adult, but “the kiss” is up there with Madonna and Britney for me in like lesbian cultural moments burned into my brain.
Kayla: Yes, 100%. I did see it before I was out, and I remember basically being like “is this legal? is a movie like this LEGAL?”
Drew: Right, because beyond that one scene it’s just so HORNY and in this way that’s pointedly taboo.
Kayla: Then when I rewatched it for the first time after coming out, I was like “surely this isn’t as horny as I remember it” and no it was HORNIER. But horny with a distinctly queer aesthetic if you ask me. Everyone is horny toward everyone. It’s so overtly sexual that it seems to exist outside of Hollywood norms when it comes to sex and the erotic, even in the 90s when it came out and erotic thrillers were having their moment in the sun.
Drew: I do think it’s like Cruel Intentions and Wild Things at the top of the horny pyramid. Not even Adrian Lynne’s stuff can match them IMO. Do you remember how it made you feel the first time?
Kayla: I think even more than the kiss, I was so overwhelmed by the Kathryn/Sebastian of it all. Talk about taboo! I’d never even seen porn at this point so didn’t know how commonplace step sibling porn is. I was definitely watching it with a confusing mix of arousal and shame. Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar are just acting circles around everyone in the film, too, which makes it all that much hornier. They’re so GOOD. I could watch them in a two-person play about NOTHING. But this also had to have been one of the earlier lesbian kisses I’d seen on screen.
Drew: Right, for the record, when you suggested we discuss this you wanted to talk about Kathryn/Sebastian and I was like Kayla this is Anatomy of a QUEER Sex Scene. If straight people are horny enough and doing something wrong enough does it become queer? Much to consider.
Kayla: Okay, but to be fair, you were like “this sex scene between Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in Gigli counts as a queer sex scene but I draw the LINE at STEP SIBLINGS GRINDING in Cruel Intentions.”
Drew: LMAO. J Lo identified as a lesbian and I’d head canoned Ben to be a trans lesbian TO BE FAIR.
Kayla: I think it’s canon to say Kathryn fucks everyone BUT LOSERS but okay okay I see your “points.”
Drew: Let’s start with the kiss and then I promise we can get to the step siblings.
Kayla: Hahaha okay okay, the kiss! I can’t really think of a lesbian kiss in a film that compares to this in terms of how long it is and how much tongue action there is. It’s such an extreme heightened version of girls “practicing” on each other, and that really works! Because Cecile is clearly into it.
Drew: Was that a thing culturally before Cruel Intentions? Like obviously it was HAPPENING, but was that a common trope in like old school lesbian porn/erotica?
Kayla: I’m sure it cropped up in lesbian porn but I don’t think I’d personally seen anything like it until Cruel Intentions! And Kathryn, well, Kathryn is into it in a very Kathryn way of like, she’s doing this to manipulate Cecile. And she’s getting what she wants in that sense. And I think, to her, that IS erotic.
Drew: Yes totally, she’s aroused by the manipulation. The dynamic is so played up too. Kathryn is forceful and Cecile is bratty and reluctant.
Kayla: Yeah, it feels like they’re purposefully playing up some porn tropes.
Drew: Selma Blair is playing it like she’s so young but she’s actually older than SMG? And both of them are in their twenties. So instead of feeling creepy, it just feels like they’re role playing.
Kayla: 100%, so much of the film feels like everyone is sort of role playing and playacting but everyone is committing to it fully and in on it. Some are, sure, better at it than others. But there’s a sense that Cruel Intentions takes place in its own universe almost. And I mean that differently from satire; I don’t think it’s satire.
Drew: No I agree it’s stylized, but not satire. ALSO they’re in public !! I feel like that never gets discussed. I love how Cecile is also still eyes closed lips pursed when she says “That was cool.” She was ready to GO. Which, to be fair, who wouldn’t be for Kathryn?
Kayla: It’s so funny! And upsetting haha! I do feel like the first time I saw the film I was sort of confused as to whether I was aroused or upset. Because at the time, if something like that had happened to me, if I’d kissed someone like KATHRYN and it just sort of ended and it was clear I was the only one who wanted more, I would have perished right then and there. Cruel Intentions is fascinating to think about in terms of shame — queer shame (I mean, you also have the closeted gay guy who is also TIM FROM THE L WORD), but shame in general, too. In many ways it’s such a shameless movie. It is so unabashed in all its taboos. It’s almost stoking the flames of shame or daring you to be ashamed. It’s so playful but also, as I was talking about with Stef Rubino actually, it’s a MEAN movie and you don’t really see a lot of mean movies being made anymore.
Drew: It’s mean and yet also, in the end, moralistic. Which is why when I first saw it I hated the ending! It ruined it for me! But this time it all felt so big and silly to me that I didn’t take the conclusion too seriously. Wait before we get to the movie more broadly and the step incest we at least need to MENTION the string of spit.
Kayla: It walked so Disobedience spit scene could run.
Drew: Maybe because of the Not Another Teen Movie Parody or idk puritan American culture at large, I’d always heard it talked about as like a GROSS aspect to the moment.
Kayla: Interesting!
Drew: I hope all of my peers from youth have since learned it makes it so much hotter.
Kayla: Makeout scenes in movies should be way spittier and fine I don’t even mean in the Disobedience sense where there’s active spitplay happening but like making out involves spit! Unless you just have the DRIEST MOUTH EVER and are similarly making out with someone with a very dry mouth.
Drew: Haha yes, there’s not enough spit in film and television.
I wonder if it was planned or if it just happened.
Omg.
We need an ORAL history.
I should pitch a book called Oral History that’s a collection of oral histories about famous on-screen makeouts.
Kayla: Preordering this book before it’s even written.
Drew: Okay now we can talk about the step siblings.
The initial seduction/deal-making scene is
Overwhelming.
Kayla: It should be studied when actors are trying to understand what chemistry is.
Drew: Sarah Michelle Gellar specifically is so good at that.
Kayla: She is SO GOOD! And then let me just be on the record in saying Kathryn grinding on Sebastian on the fainting couch is one of the hottest scenes committed to film in my personal opinion.
Drew: Correct.
Kayla: Like, all of the blocking in that scene is ABSURD.
Drew: I’ll write about this more in my review of the show but classes could be taught on the movie scene and tv show scene side by side in how to create or not create eroticism on screen.
Kayla: You should teach that class.
Drew: I do find it interesting how common step sibling porn is, especially in straight porn. I guess any taboo is going to be common in porn.
Kayla: Yeah I think it’s just easy shorthand for FORBIDDEN but not like TOO FORBIDDEN.
Drew: Right, infidelity stuff is also popular. “I shouldn’t but I want to” will always be compelling. And that’s sort of what Cruel Intentions is built upon. Whether that’s fucking your step sibling or fucking the guy with a bad reputation or lezzing out in the park.
Your writing is not only informative but also incredibly inspiring. You have a knack for sparking curiosity and encouraging critical thinking. Thank you for being such a positive influence!