Get the latest gossip

‘Twisters’ Reignites Debate Over Steamy Scenes in Movies

Social media has been abuzz over a key aspect of the onscreen relationship between Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, and industry analysts are taking notice: "It speaks to our deep conflict with intimacy."

A follow-up to the 1996 film Twister that starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, the new movie centers on Kate (Edgar-Jones) aiming to put a tragic tornado encounter behind her as she returns to Oklahoma to assist a team in tracking dangerous storms. “My partner immediately lamented the fact that their romance was never physicalized in any way, and that they even avoided the hunky hero ever taking his shirt off,” says John Bucher, executive director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation who has served as story consultant for projects released by Paramount, HBO and A24. But while that absent smooch led to plenty of griping (“The most powerful move Kamala [Harris] could make right now is to come out in strong opposition to cutting the kiss from Twisters,” quipped podcaster Clay Keller), not all onlookers see the shifting sensibility as a negative.

Get the Android app