If movies carry consent warnings, will James Bond be cancelled?

Potentially there could be something helpful for people to see that there can be graphic sex scenes that are consensual. As Katrina Marson’s book Legitimate Sexpectations tells us, it is a myth that the more we talk about sex the more sex teenagers have.

And as the Heartbreak High reboot has shown everyone, teens know more than we think they do.

The information provided by pornography, though, is filling a silence created by a fear-based approach to sex. We need to show the good bits too, and it can’t be good if it’s not consensual.

When I talk to people about consent, they will sometimes raise the issue of “continuous consent” and say they think that would be a turn off. Because checking in with the person you are having sex with would be a mood killer, they say.

This is partly because it has not really been role modelled on TV and in film. It is starting to be, by films and shows that deal with consent in a healthy way, or raises the issues of where consent is not.

For how continuous consent can hold intimacy, look no further than Normal People, and for a film that highlights the issues of consent and the absence of it, Promising Young Woman is amazing.

Having a classification would mean that there is that label slapped on a film with non-consensual scenes. Even though we now often ignore those classifications – “mild scenes of panic” in a Disney film still make me laugh – for a while, we wouldn’t.

For parents, the “M” rating for kids under the age of 15 is up to their recommendation, and it is the classifications that make the decision for them – violence in a Marvel film is fine, but sex scenes may not be OK. While it is easy to classify “mild scenes of panic” in a children’s film, the classification of a “lack of consent” is trickier.

Thankfully, more states are now enacting affirmative consent laws. In relation to films, classification could simply be based on the absence of consent being freely given (10 Things I Hate About You featuring the end to Joey’s modelling career), due to coercion (Devil Wears Prada), and not while someone is intoxicated or incapacitated (see Promising Young Woman).

Shockingly, some people will say this is wokeness gone too far, or the fun police kicking in (one of the scenes that Consent Labs have highlighted as non-consensual is Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty because you can’t consent when you’re asleep).

But context and nuance is important here. Films by their nature normalise behaviour, and if the behaviour is not consensual, or healthy, we need to be warned. It must be classified.

For parents deciding whether their kids should watch a movie based on the classifications, knowing if it depicts consent can be helpful for conversations. And for filmmakers, being clear in the role consent plays in their work, a classification makes them think about it, as the creators of James Bond have reflected on too.

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