Director Paul Verhoeven Slams Marvel, Superhero Movies For Lack of Sex: “Sex Is The Essence Of Existence!”

Paul Verhoeven is an auteur of envelope-pushing sex. The man just loves to put sex in his films, from Showgirls to Basic Instinct to his latest, Benedetta, and his only problem with any of that is that Hollywood doesn’t embrace it enough.

In an interview with the UK newspaper The Times of London this past weekend, Verhoeven discussed his use of sex on film and derided Hollywood’s fixation on limiting what kind of sex appears on screen (while never shying away from violence), citing the fact that no one would actually be here without sex.

“Sex is the essence of existence! Without it, there are no species anymore,” Verhoeven said, wondering why seeing it onscreen is so taboo. “So why is that a big secret? There is a new purity.”

Verhoeven called out the James Bond franchise for scaling back on Bond’s sexual prowess in some of the recent Bond films, saying “There was always sex in Bond! They did not show a breast, or whatever. But they had some sex.”

He also called out big superhero-style blockbusters, saying, “It’s about crashing and blowing up. Sometimes these movies are fun, but the narrative tells you nothing about us now. I don’t see any other thought in Marvel or Bond movies.”

Verhoeven’s latest film, Benedetta, which is now on Hulu, received a lot of criticism upon its release for depicting a nun in a lesbian relationship, which is why he says he filmed the movie in Europe, to avoid the censorship of Hollywood. A few years ago, he laments, sex wasn’t as taboo.

“Sexuality has been moved out of movies,” he said. “In the 1970s you could talk about it. But you arrive now, decades later, and those movies are not possible any more. It would be very difficult to make a film like Showgirls or Basic Instinct now.”

Where to watch Benedetta